The Birthday Party, parts 3919 - 3922

3919. Emily entered her studio alone and instantly saw her precious sculpture smashed into pieces on the floor next to the stand. It was not actually her sculpture because that was safely hidden away, but it was not possible for her to know from a distance that it was not her work that had been destroyed.

3920. I would like to leave Emily standing in the doorway for a moment, and say a few things about things that are seen from a distance. When you look at a thing from a distance, all the details disappear and only the general simplified form can be discerned.

3921. Consider the case of a tree. A tree is one of the most complicated things any artist has ever seriously attempted to render. If one stands close to any tree, the eye is presented with many millions of various shapes of all size and tints. When an artist attempts of draw a tree, even just a simple branch is so complicated, that the serious student gives up the struggle almost at the first try.

3922. One may manage to be patient for a few minutes and succeed in drawing a few dozen leaves and parts of some branches here and there, but right away one has to resort to a sort of aimless scribbling, which is highly unsatisfactory, and gives no indication of what the tree looks like to the innocent eye.