by Andrew Lynn
What’s most of value, though, is the finding that the relationships don’t have to be personal or highly intimate to make a difference. Whereas in the Hans Krebs study, it was the teacher that made the difference, here a bigger impact can be seen coming from more remote predecessors who have influenced or inspired the artists from some historical distance.
How far is the pattern reflected in history? We find, for example, that the great Spanish artist Goya (1746-1828) – famous for works such as The Third of May 1808, depicting the massacre of Spaniards by Napoleon’s troops, and his darkly mythological Saturn Devouring his Son – had copied and been inspired by the works of both Velázquez (1599-1660) and Rembrandt (1606-1669) during his youth in Saragossa. As another example, we also find the great British artist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) – famous for that astonishing vortex of light and colour, Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth, and Rain, Steam, and Speed – had been inspired and influenced by the French painter Claude Lorraine (1600-1682).
Notice the length of time separating the painters from their progenitors – commonly around 150 to 200 years. The pattern repeats itself in literature. William Wordsworth (b. 1770) was inspired by Milton (b. 1608) – he even wrote a sonnet on it: ‘London, 1802’. T. S. Eliot (b. 1888) took his inspiration, in turn, from the metaphysical poets of the early seventeenth century. Admittedly, given the scope of the subject matter, it would be no challenge to find exceptions. Artists of the Renaissance, for example, typically looked back well beyond a couple of centuries to the deep past of the Greek and Roman classical world. But there does seem to be a pattern.
* * *
So far, the statistics tell us several things. First, they tell us to look to the past for predecessors who can serve as models and sources of information. Second, they tell us that the past to which we can look is not necessarily the immediate past but may well extend back two or more centuries. Inspiration, it seems, is not limited to lifetime transmission; it speaks across the gulfs of time.
We need mentors – it’s hard to build from scratch in a total vacuum. But it may be that we also need distance from our inspirational figures, especially in creative fields, if we are not to be overborne by them and fall into the trap of mere imitation.
The Tragedy of Achilles
In the background of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida stride the great leaders and heroes of the Greek and Trojan forces, lined up to fight on the dusty plains of Troy. Yet the very greatest of these figures, Achilles, in a fit of pique at the disrespectful manner of Agamemnon, refuses to engage. The wisest of the Greeks, Ulysses, is sent to rectify the situation and bring Achilles back round to the Greek cause. No amount of argument or pleading will win him over; more sophisticated measures are called for, and Ulysses is the man for the job. First, he arranges matters so that the Greek leaders pass by Achilles, showing him little if any regard – Agamemnon, then Nestor, then Menelaus, and finally Ajax stroll past the great Achilles with barely a word of greeting. Achilles is confused and disconcerted – after all, isn’t he the greatest of all the Greek warriors? Why, all of a sudden, should he be treated as a nonentity?
* * *
Next, Ulysses arranges for Achilles to see him reading a book. Still confused by what has happened, the great warrior Achilles strikes up a conversation with his fellow Greek, and the contents of the book become the talking point. Ulysses explains that the book is concerned with what it is that really makes a man:
A strange fellow here
Writes me that man – how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in –
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver…
I do not strain at the position –
It is familiar – but at the author’s drift,
Who in his circumstances expressly proves
That no man is the lord of any thing,
Though in and of him there is much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in th’ applause
Where they’re extended.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.95-102, 112-120
Don’t be too distracted by the peculiarities of Elizabethan English – the gist of it all is in equal measure transparent and compelling. As Ulysses explains: whatever a man possesses – whether inwardly (in the form of personal talent or ability) or outwardly (in the form of appearance, wealth, or possessions) – counts for nothing unless it is recognized by others and that recognition is fed back to the person in question. A man cannot know what it is that he possesses unless this occurs; still more, he cannot properly be said to actually have anything at all without such recognition.
* * *
Shakespeare was striking at the heart of a truth that has become apparent through the course of this chapter. It’s not only that human beings have a tendency to imitate other human beings, although that’s part of it. Nor is it only that human beings can be primed or triggered in a predictable manner by stimuli coming from the outside, although that’s part of it too. It’s that without other people we are left destitute of a source from which to reference our meanings, standards, and values.
For Achilles, that meant no more hanging out in his tent, sulking with his whore; for the rest of us, it means the possibility of a transformation admittedly less heroic, but not necessarily less profound.
