WHERE DO THE PICTURES COME FROM?
by Dorothy Scrivener
Where would inhibited British people be without the opportunity to express themselves in paint, poetry or music? They can so easily be embarrassed by expressions of feelings and emotional outpourings.
I am sure I am not alone in seeing pictures in the clouds, in the grain of wood and the patterns and rhythms in stone or in the landscape. I am so delighted by such things that I have the urge to share my experiences with other people. However, I learned as a child not to embarrass my companions by trying to share verbally what I could see and hear or what was deeply felt, so I have resorted to paint as a less embarrassing vehicle for my expression. Those who in former days poured scorn on my verbally presented discoveries are now loud in their praise when I present it all in paint.
Through painting some may be persuaded to look at the world as it is seen by the artist, to look afresh at the familiar and see it from another point of view. Of course, we all see things differently. It is possible for two people who sit side by side painting the same object or landscape to produce entirely different pictures. It is not only what is on the outside which goes into a picture, much of its content comes from deep inside ourselves: early experiences and memories, our hopes, fears and sensitivities.
I can remember a visitor to one of my exhibitions of paintings who voiced her disgust when she saw my painting of Cadair Idris. She complained loudly and angrily that Cadair Idris did not look like that. She knew because she saw it every day from her kitchen window. She told other visitors how wrong my painting was. Although I gently explained that having spent three whole days on the mountain, sketching and taking in its atmosphere, this was how I had seen it, she was not impressed. She said she had been looking at the mountain for years. For her, there was only one view of Cadair Idris – hers. How I would have liked to see her vision of that wonderful mountain and what a pity she had her experience all locked up inside and could not show us how she saw it by writing a poem or painting a picture.
We all know how cleverly the cartoonist can say so much in a few slick pen strokes. Through humour and with laughter, messages, perhaps otherwise totally unacceptable or not previously thought about, can be put before others and help to shape their future thinking. The cartoonist is expressing feelings that would have been difficult to put into words and may have been totally overlooked if presented in neatly printed paragraphs. His ability to say everything at once in a picture is his triumph. His message is instantly eye catching and appealing.
Just as some people have written prayers in poetry or music so some write them in paint . . .
Some are prayers of praise, full of joy and wonder, others may show anguish and a reaching out to God. And some prayer paintings begin in anxiety and end in peace, like some of the Psalms.
I believe that we are made in the image of God. A tiny bit of God’s creativity seems to have been given as a gift to us all. Some create beautiful children out of their love for each other. And there is creativity in the work of many people like musicians and poets, sculptors and actors, craftspeople and chefs. Sadly there are those whose gift has never been explored or whose creativity has been frustrated.
The gift of creativity expands as it is used and many of those who are conscious of having it constantly work to develop it. The painter knows that however brilliant the talent of the paints we are prevented from every capturing the sunlight or the stars, but in spite of our limitations still we produce our pictures settling for the best we can do and ever striving to develop what we have been given and to communicate it to others.
Where do pictures come from?
To answer the question about the creation of pictures it seems necessary
to consider the reaction of the artist to the surrounding world. Pictures
come from inside us as well as from the culture in which we have grown
and lived. It is the interaction between this inner and outer life,
together with the need to communicate or share visually, which seems
to me to be the source of pictures. Some of the pleasure in creating
a picture is in the sharing and having ones vision appreciated or understood
by someone else.