Japanese film: Miss Hokusai

After Miss Hokusai…

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Laurent: I know some artists and they are…

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Ursula: Different?

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Laurent: Hmm, they often don’t say much, liking to appear mist-wreathed. Talk too much, the aura fades.

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Ursula: I know, the lustre rusts.

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Laurent: They can be enigmatic and speak in epithets. If they gesture, it’s quick and dismissive.

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Ursula: Artists simplify, and ukiyoe was an ultimate simplicity.

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O-Ei itinerant

Laurent: So it was with O-Ei apparently, as Hara had it her appear that is.

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Ursula: Then after her father died, it’s said she became itinerant. Seeking a simple life. “With two brushes and our chopsticks, we can live anywhere.”

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Laurent: The father dies, and the child grows stronger? But in this case, it seems she rather vanished.

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Voice-over

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Sometimes not being there precipitates something serendipitous. Keiichi Hara himself vanished for some months in production, worried about doing justice to Sugiura's Sarusuberi, and causing some creative dilemmas, ultimately well-solved by disciples.

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The artist, the fan and the critic

The comic artist answers a fan and a critic…

Fan: So now you have a contract?

Artist: Yeah. Illustrating Where in the World is Dracula.

Fan: What did you do in that first one? Vampire in Detroit. No fangs, no cape?

Critic: It broke the myth.

Artist: Suited the location. Prosaic place.

Critic: It diluted the horror. No cape, no fangs, no fear.

Artist: Species adapt as they migrate.

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Failure of suspended disbelief

Voice-over

Storytellers adapt narration, location, and decoration. Superman kisses Lois Lane on the moon. Earth in the background. No space suits, no air bubbles. My willing suspension of disbelief pops. The myth is broken by a splinter of science in my head. The old myth fails, the new myth flails. Methinks the artist doth simplify too much.

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Red Helen in science and art

Red Helen in flight

In a garden, the artist asks about a butterfly:
Entomologist: Papilion helenus.
Artist: And its common name?
Entomologist: Red Helen.
Artist: And who was Helen?
Entomologist: Helen was… Helen.
Artist: Means you don’t know.
Entomologist: Maybe. But I can tell you there are about a dozen subspecies. Swallowtailed. See, he flutters his forewings and the hindwings stay fairly still.
Artist: Helen is a male?
Entomologist: Helens are male and female.

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Voice-over
Scientists like taxonomies. As taxonomists, they compare, contrast and categorize. That is how they view the world.
Artists focus on features. Writers seek stories. That is how they explain the world.
Great scientists can tell stories and great artists can suggest the underlying science. They are scientist and artist. Look at Linnaeus. Look at Leonardo. Both were both.
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