Perfectionism

I am an artist. I am not a perfectionist. There are few things in this world that could, even by the most optimistic of judgments, be considered perfect. When I rack my brain to think of something I’d call perfect, I can only think of perfect moments. But moments are fleeting, and if they were truly perfect, they’d last, right? Wrong. Allow me a philosophical digression:

I once had a theological discussion with a guy who’s basis for his atheism was, “How could a perfect God create an imperfect world?” My answer at the time was “I suppose if you’re perfect, you can do anything you damn well please.” But in the years since, I’ve decided that any perfect higher power has a view of the bigger picture that we do not, they see the strings and pulleys behind it all. So perhaps existence is perfect, and we, only playing a microscopic part in the grand scheme, are only privy to a small piece of the puzzle, imperfect in and of itself, but perfectly befitting of its role in the big picture.

I made myself a little dizzy there, but the point I’m getting at is that these perfect moments are only so because they ARE fleeting, forcing us to take stock in the importance of each moment, because it’ll never happen again.

From an artist’s standpoint, particularly as a narrative artist, trying to capture the perfect moment for immortality is a fool’s errand. Were we to freeze these moments and look at them with the critical eye of an artist, we’d see them start to come apart at the seams- the longer you look at that perfect smile on her face, the more you can see the trepidation. Oh, and I didn’t even notice the stray dog shitting right behind us (thank you, Rembrandt).

I tell my students that (in terms of portraiture) the most perfectly proportioned and symmetrical person in the world is both the most beautiful, but also the most forgettable. Watch a Miss America pageant, the faces all start to blur into one another after a while, and Miss Alaska looks just like Miss Utah looks just like Miss Connecticut.

We see true beauty in the imperfections, and it’s as subjective for the viewer as it is diverse in the person, scene, or whatever it is we’re taking in.

So, as an artist, I cannot hope to tell you what’s perfect. I wouldn’t dare be so bold as to tell you what you should find beautiful. All I can do is tell the truth. Even abstract expressionists & surrealists tell what they believe to be the truth. All we can do is give our best representation or expression of our subject, then it’s up to the viewer to decide whether or not it’’s “beautiful” or “perfect.”

Lies are ugly. That’s why when some artist doesn’t understand the human figure before they start to deconstruct it, the viewer is not fooled. Picasso knew how to paint a person in space before he made the conscious decision to attempt to show multiple conflicting planes of the face on one canvas. He’s not lying to us, he’s simply giving us more information than our eyes are used to taking in in a single moment.

He also was not striving for perfection, he was striving for truth. When we try to make something perfect, we effectively homogenize it to the point where it simply seems unrealistic. We gloss over the things that make it individual, memorable, and therefore beautiful. Another thing I say to my students: “The perfect is the enemy of the perfectly good.”