I consider a common objection to assimilating arts and languages and show that it depends on the view that meaning in language is exhausted by reference (frege's "bedeutung"). if meaning in art is viewed as involving sense (frege's "sinn") as well as reference, the common objection fails. the notion of sense also seems valuable in formulating problems about meaning in art, despite its obscurity. i also suggest that problems about meaning in art, treated in this way, may prove to illuminate (...) problems about meaning in language. (shrink)