Memory as a Function of Art

Book Notes: Art as Therapy

Memory as a function of art.

I'm trying out this new thing where I respond in writing to interesting passages I find while working my way through my reading list. I've just started reading the book Art as Therapy, and just a few pages in I've found an excerpt that I wanted to share. In one of the first chapters the author begins to write about memory as being one of the functions of art, and he presents a foundational story to illustrate this purpose.

"As told by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, a young couple who were much in love had to part, and, in response, the woman decided to trace the outline of her lover's shadow. Out of a fear of loss, she made a line drawing on the side of a tomb using the tip of a charred stick. Regnault's rendering of the scene is particularly poignant. The soft sky of evening hints at the close of the couple's last day together. His rustic pipe, a traditional emblem of the shepherd, is held absentmindedly in his hand, while on the left a dog looks up at the woman, reminding us of fidelity and devotion. She makes an image in order that, when he has gone, she will be able to keep him more clearly and powerfully in her mind; the precise shape of his nose, the way his locks curl, the curve of his neck and rise of his shoulder will be present to her, while, many miles away, he minds his animals in a verdant valley."

* I find this painting beautiful. Love and loss in love is one of my favorite themes in the humanities. Letting go is a painful experience, and many of us can relate to that desperate longing to hold onto a piece of what we love and are losing. Using this theme to illustrate one of the primary functions of art - the desire to capture the likeness of something, someone, or somewhere that we find beautiful - is genius as far as I'm concerned. The idea, or the story which encapsulates this idea, has been painted numerous times, and though we can't credit Regnauld with the conception of this story I can surely appreciate his execution.

"It doesn't matter whether this picture is an accurate rendition of the origins of pictorial art. The insight it offers concerns psychology rather than ancient history. Regnault is addressing the big question - why does art matter to us? - rather than the minor puzzle of what was the first pictorial effort. The answer he gives is crucial. Art helps us accomplish a task that is of central importance in our lives: to hold onto things we love when they are gone. Consider the impulse to take photographs of our families: The urge to pick up a camera stems from an anxious awareness fo our cognitive weaknesses about the passage of time: that we will forget the Taj Mahal, the walk in the country, and, most importantly, the precise look of a child as they sat building a Lego house on the living room carpet, aged seven-and-three-quarters."

"What we're worried about forgetting, however, tends to be quite particular. It isn't just anything about a person or scene that's at stake; we want to remember what really matters, and the people we call good artists are, in part, the ones who appear to have made the right choices about what to commemorate and what to leave out. In Regnault's image of painting, it is not simply the overall form of the departing lover that the woman wishes to keep in mind. She wants something more complex and elusive: his personality and essence. In order to achieve this, an art object needs to attain a certain level of sophistication. There are many things that could be recorded about a scene, a person or place, but some are more important than others. We describe a work of art, which might include a family photograph, as successful when it manages to foreground the elements that are valuable but hard to hold on to. We might say that the good artwork pins down the core of significance, while its bad counterpart, althought undeniably reminding us of something, lets an essence slip away. It is an empty souvenir."

*These passages had me thinking about the importance in prioritizing focus in my own work. As a photographer, I remember reading in my earlier years that photography is the art of subtraction. We eliminate any details that do not add to the strength and essence of the photograph. The photographic philosophy of composition as subtraction might not translate well into my particular creative process, seeing as I always start with a blank black room and build up from there, but the underlying notion that handling your details with intent is important all the same. What is the essential theme in my work, and which details in my image support that theme? How can I strengthen my composition to draw focus to the essential details, and how can I draw attention away from the inessential? What elements of my work do I want to be remembered by the viewer?

To show the importance of intentional details for the sake of presenting what is worth remembering - the essence of a scene - the author chose to print this painting by Vermeer. This is my chance to share a wonderful website with you: EssentialVermeer.com, a complete interactive catalogue of Vermeer's work. There is a great deal to learn about composition from Vermeer, and I think he is an important artist who photographers like myself ought to study. Vermeer does a great job of implying action and motive in his subject, all of which work together in context to provide answers to the theme of the piece. In other words, Vermeer has a lush visual vocabulary which he uses compose legible and fluidly read scenes. His knowledge and employment of the nuances of body language is a great example of that.

"Johannes Vermeer deserves his status as a great artist precisely in this regard because he knows how to commemorate the appropriate details. The woman depicted in Woman in Blue Reading a Letter would often have looked rather different, such as when she was bored, cross, busy, embarrassed or laughing. There could have been lots of ways to paint 'her', but Vermeer has selected a particular situation and moment, when she is taken up, unselfconsciously, in thinking about a distant person or issue. By creating an atmosphere of intense stillness he conveys her capacity for absorption. The way her hands are holding the latter seems idiosyncratic: she lightly clenches her fists when another person might support the letter on their open fingers. Perhaps this is a continuation of a clumsiness of early childhood. We can see her quiet intensity in the slight pull of her mouth as she reads. Vermeer encourages us to look carefully at this part of her face by setting it against a map that is a very similar colour to her skin, almost as if her mind is off somewhere inside the map itself. The clear light is, perhaps, a bit like her mind, which may operate with a clear, steady emotional brightness. Vermeer captures the core of his sitter's personality. It is not just a record of a person, it is an image of what she was like in a particularly characteristic mood."

The gist of the message: We're bad at remembering things. Our minds are troublingly liable to lose important information, of both a factual and a sensory kind. Art edits down complexity and helps us to focus, albeit briefly, on the most meaningful aspects. What are your thoughts?

Hope your weekend has been a good one, Steemians.

Best,
John