Painters have it easy. Their tools are of limitless potential. Light, shape, color all already extend beyond the canvas. All the painter must do is pull them into a finite border. It is much the same for the photographer. He, too, uses the boundless forms of lighting and color to bring to the viewer something much larger than the two-dimensional picture before them. They, have it easy.
The writer does not have it easy. Their tools are finite, binded by definition and meaning. The color blue can mean a number of things; the word telephone has far less import behind it. Surely, there are words like love, sacrifice, and truth that are shrouded in nuance. Perhaps that is why writers choose to write on those topics. A short story on the telephone may not win the Booker Prize.
Still, the task of the writer is much more difficult. The painter sets the picture before you and leaves you to interpret it. You do not watch him paint it or have any idea how the picture came to be. The writer must paint the picture for the reader in words and then demand that the reader transcend those words that formed that picture. A writer's challenge is to make words echo in the canyons -- canyons the writer himself has made.
But the good ones do just that. They paint pictures in finite words that reverberate in something much larger. Those words echo of the giantesque. And you find that the picture that has been painted on the pages has surrounded you and you are in over your head.
That a murderer on the loose in Florida kills a family out for a Sunday drive is just that (A Good Man is Hard to Find). But it's so simply just that that it can't be just that. So you read it again and sure enough there's something behind each word. There, in the sentence, in the words of a good writer, you find that the infinite has been divinely compressed into the finite and that each sentence bleeds of something larger. The good writers do this.
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3 comments:
Don't make me come to Columbus and smack you in the back of the head. Photography is not easy. Give a camera to any shlub on the street and have them take a picture of two people. 24 out of 25 times the picture will suck. It's not just about pressing a button. It's about angles and the amount of light to let in and also it's about the moment. Waiting for those moments are the killer. I understand writing is difficult, but come on! Don't belittle my craft.
As a former photographer the last thing I'm trying to do is belittle that craft -- and your point about MOS's taking pictures is so true. All I'm saying is that for the good photographer/painter their tools are filled with much more possibilities than a writer who is limited -- only able to use words. You have light to use -- a boundless tool--- and have to actually limit it. A good photographer knows where to draw the lines to make a good photo. My point is that you have lines that need to be drawn. Those tools available to you have to be limited by you to make your art great. For the writer, it's not the case. The tools have already been limited and he must make the most out of them he can.
I debated eliminating the photographer/painter delineation and encompassing my idea to include all artists. But I just felt like writing is much more difficult because of the writers inherent limitations. Mind you I'm not talking AT ALL about news writing (your job as a photog, on many levels, is much more difficult than mine for sure). That's a whole different and lesser animal. I'm talking about good writing -- the writing people listen to in their heads, the writing that must be read.
But it is most certainly the case for any artist that he must make his work echo of the giantesque. That however limited or unlimited his resources, [resources] must, at some point, be compressed only to have the viewer/reader uncompress them.
I think that it is easier, for me at least, it is much easier to write than paint. Have you seen some of my paintings or other artistic attempts? If you haven't, they suck! Abby probably can paint better than I can. I love using words though! I think it is amazing how I can express whatever I am feeling by slinging words together and just painting a picture with your words. I guess it might be something for those of us who just talk a lot or for those who are illiterate when it comes to picking up a paint brush. I would rather use my words to make you see what I'm talking or thinking about, than trying to paint it or draw it out for you.
Oh and the art teachers lie to everyone. You CAN make mistakes in art. My art teacher once walked by while I was working on a self portrait in chalk. I could plainly see that it was myself yet, she walks by and ask, "what's that?" This was 2 years ago. One thing I don't really understand is how she couldn't know what I was drawing when she was the one who gave the assingment to draw ourselves in chalk.
So as you can see I am not good at all when it comes to hands on art, but when it comes to writing, I love it! In honors english I write a 5 page essay almost every week!
Right now I am writing an essay about the imortance of a father figure. I have to show how this topic ties in with the novel, Silas Marner and how we need to initiate it into today's society. I also ave a soliloquy do on a man stuck in a well, talking about his regrets and what he might have done with his life. So I am going to go work on my novel.
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