Sunday, May 6, 2007

Paint by neurons

I think that I am most awed by a piece of art when I realize that it was created from memory rather than by an artist looking at a subject. Some of Monet's sunset paintings, for example, depict a scene that occurred for a brief moment in the end of the day. Just minutes earlier or later, the light was different, and the composition would have been changed completely. Basically, Monet had just a fleeting chance to take in the competition, which he then reproduced from memory in perfect detail. Picasso is perhaps an even more impressive example. He would commit a composition to memory from a number of angles, then create a painting that was a composite of all these perspectives.

Recently I made the discovery that this phenomenon exists in literature, as well. A major aspect of literature is the accurate exposition of emotion and human thought. While there are some method writers out their who actively work themselves into the mood they are trying to replicate, most authors are writing from memory. You probably can recall a favorite passage in which a character undergoes a moment of emotion that really rang true (for me it's James Joyce's Araby). It was created by an author so in tune with the intricacies of emotion that s/he was able to access it even weeks or years removed from actually feeling it.

I believe that this ability to extrapolate, to know one's subject so innately that it can be reproduced from memory, is what makes a person a master of their craft.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

...for me...most memorably, it was a paragraph in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier... Evidently you don't believe in going light on weekends. Great subject today!