Painting with words, writing with images

In primary school I was taught that describing is "painting with words", particularly in the sense that it is particularly related to the eyesight and the visual aspects of the object of the description, and much less with the feelings of the people in the scene or the history before and after the moment. For many years I practiced the description for school assignments but they were frequently nothing but a collection of common tropes because, as it is usually the case, I was much faster to identify (and to describe) characteristics and visual impressions of which I had a daily experience, which were, to put it mildly, not very exciting.

Later on I learnt that describing usual aspects or telling about mundane actions was, precisely, the contrary of putting a good narration, because we are good at filling the gaps with familiar things, so filling all the gaps as the writer makes the story just too "complete". Instead, we were invited to point out the particular qualities of each individual, those that distinguished them from any other character and gave them a certain uniqueness that made them interesting. With this intent I wrote paragraphs like the following:

He was an otherwise absolutely unremarkable library clerk and I would have returned my books and gone home without devoting to him as much as a second of my attention, but his piercing blue eyes had such an intensity that I feared he could not only look into my mind and my soul, but also read my past and foresee my future.

The idea of the paragraph (which is not particularly brilliant, just an example) is that anyone can imagine a library clerk. It does not matter if he wore a white or a blue shirt, if he had a beard or was clean shaven, if he was tall or short, fat or thin, because no matter how you think about him your idea will be adequate. The only part that is needed for the rest of the story are the eyes, which have a very particular quality, to the point that is the only aspect of him that gets described. It is, in some way, like those expressionist paintings with a single, very sharp figure in the middle of a blurred background. And, like in those paintings, the idea is to focus on a very narrow subject.

Photo: Ben Grey

Around the same time a got to know a school mate that was three years my senior and an introvert as  myself. He was very interested in judo (had a blue belt at age 16 or so) and he had event taught himself some Japanese. The latter might seem like a minor feat, but keep in mind that we are talking about 1988 or so, when internet already existed but was neither widespread nor very useful for the average non-academic person. The fact is that, among his interests was also the Japanese poetry, in particular the haiku, a short form composed of three verses with a 5-7-5 structure. With such a short piece, it is forcibly a very intense type of art, with a lot of thought put into just a few words, all revolving around a single idea.

I have written previously about the famous adage of how an image can be worth a thousand words, but today I want to focus on the idea that sometimes, as in the haiku and other forms of art, it is not necessary to use a thousand words and, instead, the content can be condensed and not only retain all the meaning but even intensifying it but removing everything that is not strictly needed.

This morning Karen, who is always on the lookout for exciting works of art, pointed out a new trend that has recently appeared in Twitter and that she has been enjoying very much. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, it comes, like the haiku, from Japan and it consists on a submission of four related images like this one or this one. The Twitter interface automatically displays the images in a two-by-two lattice and it looks pretty much like a visual poem in four parts, very delightful to look at even if you might not get all the deep implications of the background story. As in many other forms of expression, it is not only about what the author wants to say, but also what the work can awake in you as a spectator.

Unfortunately, I am still much better with words than with a camera, so I will keep typing this pieces to try to paint the reality around me, while others enjoy the privilege of writing stories with images. All I can do is sharing their work with you and trying to make a proper appreciation of it. I hope you like it as much as I do. Have a nice evening.