The content depicted in a work of art may differ from its true subject—i.e. the point that the artist is trying to make, or the ideas they are communicating.

In Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Joan Didion makes this point using the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe as an example: while he photographed a variety of “subjects”—BDSM practitioners, famous women, flowers—his overarching subject was the same every time. (In Didion’s view, Mapplethorpe’s true subject is the arrangement of photographic content in a symmetrical, near-ritual composition.)

The true subject of an artist’s work may not be clear until they have built up enough of a body of work that recurring themes across different types of content begin to emerge. But new artists can get a glimpse at what their true subject(s) might turn out to be by making a list of their creative obsessions, as advised by Jerry Saltz:

Make an index, family tree, chart, or diagram of your interests. All of them, everything: visual, physical, spiritual, sexual. Leisure time, hobbies, foods, buildings, airports, everything. Every book, movie, website, etc. The totality of this self-exposure may be daunting, scary. But your voice is here. This will become a resource and record to return to and add to for the rest of your life.