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July 15, 2024 · 6:00 am

Art, symbolism, and storytelling #writing

I love looking at visual art. Viewing paintings and photographs offers us a glimpse of a moment in time that may have occurred centuries ago or may not have occurred at all. Regardless, that moment is frozen and will never change.

But I’m a writer. Paintings always show me a story with a past and a possible future.

My Writing Life I’m not educated as an art historian and would never claim to be one. I’m just a woman who loves the paintings of great artists because they tell a story. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons, an online museum of sorts, anyone with access to the internet can see the great art and photography of the past and the present.

Every week, I scour Wikimedia Commons, looking for images that intrigue me. My goal is to give others like me access to see the art that humanity is capable of, good and bad.

Art can be beautiful or savage, depending on the story the artist is trying to present. I love beautiful scenes, but I like images that tell a story. I feel compelled to look deeper when I view a painting, to see what symbolism the artist snuck into the scene. I want to challenge my perception of the story that is being depicted.

According to Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, Perception (from Latin perceptio ‘gathering, receiving’) is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. (…) Perception is not only the passive receipt of these signals, but it is also shaped by the recipient’s learning, memory, expectation, and attention. [1]

In other words, looking at art can lead the viewer to new ways of looking at the world.

As I mentioned above, I see paintings as depicting the middle of the story. Unintentionally, I put a personal spin on my interpretation, and ideas are born. I don’t mean to, but everyone does.

Some artists offer us fantasy, and other artists show us the truth of historical events. Both are necessary.

Let’s take a look at Guernica, a 1937 painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973). This painting is considered to be one of the most powerful antiwar statements of all time. This single painting, done in shades of black and white, tells the story of the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country town in northern Spain that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy destroyed at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. (Yes, a faction in Spain bombed their own country.)

PicassoGuernica

Picasso’s choice to use black and white to tell that story is both brilliant and symbolic. Newsreels of the day were in black and white, and newsreels were how the world was shown the horror of this tragedy.

This piece is powerful because of the emotion the artist painted into the image.

But, Picasso himself was inspired by the great art that he was privileged to see. In planning the layout of Guernica, Picasso was inspired by the Consequences of War by Peter Paul Rubens.

There is a motherlode of symbolism packed into this painting. Watch this excellent YouTube video to see a short explanation of what inspired the artist and his view of both the horrific attack and the fundamentals of classic art. It explains Guernica well: Picasso’s Guernica by Great Art Explained.

We’ve looked at Picasso and his desire to show the horrors of modern warfare. But let’s look at something fun. Let’s see the symbolism of Jan Steen and the scenes he painted of everyday life in the seventeenth century. His paintings were composed with as much symbolism as Picasso’s.

Jan Steen (1626 – 1679) was a celebrated painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was fond of painting peasants and ordinary people, and the picture I’m featuring for this post is a good example of his art.

Jan_Havicksz._Steen_-_The_Merry_Family-_Google_Art_Project I love the chaos in this painting. Is this a New Year’s party? Whatever they are celebrating, they’re having a great time.

I love the clutter of pans and dishes that have heedlessly fallen to the floor. I love the boisterous enjoyment of wine and song. The obvious lack of parental control is wonderfully depicted. The children are smoking and drinking to excess, vices that weren’t acceptable diversions for youngsters in those days any more than they are now.

The baby is exceedingly plump, which was uncommon in those days. Its chubbiness represents the vice of gluttony–in one hand, it holds bread, and in the other, it waves a spoon.

Chaos reigns, and who knows what these little hooligans will get up to next? Will they be drunks and ne’er-do-wells or sober model citizens?

The best part of the scene goes almost unnoticed unless one looks deeper: The note on the wall contains the moral of the story.

According to the Rijksmuseum website, “The note hanging from the mantelpiece gives away the moral of the story: ‘As the old sing, so shall the young twitter.’ What will become of the children if their parents set the wrong example?”

In modern terms, that means “children learn what they live,” a saying we should all give thought to.

This painting is a wonderful visual reminder to all good people, encouraging them to live a sober life. Steen himself was not a puritan, as he was born into a family of brewers and ran taverns and breweries off and on throughout his life. However, he needed to sell his paintings as he was never a successful businessman, and his allegorical paintings were quite popular.

Consider going out to www.wikimediacommons.org and see what the picture of the day inspires in you. Will you come away with an idea for a story?

steampunk had holding pen small Perhaps so. But take the time to write those thoughts down. Your notes could become a storyboard, which could become a novel.

A photograph or painting might inspire you, but the way you put those ideas into action will be uniquely yours. They will be expressions of your voice and your art.

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Perception,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Perception&oldid=1229599104 (accessed July 13, 2024).

Guernica by Pablo Picasso. 1937. Oil on canvas. © Picasso’s Estate and the People of Spain, Fair Use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso) accessed July 13, 2024.