4
Being Present
How Leonardo Did The Last Supper
In the Church and Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan is the only remaining work by Leonardo Da Vinci that can still be visited in situ. Truth be told, the work – a fresco painted on the north wall of the refectory – has seen better days. Leonardo had not mastered the art of painting large murals and seems to have made a mistake in experimenting with a compromise between traditional tempera and oil. Even in Vasari’s time, the painting had become essentially a ‘dazzling stain’. In later centuries a door was cut into the wall, severing the feet of the pictured Christ. Napoleon’s army stored horse fodder in the refectory, and the republican troops entertained themselves by throwing bricks at the apostles’ heads. The refectory has survived at least two major floods and, at the end of World War II, the dropping of a bomb on its roof.1
I am talking, of course, about The Last Supper. The painting depicts the final meal that Jesus took with his disciples, when he revealed that one of the disciples would betray him. You probably need to actually go there to appreciate the way that Leonardo makes the fictional space of the painting expand the real space of the refectory, using the trick of perspective to increase the impression of depth. But the rest of it is there for all to see. There is the so-called secret geometry of the painting, which draws the viewer’s eyes along the perspective lines to the vanishing point at the head of Christ. There is the compositional balance of the disciples, clustered into four groups of three, an arrangement which is varied only by Judas, darkly outlined, clutching a bag of silver to his breast, the one disciple to be shown shrinking away from the others. And there is the intrinsic drama of the scene: the expressions and gesture of shock, incredulity, remonstration, conjecture, denial, suspicion. Only Christ remains serene – resigned to the fact that he must die so that mankind can be saved.
What is interesting for us is not so much the brilliance of the work itself as the state of mind of the man who created it. Leonardo was, admittedly, an exceptional individual, but there was also something in his approach to work that is common to high achievers of all descriptions. As it happens, Leonardo was obliged to paint The Last Supper in the public space of the convent refectory, and as a result there are several eyewitness accounts of his manner of working. The best is that given by the nephew of the
prior of the convent, Matteo Bandello. Bandello describes how Leonardo would arrive early in the morning, ascend the scaffold, and get straight to work. ‘He sometimes stayed there from dawn to sundown,’ wrote Bandello, ‘never putting down his brush, forgetting to eat and drink, painting without pause. He would also sometimes remain two, three, or four days without touching his brush, although he spent several hours a day standing in front of the work, arms folded, examining and criticizing the figures to himself.’2 Such accounts chime with those given by observers of that other great Renaissance painter, Michelangelo. Both men were, once engaged on a piece of work, entirely absorbed in the whole process.
Continuous activity, continuous attention, forgetting to eat and drink and sleep – these are signs of absorption that any onlooker can recognize. However, the kind of absorption that characterizes the pursuit of excellence is not always quite so obvious. Leonardo began The Last Supper in 1495 and by 1497 had completed the eleven apostles and the body of Judas. But why was there this delay with Judas’ head? It had been a year since Leonardo had touched the painting, or even come to see it. Summoned to a meeting with his employer, the Duke of Ludovico, Leonardo nevertheless insisted that he had been working on it every day. How can that be, asked the Duke, if you do not go there? ‘Your Excellency is aware that only the head of Judas remains to be done,’ answered Leonardo, ‘and he was, as everybody knows, an egregious villain. Therefore he should be given a physiognomy fitting his wickedness. To this end, for about a year if not more, night and morning, I have been going every day to the Borghetto, where Your Excellency knows that all the ruffians of the city live. But I have not yet been able to discover a villain’s face corresponding to what I have in mind. Once I find that face, I will finish the painting in a day.’ If we take Leonardo at his word – and there is no evidence that he was telling anything but the truth – then he had never stopped working on the project in the entire time since starting it. Quite the reverse; his search for perfection had absorbed him, driving him every day and night to the roughest parts of the city in search of the raw material of his art.3
The Psychology of Flow
A new understanding of the outstanding achievements of individuals like Leonardo was pioneered in Chicago in the 1960s, where a young psychology professor was embarking on what would become a lifetime’s study of ‘optimal experience’. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi had been fascinated by stories of artists who lost themselves in their work, and noticed that their most productive moments all had something in common: when engaged on a project that was progressing successfully, they would disregard hunger, fatigue, and discomfort until the project was finished – when they would rapidly lose interest and move on to the next challenge. In the course of the next forty years, Csíkszentmihályi observed and interviewed thousands of people to find out what it was that produced this state of ‘full capacity’.4
Csíkszentmihályi believes that most of us spend most of our time in one of two extreme states – we are either stressed by work or other obligations or bored as supine recipients of TV or other passive entertainments. What Csíkszentmihályi calls ‘flow’ constitutes another state altogether – flashes of ‘intense living against this dull background’.5 To investigate this, he devised the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Respondents were provided with electronic devices and a questionnaire booklet, and researchers beeped them at random intervals seven times a day for a week. Each time they were beeped the respondents were required to fill out the survey books giving details of their activities and corresponding experiences and states of consciousness.
The results were decisive in their uniformity, varying little across cultures and settings. In a nutshell – and Csíkszentmihályi’s conclusions are really quite simple – people found ‘flow’ when challenges were set that stretched (but did not overwhelm) existing skills, and when clear proximal goals were present. When challenges were too easy relative to existing skills, people experienced boredom; when challenges exceeded ability, the result was anxiety. And when low challenge met low skills, the predominant experience was apathy.
