Saying Much With Little

Friends, thank you to everyone who came out to the Holiday Open Studio last Friday! The night was such a fun way to catch up, share some art and toast the future!

This week I am back to work on holiday commissions. I've told you before how I love the challenge of finishing art under the pressure of a deadline. There is nothing like slapping on the last few brushstrokes, and crossing my fingers that a painting is dry enough to ship in the morning. I relish that adrenaline, but every holiday season I run up against the same problem.

A painting sings when it strikes that perfect balance between giving 'too much' and 'not enough' information. There is a temptation when working on depictions of real people or places for someone else though, to include more detail than necessary. The subconscious thought process goes something like this: "Mrs. X wants me to paint a portrait of her son, therefore I must be accountable for every last one of his eyelashes and freckles."

John Singer Sargent: master of the subtle portrait

Of course this logic is completely ridiculous! A person or place is more than the sum total of its parts. The job of the artist is to shift through mountains of visual information and re-present/highlight only the most  important or interesting details.

Richard Diebenkorn had a genius for conveying the simple. The importance of that cardamon orange plane against the cobalt sky would be completely lost if he had made this a painting about details.

Reading this article from the Greater Good blog, I was struck by words to that effect: 

 (A)n author/artist used his or her skills to convey much with little—to articulate a complicated human condition in a few words, to relay reams of information in a few pictures, to turn a single memorable mental image into a take-it-with-you tool for understanding the soul and navigating change. And that, I suspect, may be the key takeaway for generating and sharing insights: it’s about finding a simple way to help a reader, an audience, a fellow human being make sense of complex things.

I've been awful about posting, but next week I promise to share a few "complex things" that I've broken down a bit!

The Mystery of the Missing

 (Image: Brittany Watson)

Ever notice how the best art is always missing something?  I mean that literally, as in even the most descriptive work of a certain quality stops short of articulating EVERY. LAST. DETAIL.  The Mystery of the Missing applies to everything from very abstract to more representational art.  Take John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo for example.

At least a third of this huge canvas is covered in deep shadow (including most of the main subject), and yet it resonates with a sense of music and movement that may have seemed contrived had each element been exactly rendered.  This purposeful obscuring is only one example of an artist calling an idea to mind versus ramming it down the viewer's throat, but the juiciest bits of poetry, the most poignant novels and the most haunting music all evoke narratives and emotions rather than spell them out.

I have a theory about why these gaps in art are so compelling.  They leave room for us to make an artwork our own.  They invite us to saddle up beside a masterpiece and complete the puzzle for ourselves.  Come to think of it, this desire to participate in the art could explain a lot about the popularity of the flash mob.

In my own business I've noticed that my most satisfied clients are those who feel that they have had some say in the painting that they commission from me.  They want to discuss color choices, personalities (in the case of portraits), etc.  It isn't enough to just own a work of art, they want to link themselves to it through their involvement in its creation. ( Side note: I am NOT saying that the most successful art is the result of outside input!  As we know, this can have the effect of diluting products even outside of the fine art realm.)  What I am saying is that good art entices us to participate in the artist's creation by leaving a little something up to the imagination.

So I ask you, Friends: Do you have favorite work of art that practices the Mystery of the Missing?  (Visual, musical, performance -- It's all fair game!)  Tell me a little about why you love it?  Throw your hands up and be the first one on the dance floor!  I promise not to judge :)