Why do people bother learning to draw or paint in a world awash in an endless stream of breathtaking photographic images, where everyone has a digital camera in their pocket or cell phone to record every fleeting moment of their lives?
In some ways, drawing and painting just can't compete with digital photography. I can take a hundred digital photos on a short train trip. Some of those shots will be brilliant and perfectly evocative of those passing moments whether I am a great photographer or not.
But I'd likely only be able to produce three or four drawings or paintings during the same trip. And unless I have already mastered how to draw and paint, those pictures may not end up meaningfully recording anything. Even if I were a master painter, the pictures may not come together. Those moments will be lost forever.
This random test of the video capabilities of the Canon Eos 5D Mark II digital camera is a beautiful record of a train trip. I'm sure it required skill to produce and edit together, but its creation didn't involve the same level of risk as the creation of an illustrated record of the event.
A failed painting or drawing feels like a personal failure. A failed photo or video doesn't. And even a failed photo is usually some sort of recognizable record of a moment in time. But despite your best efforts, a botched drawing of your girlfriend on a train may look nothing like your girlfriend or a train.
I suppose that lots of artists have kept brilliant illustrated travel journals or sketchbooks. The problem is that unlike digital cameras, with drawing and painting that trick doesn't work right out of the box.
Why is your girlfriend naked on the train? That isn't appropriate!
ReplyDeleteI should have written "your hypothetical, fully clothed girlfriend on a hypothetical train".
ReplyDeleteI don't blame myself when my train drawings are botched, I blame god for failing to equip me with an anti-shake image stabilizer thingy.
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