Csíkszentmihályi reckons that surgery is a typical ‘flow’ occupation. Surgeons have well-defined goals (to cut out a tumour, for example, or set a bone), and surgery provides immediate and continuous feedback. Most of all, surgery is challenging. The surgeon doesn’t just have to make a success of the operation: he or she has to watch for the details, be neat and technically efficient, and coordinate a team of medical staff.
Csíkszentmihályi points to climbing as another flow activity. Here’s how climber Doug Robinson, for example, describes the experience of climbing:
Climbing requires intense concentration. I know of no other activity in which I can so easily lose all the hours of an afternoon without a trace. Or a regret. I have had storms creep up on me as if I have been asleep, yet I knew the whole time I was in the grip of an intense concentration, focused first on a few square feet of rock, and then on a few feet more, I have gone off across camp to boulder and returned to find the stew burned. Sometimes in the lowlands when it is hard to work I am jealous of how easily concentration comes in climbing. This concentration may be intense, but it is not the same as the intensity of the visionary periods; it is a prerequisite intensity.
But the concentration is not continuous. It is often intermittent and sporadic, sometimes cyclic and rhythmic. After facing the successive few square feet of rock for a while, the end of the rope is reached and it is time to belay. The belay time is a break in the concentration, a gap, a small chance to relax. The climber changes from an aggressive and productive stance to a passive and receptive one, from doer to observer, and in fact from artist to visionary. The climbing day goes on through the climb-belay-climb-belay cycle by a regular series of concentrations and relaxations. It is of one of these relaxations that Chouinard speaks. When limbs go to the rock and muscles contract, then the will contracts also. And at the belay stance, tied in to a scrub oak, the muscles relax and the will also, which has been concentrating on moves, expands and takes in the world again, and the world is new and bright. It is freshly created, for it really had ceased to exist. By contrast, the disadvantage of the usual low-level activity is that it cannot shut out the world, which then never ceases being familiar and is thus ignored. To climb with intense concentration is to shut out the world, which, when it reappears, will be as a fresh experience, strange and wonderful in its newness.6
There is, it has been said, a biological explanation for the intensified perception that comes to the climber. On the one hand, the exertion of the climb ramps up carbon-dioxide level (or ‘oxygen debt’) which manifests itself on the cellular level as lactic acid, a poison. On the other hand, there’s adrenalin, an unstable compound that – if unused – soon begins to break down. Together they produce a chemical climate conducive to visionary experience.
Csíkszentmihályi, however, reckons it’s more than that. Rock climbing, he says, has everything you would expect of a flow activity. Part of it is the concentration on a limited field; the climber cannot be anything but fully engaged if he wants to come back down in one piece. Then there’s the responsiveness of the climb to the climber’s ability level: the climber can adapt the climb to his skills, either pushing towards further challenges or easing off in the face of insurmountable difficulty. There’s a feeling of competence and control – at least if the climber is doing it right. And – not least – there’s a merging of action and awareness. Csíkszentmihályi likens the climb to a strip of film. When the action is too easy or too hard, the film stutters and the actor becomes aware of the borders of each frame. But when the difficulty is just right, action follows action in a fluid sequence and the individual frames merge into an unbroken flow.7
The experience of flow is addictive. Intense concentration on the present, merging of action and awareness, loss of self-consciousness, a sense of control, a feeling that time has passed quickly, and an experience of intrinsic ‘worthwhileness’ – these are
all pleasing sensations that we will seek to repeat. This is at least one reason why flow leads to better performance. Once you have found flow in the carrying out of any activity – be it work, or art, or sport, or whatever – you will be inclined to seek a repetition of the experience. It will have given you intrinsic rewards that encourage persistence and return to an activity, which in turn will build greater and greater competence in that field. Sure enough, experimental studies have shown performance to be positively correlated to the experience of flow.
Achieving Flow
Climbing illustrates not only the subjective experience of flow; it also points to steps we can take to achieve it. For that we may turn to one of the most awe-inspiring of all activities that push human abilities to the edge – to what sportspeople know as ‘free solo’.
The free soloist is a peculiar animal. Free soloists are climbing purists: they seek out the most demanding rock surfaces that they then proceed to climb with no rope, no harness, no bolts, and no safety gear. Free soloing is frankly a dangerous activity. It’s probably the most extreme form of climbing imaginable. And in the world of free soloing, there is one name that commands instant respect: John Bachar.8
Bachar’s climbing triumphs are the stuff of legend. The few climbs that have been filmed are astonishing. Take Bachar’s free soloing of Leave it to Beaver, a giant chunk of granite in the Joshua Tree National Park. The climb is tough: it’s rated 5.12a. (A 5.0-rated climb is the easiest; a 5.15-rated climb is the hardest. Fewer than 10 percent of climbers can ascend a 5.12 climb with a rope – and that figure declines to 5 percent for a 5.13 climb.) When you get in the range of a 5.12a, you are facing overhanging rocks, holds no bigger than a dime, and no places to rest. That’s where Leave it to Beaver is on the scale.
