Imagination and the Image

1. H. L. Mencken, Prejudices .’ A Selection (New York, 1958), 27, 28.

Trite ideas, or unimaginative translation of those ideas, are often the result not of poor subject matter but of poor interpretation of a problem. In the absence of a fresh visual solution, subject matter sometimes becomes the scapegoat. Such difficulties may arise if a) the designer has interpreted a trite idea with a common place image; b) he has failed to resolve the problem of integrating form and content; or c) he has failed to interpret the problem as a two-dimensional organization in a given space. He has thus deprived his visual image of the potential to suggest, perhaps, more than the eye can see.

Originality and Subject Matter Ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting. As H. L. Mencken says of Shaw’s plays, “The roots of each one of them are in platitude; the roots of every effective stage play are in platitude.” And when he asks why Shaw is able to “kick up such a pother,” he answers, “For the simplest of reasons. Because he practices with great zest and skill the fine art of exhibiting the obvious in unexpected and terrifying lights“ From Impressionism to Pop Art, the commonplace and even the comic strip have become ingredients for the artist’s caldron. What Cézanne did with apples, Picasso with guitars, Léger with machines, Schwitters with rubbish, and Duchamp with urinals makes it clear that revelation does not depend upon grandiose concepts. The problem of the artist is to defamiliarize the ordinary.

If artistic quality depended on exalted subject matter, the commercial artist, as well as the advertising agency and advertiser, would be in a bad way. For years I have worked with light bulb manufacturers, cigar makers, distillers, and others whose products are not visually unusual. A light bulb is almost as commonplace as an apple, but if I fail to make a package or an advertisement for light bulbs that is lively and original, it will not be the light bulb that is at fault.