What Should You Title That Painting?

The name you give to a piece of art really matters

American illustrator and teacher Harvey Dunn (1884-1952) said, “Always think of a title for your pictures. It will help you to keep up your interest. Give it a name that will stir you, a title that demands a good picture.”

This one is called “Prairie Drama.”

René Magritte (1898-1967) preferred puzzling, literary-sounding titles for his paintings. Instead of calling this one "Man with an Apple in Front of His Face," he called it “Son of Man” (Le fils de l'homme). 

Magritte usually didn't choose the names himself. He let his Surrealist friends come up with them. He explained, “The titles are chosen in such a way as to prevent my pictures from being situated in the reassuring region to which people’s minds would automatically assign them in order to underestimate their significance.”

Poetic Titles

Some paintings have titles that are long and poetic. 

Australian Jane Sutherland called this composition: “Numb Fingers Working While the Eye of the Morn is Yet Bedimmed by Tears.”

Her compatriot Arthur Streeton, called this painting “The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might,” a quote from Shelley. He called another painting, "Still glides the stream and shall forever glide," which is from Wordsworth. Streeton often carried volumes of poetry into the field with him for inspiration.

When Turner exhibited this painting in 1840 at the Royal Academy, he called it "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon Coming On." In the Royal Academy catalog, he paired the painting with an extract of a poem that he wrote called “The Fallacies of Hope.” 

Do you think these long poetic titles add resonance and meaning to a work, or can they be a crutch for a piece that fails to communicate on its own? Does the title bring something valuable to the experience, or is it a distraction?

The title of this painting of an injured fisherman by Joaquín Sorolla carries a pointed socially conscious title. Do you know it?