I am taking a Shakespeare course this winter (for the curious, we're studying Macbeth), and it has motivated me to reprise a post from several years ago. The topic is "Truth". I have learned that the Great Bard himself occasionally misstated historical facts. He might place a battle in the wrong locale. Or have historical figures who never knew each other cross paths. But as the wise instructor of my class says, those factual misstatements did not prevent Shakespeare from accurately portraying the reality of the human experience, from its highest heights to its lowest depths. In other words, Shakespeare might not have gotten all of the "small t" truths right, but he definitely got the "Capital T" Truths right!
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| "A Place in the Sun" 12 x 12, Oil on Linen (c) Lesley Powell 2020 |
I believe that all art involves the search for "Capital T Truths". When painting, I sometimes recall a quote attributed to Tolstoy: "Facts stand in the way of Truth". Put differently, the slavish painting of every window pane, every telephone pole, every fence post, every leaf on every tree, does not necessarily make for a painting that communicates the painter's experience of the scene. In fact, a far more powerful approach is to eliminate extraneous detail from the painting. By distilling things to their essence, the painter can reach the real truth of his experience, rather than allowing minutiae to distract from it.
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| "Distant Bridge" 18 x 12, Oil on Linen (c) Lesley Powell 2019 |
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| "Field Study" 7 x 14, Oil on Linen (c) Lesley Powell 2019 SOLD |
A more durable reality. Yes, indeed. What a gift to create such a thing! I close with another quotation that inspires me to search for the Capital-T TRUTH in what I try to portray. It's a lifelong challenge...
The more intimately I know a place,
the painted facts become less important
than the truth of the whole experience.
--Bonnie Paruch
*Quotation from Delacroix, C. Roger-Marx and S. Cottee, (c) 1970, Henri Screpel, Paris.
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