The Power of Suggestion

"Cyclamen, Colorful Patches"
12 x 8, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
(Available)

My last post drew an analogy between painting and music. Today I have an analogy between painting and poetry.  I've been reading about the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (and trying, mostly in vain, to read some of his poems--thanks to my musty college textbook on 19th century French poetry).  My curiosity was aroused when I saw this quotation from Mallarmé: "To define is to kill; To suggest is to create." 

"Top of Gordes"
Oil on Linen, 8 x 12
(c) Lesley Powell 2017
(SOLD)

Hmmmm. I was reminded of a common saying among painters, used when one over-works a painting. When you have a fresh, lively painting started, and then you fuss and fuss over it until you have completely zapped the life out of it,
we say that you have "killed" it. (And NOT as it is meant in today's vernacular, when "killing it" means doing great work--quite the opposite!). Oh, how many good starts have I strangled and killed this way?

"Provence, Distilled: Villars"
6 x 8, Oil on Paper
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
(SOLD)

I know that, for me, it is important to leave some details to the viewer's imagination. The painting is simply more alive when the viewer is involved in completing it in his or her own mind. Mallarmé stated this concept very compellingly when he wrote:

"To NAME an object is to take away 

three-fourths of the pleasure given by a poem.

This pleasure consists in guessing, 

little by little:

To SUGGEST it,

Ah! That is the dream!"

Yes, 'tis the dream. But alas, the dream can be elusive. It is far more difficult for me to suggest than it is to define. But I am always thinking about visual suggestion. How can I tell the viewer just enough that he has the pleasure of imagining for himself the cluster of houses on that hill? If I draw all of the little houses, the viewer will be bored. And I want him to be excited, rather than bored. How can I let him figure out what kind of flower this is, without drawing every leaf and blossom? Therein lies the magic, or, as Mallarmé would say, the Dream. And so, we dream on...