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This week: Art Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.
-Hedy Lamarr
A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
Gertrude Stein
A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds.
Henry Moore
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Art
I had occasion, recently, to do yet another thing that I never thought I'd do: attend a Fifth Avenue gallery art opening. It wasn't on my bucket list, but I added it afterwards just so I could cross it off. It's a long story and I'm not going to go into it now, but it involved a relative of mine who was an artist, and since I used the past tense there, you can fill in the bits about how it's only the dead ones that gain recognition.
There, I felt like a cat in a dog biscuit factory, but the occasion did give me a chance to think about the use of art in fantasy.
By "art," here, I'm talking about painting, sculpture, and the like; certainly, there are other pursuits worthy of the term "art," including writing, but I just want to be clear about terminology.
Thing is, I know next to nothing about art. I didn't pursue a liberal arts education, and so all the classes I kept hearing about such as "art history" were as foreign to me as my structural engineering classes were to art majors. Now, I'm not knocking it; it just wasn't my field. Yet, having an artist in the family, I wasn't completely sheltered from being forced to experience culture in the form of art museums and classical music concerts (I did, however, draw the line at ballet). Naturally, it wasn't until I was already an adult that I began to have an appreciation of painting and sculpture.
I got in an argument with another relative (the spouse of the artist in question) about the subject of art accessibility. I've noticed over the years that in any field, at some point, the masters of the field stop producing for the appreciation of people in general, and begin producing for other practitioners and critics. This is seen in writing in the genre of "literature," where certain novels and stories are structured so far beyond the appreciation of people who don't have a background in literature that all we can do is look at it and go "huh?" The same is true for the kind of art I'm talking about here. When someone, like me, who is untrained in art, sees someone who paints, say, a red canvas with a yellow stripe across it, or anything by Jackson Pollack, all we can do is scratch our heads and go back to appreciating comic books. This was the crux of my recurring argument with this particular relative; my contention is that we shouldn't have to get a Ph.D. in art to be able to know whether or not we like something. Her contrary stance is that to fully appreciate most art, you should know not only artists but their countries of origin, time periods, and whatever artistic "movement" spawned their oeuvre.
But to do that, you have to study art, and as I said, I spent my time in college studying engineering, beer, and girls. (Incidentally, of the three, the only one that has stayed true to me has been beer.) But there's art that I like, and it doesn't involve abstractions such as color combinations and flow and massing or whatever it is that artists call aspects of their composition. I just want to know if it evokes an emotional response in me other than "nice draftsmanship" and "why is that hanging in a gallery?"
Unfortunately, this particular gallery featured abstract art from abstract artists, including my relative. I don't dislike it; I just don't understand it beyond hey wow that takes some impressive technical skill.
What I'm getting at with all of this is that your fantasy world probably contains artists. I mean, it is one of the great achievements of humanity, one of the things (I'd say) that makes us human - and even if you're writing about aliens, you probably want to make the readers relate to them somehow by giving them some human traits, like the ability to create and appreciate art.
But when you do, know that there are at least two kinds of art. I've heard references to "high art" and "low art," but I feel that these are misleading; Shakespeare was "low art" in his day. No, there's art for the appreciation of other artists, and there's art for the appreciation of the rest of us. The former tends toward the abstract, at least nowadays, whereas the latter concentrates more on some measure of realism.
Now, in a novel, it's hard to convey the impact of a great piece of art. Imagine, say, trying to describe the Mona Lisa (yes, I know that's not its official name) or the melting clocks thing by Dali to someone. I mean, that's why they're paintings; worth a thousand words and so on. The visual is distinct from the description. But as writers, we can try; we can at least describe the technicalities of the art in question, along with perhaps some reactions from our characters.
Art, anyway, is one of those things that can add depth to a fantasy world, and you can even weave plots around it. Art is a reflection not only of the artist but of the culture and its history; while it's bad form to write your world's Book of Genesis in your story (yawn), perhaps you can give hints of the world's history or mythology through the description of various pieces of art. And it's also a cheap way of indicating that someone in your story is wealthy; while it's usually bad form to say, like, "Bruce Kent was a wealthy man," you can show it by describing his extensive art collection.
So find a way to incorporate art into your own art, even if you're not an artist. It may or may not be part of the main plot, but it adds just as much texture as your descriptions of individuals or landscapes. |
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Last time, in "Fantasy Newsletter (January 18, 2012)" , I talked about adventure (computer) games from a writer's perspective.
ember_rain: Yeah, Ive been caught up in Fable II Now that my son has beaten it, we are going to have to get Fable III :)
Haven't played those, but maybe in the future...
LJPC - the tortoise  : Hi Robert!
What a fun article, especially the conflicting quotes at the beginning. It's interesting that people have such disparate views. I've certainly enjoyed some hack-and-slash gaming in my time. When I was young (and dinosaurs still roamed the planet) I was an avid D&D player, and I believe that has helped me think up monsters and plots for my horror novels. Keep on gaming! 
~ Laura
There's some controversy surrounding video games and their content - I didn't address this controversy because I'm firmly on one side of the issue (pro-gaming), but I understand not everyone agrees with me. Same with D&D, though with the original D&D players now being adults and parents and such, I think the controversy has died down.
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  : Here's two games from Blizzard- Starcraft and Warcraft. Both of them, originally, are played similarly. Workers gather resources and make buildings. Fighters go off to fight enemies. Buildings create more fighters/workers, and provide upgrades. Lots of fun.
[submitted item: "WarCraft versus StarCraft Interview" [13+]]
Blizzard (now Activision Blizzard I believe) certainly makes good games. I suppose they're best known for the multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft. I didn't address MMORPGs because I haven't played any in a while.
bertiebrite hoping for peace : My computer game, Guild Wars has a complicated multi-fold plot and I love it. I play a little every day. Believe it or not, I find it inspirational and also a refreshing relief from writing.
I've heard good things about Guild Wars.
And that does it for me for February - see you next month! Until then,
DREAM ON!!! |
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Fantasy: February 15, 2012 Issue [#4877]
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