The Merry Family, Jan Steen, 1668 PD|100 via Wikimedia Commons

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Tagged as art and writing, Guernica by Picasso, symbolism in writing, The Merry Family by Jan Steen, writing prompts

May 15, 2017 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: Impressionism and Realism

Perusing beautiful art is one of my favorite downtime hobbies. Art inspires my writing because I see the art of writing a short story as being comparable to the art of painting a picture. Writing a novel is painting a word-mural.

I study the way talented artists convey an entire story with one image. The nearest art museum is many miles away, in Tacoma or Seattle, so my local museum is Wikimedia Commons, a great resource for researching art, both modern and classic. Using the internet offers me the ability to get as close as I want, and also to discover something about the artists’ lives.

When we want to convey ideas, we consider impressionism. According to the Fount of all Knowledge, Wikipedia, Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement. Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

I love examining the work of the early 20th century American artist, Paul Cornoyer, and also the works of the 16th century dynasty of artists, Pieter Bruegel, and his family.

Cornoyer’s work is quite intriguing, and much of it is done in an impressionistic style. But what is it about impressionism in painting that so inspires my writing? The artist doesn’t give you the minute details–they give you what they saw including the mood of the piece.

Impressionism is flash fiction on a canvas. All the important things are there, everything the eye needs to have a perfect vision of the mood, the setting, and characters at that moment in time. The important things at that moment are depicted within the piece, but with economy.

The same holds true for micro-fictions: When you limit yourself to expressing the complete idea of the story in less than 300 words, you discover just how well (or how badly) you can write.

I love Cornoyer’s The Plaza After Rain because, even though it depicts New York City in a different time, it shows the way rain is in the springtime. The sky is dark, but the trees are just beginning to leaf out. The streets are wet with rain, but a hint of blue is showing through the dark sky. When you see this painting, you know it’s a cold, rainy spring day, but sunshine could happen any minute.

That sense of time and place is what we try to convey in flash fiction, and that is why it’s so important to practice writing in short, complete bursts. You never know when an idea in three paragraphs will inspire a longer tale. Write these ideas as if they were complete stories and save them. I keep mine in my author folder in a file labeled:

Flash_Fiction_Ideas.

I admire authors who can create an entire story in 3 paragraphs. It is truly an art. Sometimes I do well at it, and sometimes not so much. Still, it is important to practice writing flash fiction and micro fiction–this is how you exercise your writing muscles. By saving each short burst of random creativity separately in a clearly labeled file, you will have a well of ideas to draw on when your inner genius is on holiday.

So, now we come to Realism, both in writing and in art.

When it comes to writing longer works, sometimes the details are important. Writing, even writing fantasy, involves a certain amount of reality checking. There are times when you need to know how things actually worked.

We write stories for the public, people we haven’t met. These are readers with knowledge and life experiences we authors aren’t aware of. We should assume they understand what we are writing about. With that in mind, if we don’t do the proper research, the reader will know we have gone off the rails and into the realm of impossibility. At that point, the reader won’t be able to suspend their disbelief, and we will have lost them.

For example, if you are writing a story set in a medieval environment, you may need to know what clothing the common European people wore in medieval times. Or you might want to know what their home looked like, or a village. For that, I suggest you seek out the art of the Flemish Painters. There you’ll see what men and women looked like and how they dressed, both for celebrations, and for working. You will see what their towns looked like, and the public places they gathered in. The interiors of their homes are also found in the great Flemish painter’s works.

Any time you want an idea of average European village life in the Late Middle Ages through the 17th century, you need look no further than Wikimedia Commons. There, under the heading Category: Painters from the Northern Netherlands (before 1830) you will find the brilliant works of the Dutch Masters. These were artists living in what is now The Netherlands, and who were creating accurate records of the everyday life of the common people, along with stylized religious images.

They painted their subjects with a heavy dose of religious allegory, but that was a part of village life–both the Inquisition and the Reformation were under way, and the politics of religion was in the very air they breathed. If you are going to write about the Middle Ages, you must understand how strong the influence of the Church was and how entangled it was in politics. You must understand how the Church and its politics affected the common person’s life.

I especially love the work of a particular family of early Dutch painters from Flanders, the Brueghel Family. Five generations of their family were well-known painters and printmakers.

I love the art of any time-period, especially that depicting the lives of ordinary people. I find the small details intriguing. It shows us that in many ways we are not that different than they were. We want food, decent shelter, and of course, stylish clothes to attract a mate.

Impressionism and realism are not just terms for paintings. They are two components we authors must combine to create our word pictures. Knowing when to share the details and when to offer impressions is a balancing act.

Read the authors whose works inspire you and see what tricks they employed to fire your imagination. I suspect you will find they alternate using impressionism and realism, blending the two seamlessly, so you were never thrown out of the story.