Classic genres of the fine arts are characterized by not requiring any sounds or voice. However
this nonverbal quality allows works of art to become a challenge for art history which is
bound to language and writing. The expression silent poetry used for painting or architecture
is an eloquent indicator for the communicative effect of forms of expression which are
measured by language but whose silent gestures nevertheless have to be judged using their own
categories. The topos of the underlying non-describability of art refers to aspects like aura
and atmosphere opening the wide field of pictorial rhetoric and leading up to the museum
practices used to hang paintings.
