PART II - THE ÆSTHETICS OF COMPOSITION
CHAPTER XII - BREADTH VERSUS DETAIL
Subjectively the painter and the photographer stretch after the same goal.
Technically they approach it from opposite directions.
The painter starts with a bare surface and creates detail, the photographer is supplied therewith.
Art lies somewhere between these starting points; for art is a reflection of an idea and ideas may or may not have to do with detail.
According to the subject then is the matter of detail to serve us. In the expression of character a certain amount of detail is indispensable; by the painter to be produced, by the photographer saved. But detail is often so beautiful in itself! and is not art a presentation of the beautiful, pleads the photographer. And the reply in the Socratic method is: “Look at the whole subject: does the idea of it demand this detail?”
The untutored mind always sees detail. For this reason most education is inductive, but [pg 188] though the process is inductive, the goal is the eternal synthesis. It is the reporter who gathers the facts: the editor winnows therefrom the moral.
The artist must—in time—get on top and take this survey. Looking at any subject with eyes half closed enables him to see it without detail, and later, with eyes slowly opening, admitting that much only which is necessary to character.