The Emperors New Clothes. Is it me or is it the vocabulary of velvet fog?

In The Emperor’s New Clothes, Hans Christian Andersen tells a simple story with a sharp edge: two swindlers sell an emperor invisible clothes, claiming only the wise can see them. No one wants to appear stupid, so everyone pretends the clothes are magnificent—until a child blurts out the obvious.

If Andersen were alive today, he might set the tale in a contemporary art gallery.

Velvet Fog

The Vocabulary of Velvet Fog

Abstract art can be powerful, moving, and deeply meaningful. But around it has grown a thicket of words so inflated they could float the emperor’s train all by themselves.

Lets for example consider the title of this blog.

The Emperors New Clothes. Is it me or is it the vocabulary of velvet fog?

What is Velvet Fog? Well let me try and explain. Consider a typical wall label:

“This piece interrogates liminality through a destabilized praxis of post-material subjectivity.”

Translation: It’s blue paint on a large canvas.

Blue Paint on a Large Canvas

The problem isn’t complexity. Art can be complex. The problem is camouflage—language used not to clarify, but to intimidate and mainly by those wishing to set themselves above us mere mortals.

Words like:

• Liminality

• Problematize

• Interrogate (when no questions are being asked)

• Subvert

• Disrupt

• Transgressive

• Dialogic spatiality

• Embodied epistemology

These are not stupid words in themselves. They have meanings in philosophy, sociology, or critical theory. But in the art world, they’re often deployed the way the emperor’s tailors waved their hands over empty air: to suggest depth where there may be none.

Now I’m from Yorkshire and like our other friends in "The North" we tell things the way we see them. You could say we can be as subtle as a flying hammer.

The Fear of Being the Child

Imagine standing in a pristine white gallery. A vast canvas is covered in three jagged black lines and a smear of neon orange.

The accompanying text claims:

“A radical destabilization of hegemonic visual hierarchies.”

You nod thoughtfully.

Because what if you say, “It looks like someone knocked over a paint tray,” and everyone turns to you with pity?

The genius of Andersen’s tale is not that the emperor is foolish—it’s that everyone else collaborates. Courtiers, citizens, officials. No one wants to admit they don’t see what they’re told they should see.

In certain corners of the abstract art world, language becomes a loyalty test. If you don’t understand the statement, perhaps you lack the necessary intellectual refinement. So viewers learn to repeat the phrases. They internalize the dialect.

“It’s a meditation on absence.”

“It interrogates the politics of space.”

“It resists narrative closure.”

And the parade continues.

When Language Becomes Costume

There is nothing wrong with theory. Nothing wrong with abstraction. Many abstract artists—from pioneers like Wassily Kandinsky to later figures such as Mark Rothko—wrote and spoke passionately about spiritual depth, emotion, and form. Their ideas were often direct and urgent, even when philosophical. Now let me be clear this is not me being disrespectful in any way to abstract artists, artists as a whole or the galleries that display art in all its forms. If there is one thing I have learnt it's that art is very very personal and subjective. I just struggle with the vocabulary used. My question is... Does it add to the value or is it just a part of the costume created?

The trouble begins when language stops describing experience and starts disguising emptiness.

Instead of saying:

• “This painting explores grief through color and scale,”

we get:

• “A chromatic excavation of post-traumatic interiority.”

Instead of:

• “The artist was experimenting,”

we get:

• “A methodological rupture in material continuity.”

The second versions sound impressive. They also say almost nothing.

The Marketplace of Meaning

Part of this phenomenon is economic. In high-end galleries the language used helps assign value. A canvas priced in six figures cannot simply be “interesting.” It must be “critical,” “urgent,” “visionary.”

The more abstract the art, the more abstract the explanation. If the work doesn’t depict something recognizable, its meaning must be constructed verbally. And the more exclusive the vocabulary, the more exclusive the club and some cases the higher the price.

In this way, jargon becomes couture. It signals belonging.

The Difference Between Depth and Decoration

None of this means abstract art is a sham. Much of it is profound. A vast field of color can evoke awe. A chaotic spray of lines can capture anxiety better than a realistic portrait ever could.

But depth does not require obfuscation.

If a painting truly moves you, you can often say why in plain language:

• “It feels lonely.”

• “It makes me uneasy.”

• “The colors vibrate against each other.”

• “It reminds me of standing in a storm.”

Clarity is not the enemy of intelligence. Sometimes it is its proof.

The Courage to Say “I Don’t See It”

In Andersen’s story, the bravest character is not the emperor or the swindlers. It is the child who says what everyone else already suspects.

In art, that courage might sound like:

• “I don’t understand this.”

• “This doesn’t move me.”

• “Can you explain what you mean without the jargon?”

If the work has substance, it will survive plain speech. If it doesn’t, no amount of “liminal praxis” will save it.

The Eyecon Gallery is a place where the art must stand on its own. No words no intimidation just the art at a price relative to the value it purveys, the emotions it creates and the price set by the artist is enough.

Ps. For those old enough to remember there was another Velvet Fog and that was Mel Tormé he was was an American musician, singer, composer, arranger, drummer, actor, and author. Although ever known as an artist his voice was his art who sadly died in 1999.