There is too much of everything.
Or rather, It’s only at rare moments — the best moments — that there is exactly the right amount of world in the world. The rest of the time, it’s just overwhelming.
That’s how it feels to me.
That’s how it feels today.
Politically. Ecologically. Aesthetically.
A few weeks ago, I asked whether or not you’d like there to be 10,000 new novels by your favourite writer.
The example I gave was Lee Child, who I know is probably not your favourite writer.
But I’m sure someone, or some company, will set Artificial Intelligence upon a bestselling author like him sooner rather than later.
This stuff is popular. Make us more of it.
Whether or not AI-Lee Child will also become a bestseller is uncertain.
And when I asked the question, a lot of the responses I got were that AI would never be capable of making humanly great art.
Ever since that entry, I’ve been realising there was something I didn’t manage to fit in, alongside that question of value. Which is where the thought started for me.
When my son was four- or five-years old, he did these great paintings.
In this, I don’t think he was exceptional. I just think that the paintings of very young children — children who can hardly hold the brush — have a beauty and expressiveness and sensitivity and sometimes violence that, once those children gain physical control and self-consciousness, they quickly lose.
If you go around a Reception or Year 1 art class, you’ll see astonishing image after astonishing image.
And that’s the problem — there are just too many of them.
Picasso allegedly said —
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
But by the time Picasso did this learning and unlearning, he already had a reputation as a great artist. This meant people — dealers and collectors — were willing to take the time to pay attention to each and every canvas he finished.
With children’s art, there’s just too much of it.
We don’t have time or space.
If we were to start framing each great painting by a four year-old, we would fill all the world’s galleries in a couple of days.
And so it’s easier to stop paying attention.
Let the main exhibition space for children’s art be fridge doors.
Adult art is prioritised over the productions of primary schools.
Similarly, we’d much rather look at a badly or competently made piece of adult pottery rather than, say, the shell of a snail.
If we were to start appreciating the astonishing beauty of each individual snail shell, we would cease to have a functioning economy.
Everyone would be too busy saying, Wow.
This doesn’t mean, though, that these snail shells aren’t more beautiful than the pottery. They have no human value because there’s almost no limit to their production.
Equally, there’s no limit to the production of AI-Lee Child novels.
But despite being one of the most prolific artists in history, there was a limit to the number of Picassos that Picasso could produce.
I think we need this certainty of finitude before we start paying attention.
Endlessness is graceless.