Where do we draw the Lines?

Christian author and philosopher G.K. Chesterton once said, “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” What are the lines between art and non-art? What is the line between beauty and ugliness, creative and boring? What is the line between freedom of expression and harmful provocation? What is the line between the godly and the secular? Is it for each artist to determine these boundaries? Is it for the consensus of the masses to agree upon? Does this knowledge come from a connection with the Creator? Is it a matter of wisdom, conviction, truth, belief, or merely individual preference based on the unconscious forces of emotional experiences?

As an artist, I find myself drawing another kind of line all the time—the line between reality and imagination.

I paint wildlife, and I want the animal I am painting to remain unmistakably what God created it to be. A bison should still have the weight, power and structure of a bison. A moose should still have that wonderfully awkward combination of long legs, massive antlers and an oversized head. A raven should still behave and move like a raven. There is something about the identity of each creature that I don't want to lose.

But neither do I want to simply copy what I see.

If exact reproduction were my only goal, a photograph could probably do the job better. What interests me is what happens when I begin with something real and then push it just a little farther. I may exaggerate the color in the shadows, lose an edge into the background, simplify one area and emphasize another. I may put turquoise, violet or blue into fur that isn't literally turquoise, violet or blue. I may let the brushstrokes become more abstract as they move away from the face, while keeping the eyes and the character of the animal very real.

And somewhere in there is a line.

Change too little and the painting can become merely a copy of the reference. Change too much and the animal can lose its identity. I suppose much of my own artistic journey has been about learning where that line is.

I don't believe creativity requires us to reject reality. In fact, I think reality gives us something wonderful to work from. God has already created forms, colors, patterns, rhythms and personalities far more interesting than anything I could invent from nothing. My job is not to improve upon His creation, but to respond to it.

Perhaps that is one of the privileges of being an artist. We observe creation closely enough to notice things that might otherwise be overlooked, and then we interpret what we have seen through our own eyes, experiences and imagination.

For me, artistic freedom doesn't mean that there are no boundaries. Sometimes the boundary itself creates the challenge. How far can I push the color and still have the animal feel natural? How much can I simplify the anatomy without weakening it? How much can I exaggerate light, movement or atmosphere before the painting becomes something other than the creature that first inspired me?

Those questions fascinate me.

Perhaps that is where my own “line” is beginning to emerge: somewhere between representation and abstraction, between observation and imagination, between what God created and what I see when I look at it.

I want the viewer to recognize the animal immediately—and then discover something in it that they would never have seen in a photograph.

Maybe that is one of the places where creativity lives: not in abandoning what is true, but in seeing how much more can be said about it.