The Long View

August 6, 2021

CBS Sunday Morning ran a story about prodigious whale muralist Robert Wyland.

When asked how he is able to keep accurate perspective and proportions as he works just inches from the wall, he replied that he can actually see the whole picture from afar at the same time that he paints the small patch right in front of him. And he wasn't kidding. His vision literally, though not physically, bi-locates.

This preternatural ability would seem to be a prerequisite for the trade and it was one I recently wished for when I decided to up-size my painting surfaces. I had no end of trouble adjusting to the scale. Most artists make up for this lack of clairvoyance by intermittently stepping back from the work to assess from a distance how well its various shapes and spaces are integrating.

 But it's hard to imagine Michelangelo even considering any such exercise from the ceiling scaffold where he stood with his nose all but touching the freshly laid fresco of the Sistine Chapel. He didn't didn't have to clamber down to the floor to check his colors and forms. He just knew. He just knew how they were gathering, as he worked, into the epic tales of the Judeo-Christian origin stories. And this is why he was known in his own time as the "divine Michelangelo". His gifts were unlike anything known on earth before him.

For those of us not so blessed with divine powers, one can only hope that this is a skill which grows on you with practice.