Surface Notation

An artist is making something exist by observing it.

― William S. Burroughs

The Independent on Sunday once asked John Updike to describe a writer that affected him.

He responded by naming Proust, the writer who opened Updike's eyes to style―to "prose not as the colorless tool of mimesis but as a gaudy agent dynamic in itself, peeling back dead skins of lazy surface notation, going deeper into reality much as science does with its accumulating formulations."

[Note to English teachers: point out how Updike's use of mathematicians' terms ("agent dynamic," "surface notation") bolsters his comparison between observant writing and science.]

Learning to paint has revealed how irresistible "lazy surface notation" can be.

I'm in a continual―losing―battle with my painting teachers, God Bless 'Em, over surrendering to the temptation to describe only the surfaces of objects, and never the atmosphere in which they dwell; what you might call the deeper reality of their "dance in space."

It's a temptation worse than sugary snacks.

The good news? 

Everyone struggles with lazy surface notation.

Paul Gaugin once wrote in his journal, "I made a promise to keep a watch over myself, to remain master of myself, so that I might become a sure observer."

Promise to watch over myself. 

That's about the best I can do.

Painting "Social Distancing" by Robert Francis James