The fourth discussion began with a coloured rectangle.
Mr Blottisham had pinned it to a noticeboard in the Senior Common Room.
It was bright red.
He stood before it with the expression of a man expecting applause.
Professor Quillibrace looked at it.
Miss Elowen Stray looked at it.
The rectangle remained red.
"Well?" said Blottisham.
"What about it?" asked Quillibrace.
"It means danger."
"Does it?"
"Obviously."
"Why?"
"Because it is red."
Quillibrace sighed.
Miss Stray smiled faintly.
"We appear to have arrived at today's problem rather quickly."
Blottisham folded his arms.
"I fail to see the difficulty."
"That is because you have compressed three questions into one answer."
"Have I?"
"Almost certainly."
"Which questions?"
Quillibrace pointed at the rectangle.
"First: what is it?"
"A red rectangle."
"Good."
"Second?"
"What does it mean?"
"Perhaps."
"And third?"
Quillibrace paused.
"How are those two things related?"
Blottisham looked at the rectangle.
"It means danger because it is red."
"There you go again."
"What?"
"You have merged the answers."
Miss Stray nodded.
"The colour and the meaning have become the same thing."
"Because they are the same thing."
"No," said Quillibrace.
"They are not."
A silence followed.
Blottisham looked from one to the other.
"Very well."
He pointed at the rectangle.
"What is red, if not meaning?"
"The rectangle."
"Exactly."
"No."
Quillibrace removed his spectacles.
Whenever this happened, everyone became slightly nervous.
"The difficulty," he said carefully, "is that analysis often begins by distinguishing expression from meaning."
Blottisham nodded.
"Reasonable."
"Entirely."
"And red belongs to expression."
"Indeed."
"And danger belongs to meaning."
"Quite."
"So far so good."
"Yes."
Blottisham smiled.
"Then red means danger."
Quillibrace closed his eyes.
Miss Stray intervened.
"I think the issue concerns what lies between those statements."
"Exactly."
"The distinction is not merely between colour and meaning."
"No."
"It concerns the relation between them."
"Precisely."
The rain drifted softly against the windows.
Quillibrace rose and walked toward the noticeboard.
"In a stratified model, meaning and expression occupy different strata."
"Yes."
"They are not identical."
"Correct."
"They are related through realisation."
"Exactly."
Blottisham frowned.
"Which relation?"
Quillibrace looked mildly surprised.
"You have been paying attention."
Miss Stray laughed.
"A dangerous habit."
Quillibrace continued.
"The point is not that colour lacks meaning."
"Good."
"The point is that colour is not itself the meaning."
Blottisham looked doubtful.
"This sounds suspiciously metaphysical."
"It is architectural."
"Worse."
Quillibrace ignored him.
"Suppose one begins by distinguishing visual meaning from visual form."
"Very sensible."
"Quite."
"But then one analyses colour as meaning."
"Naturally."
"And framing as meaning."
"Of course."
"And spatial arrangement as meaning."
"Certainly."
"And composition as meaning."
"Obviously."
Quillibrace nodded.
"You have now abolished your distinction."
The room became quiet.
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"One begins with separate strata."
"Yes."
"But gradually interprets expressive resources as though they already were semantic content."
"Precisely."
"And eventually the distinction ceases to do any work."
"Exactly."
Blottisham frowned.
"But the interpretation remains useful."
"No one disputes that."
"It helps us understand images."
"Indeed."
"So what has been lost?"
Quillibrace smiled.
"The explanation."
This seemed unreasonable.
"Surely interpretation is explanation."
"No."
"It explains what the image means."
"It explains what you think the image means."
Miss Stray nodded.
"Those are not quite the same thing."
Blottisham sat down heavily.
"I dislike conversations in which every sentence turns out to contain two conversations."
Quillibrace looked pleased.
"That is because you are beginning to notice architecture."
Miss Stray opened her notebook.
"In a stratified account, the question is not merely what a feature signifies."
"No."
"But how expression realises meaning."
"Exactly."
"So explanation proceeds through the relation."
"Yes."
"Not by collapsing the relation."
"Precisely."
For several moments they sat in silence.
Then Blottisham looked at the rectangle again.
"I think I see the temptation."
"What temptation?" asked Miss Stray.
"The visible thing is right there."
"Indeed."
"The meaning is less visible."
"Generally."
"So one keeps attributing meaning directly to the feature."
Quillibrace nodded.
"A very common habit."
"And eventually every feature becomes a meaning."
"Exactly."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"At which point the distinction between meaning and expression begins to flatten."
"Yes."
"The architecture remains in the terminology."
"Quite."
"But not in the analysis."
"Precisely."
Blottisham stared at the rectangle.
"So when someone says that colour, framing, composition and spatial organisation all carry meaning..."
"They may be correct."
"But?"
"They may also be quietly eroding the distinctions that would explain how meaning is organised."
The rain tapped softly against the windows.
Miss Stray closed her notebook.
"And because the erosion occurs gradually, it rarely appears as a theoretical argument."
"No."
"It appears as a habit of analysis."
"Exactly."
The fire crackled gently.
At length Blottisham spoke.
"I think I finally understand."
The others waited.
"The danger is not that interpretation occurs."
"No."
"The danger is that interpretation silently replaces architecture."
Quillibrace smiled.
"A remarkably competent observation."
Blottisham looked pleased.
"Thank you."
"You should write it down immediately."
"Why?"
"Before you interpret it into something else."
And for several seconds, even Miss Stray found herself unable to disagree.
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