Ansel Adams is widely considered one of the finest
photographers ever, along with Dorothea Lange, Carol Highsmith and others. Let’s
take Adams. One of the striking things about his work, as he processed it, was the
gradation of tones from solid black to pure white. They set the perimeter for the
multitude of shades between. Then he dazzled us with the glorious interplay of those
tones.
It provides one a footing from which to enjoy the totality
of his art, at least it does for me.
Now take Charles Dickens, one of my favorites since a
seventh-grade teacher, Mildred Truelock, suggested that, at age 12, Jimmie give
Mr. Dickens a dry. It’s been a life-long adventure, though I think perhaps I
should have put A Tale of Two Cities off a few years.
What did Dickens do that makes me think of Ansel Adams? His
characters matched the tones in Adams photography. Consider David
Copperfield. Our protagonist therein faces life framed between the purely
good figure of Peggotty and the abysmally bad Uriah Heep. There young David
roams with some good but prone-to-backslide characters such as Steerforth and Mr.
Micawber. Then there’s the flawed perfection of Mr. Dick, Aunt Bessie, and
Dora, their near-goodness shining alongside the ideals. His characters cavort
freely between the moral perimeters of good and bad.
Compare that with a popular movie, one that I’d rather spend
a week in Branson Missouri than have to watch again. That would be No Country
For Old Men. Try as hard as I might, I see no shred of purely good in any
character. The same holds true for so many novels. I invariably turn back to my
old pal.
We need boundaries for our scales in our life, black and
white so to speak, whether we’re taking photos, telling stories, or playing the
piano. True artists can make beautiful music between the extremes.
Yes, I know there are exceptions. You can search a Philip
Roth novel with a magnifying glass and not find a consistent set of redeeming
qualities.
But unless you are Philip Roth, why not stick to classics?
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| See? No muddy imagery here. |
