ABSTRACT
The medium is the message', says a well-known slogan of Marshall Mc-Luhan, applied especially to television, people response to which is inseparable from its existence as part of the furniture of the ordinary domestic living room. In virtue of the knowledge or beliefs the artist can expect us to hold, he or she can use the stone itself as an expressive medium or a medium of expression. A composer writes notes for a singer, knowing that they are at or near the limits of the human voice. Mozart does this in writing 'Der Holle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen' for the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute. To characterize painting as making use of a spatial medium, and music and poetry as a temporal art, creates a framework for the discussion of such issues as whether painting can or should represent action, and this in turn provides the space for such concepts as the pregnant moment.
