Artist Monica Jain explores the similiarity and connection between the written word and visuals
Walk into an art gallery and as you stand in front of a painting, someone will approach you (sales pitch notwithstanding) offering to ‘explain’ the work of art. Go to a bookstore and you will, in all probability pick up a book with an interesting cover.
Now the first, very clearly is a sensual/visual experience and the latter, a linguistic one. So why is it that one needs to be complemented by the otherIJ What is this connection between words and pictures, between books and artIJ
A book is imagination put into words. A writer may imagine his words in pictures before he writes a book. Art is imagination put into pictures. An artist often conceptualises his work in words before he paints it. Peep into the secret journal of a writer and you may find a sketches and doodles galore. The very, very secret artists’ books (yes, I’ve have the trust and the good fortune to see quite a few) are filled with scribbles and notes alongside their drawings. When John Banville, the famous Irish writer was a teenager, what he really wanted was to be a painter. Being a very visual person with training in the visual arts, I can appreciate the urge to paint pictures. Being a part of three book clubs; one as large as having over two thousand members and one a cozy group of fifteen, it amazes me how we talk about the same book and still conjure up different images. Reading a book, automatically leads to pictures as they generate imagery in our mind. As we look at a work of art we try to put together words to understand it.
At another level, image makes the word unforgettable. We all have read illustrated books in our childhood and secretly (without quite admitting to our kids) still enjoy a comic or a book with illustrations. Ask a movie buff, what he thought of the film based on a book. Now, I’m not a great fan of this genre of movies as expectations are huge and disappointments even bigger; but some of us are actually enlightened by the book while others simply get blinded by it. It is just that some of us appreciate the letter more than the picture. Has it something to do with left-right braininessIJ Ultimately the connection lies in the thought, the idea behind the creation whatever be its mode of expression; and the connection between them runs deep, not just at the surface where one is an illustration and the other a mere elucidation. After all, weren’t the ancient scripts really a symbol of an imageIJ
So while some of us are book lovers, and some lovers of art, we do know that the twain shall often meet.