Great artists attempt to communicate image directly through suggestion, through metaphor, through linguistic feats intended to evoke some similar image to the reader. But ultimately they realize the inadequacy of their tools for the task. Listen to Flaubert's lament, in Madame Bovary:

Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Quoted from the book Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin Yalom.