The number of writers who were also visual artists is astounding when looked at closely. Perhaps it is because of their great fame with the written word that we tend to overlook these authors’ equally talented artistic side. We do not think of William Faulkner, D.H. Lawrence or Oscar Wilde as sweeping a paintbrush against canvas rather than taking a pen to paper. When we think of the poems of William Blake or the incredibly successful life Winston Churchill lived as a statesman and author, rarely do most of us think of their artistic pursuits as among their strong points. But there is little doubt in my mind that all of these authors and dozens of others like them would at least give a nod to the importance that art played in their lives. So is there a connection between the writer and the artist that serves as a natural bridge? Is there a reason that the successful author is also an accomplished artist? Kathleen G. Hjerter ponders the connection in the introduction to her collection of works from many writer/artists,
Doubly Gifted: The Author as Visual Artist:
Artworks created in the minds that excel in literature sometimes hold more of the excess of their creators’ energies than do their words. Freed from the stringent restraints of traditional art training and demands of the current artistic schools, authors who eschew the limits of the language of their trade for brief moment have discovered a weightlessness when yielding a paintbrush that they found intoxicating.
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So perhaps there is something that authors were able to relate in painting or drawing that they could not reach through their writings. Perhaps all of us are better able to communicate through both language and art than we are with one rather than the other. I hope that my students will be able to as well.
One of the things that is wonderful about this unit is its adaptability. This unit can be taught to first graders or it can be taught to twelfth graders. All any teacher has to do in order to adapt the unit is to switch around the authors being studied in the classroom. The range, scope, tones and focus of all of the writer/artists are so different that different grade levels naturally fit into various authors.
Writer/artists such as Shel Silverstein or Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss) provide light, fun poetry and stories that younger children can easily work with. Both authors began their careers as cartoonists and became children’s book writers later in their lives. Silverstein wrote for newspapers and magazines before becoming a writer of children’s books. Silverstein’s lighthearted poetry and comical sketches, which fill books such as
Falling Up
or
Where the Sidewalk Ends,
are wonderful resources for allowing children to both write and draw. Like Silverstein’s books, Dr. Seuss’ books are a wonderful source for allowing students to make their own connections between writing and art just as these authors did.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s
The Little Prince
seems to beg the reader to examine the connections and discoveries made between the written word and the visual arts. In a book adorned with more than forty watercolors, de Saint-Exupéry challenges children and adults to look at the world and themselves a little differently;
My picture was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained.
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Throughout the book de Saint-Exupéry plays with the connections between academics, writing, drawing, communication and life.
The artwork and writings of Winston Churchill would serve as subject matter for a more mature classroom. The statesman, who is so famous for his iron-willed leadership during WWII, was also an accomplished writer and artist. In his lifetime Churchill wrote forty-four books, received the Nobel Prize for literature and painted over five hundred paintings.3 His childhood correspondences are filled with sketches and cartoon like figures that contrast greatly with his beautifully painted landscapes that currently adorn art museums throughout the world. The statesman found that his painting provided him with “relaxation and great solace in times of war and peace all over the world.”4
John Ruskin’s interpretation and criticisms of art made him a recognized literary voice during the Victorian era. His fascination with and study of architecture during the 1850s led him to become a leading advocate of Gothic architecture and reform of modern society. He also “never left home without a sketchbook.”5 His sketches of various architectural intricacies make him a writer/artist worthy of in depth study.
There are a number of writer/artists whose manuscripts are covered with sketches and cartoons that show talent in the visual arts as well as a tendency to portray themselves in art. Alexander Pushkin, the father of Russian poetry, regularly sketched subjects on his manuscripts. One can trace his development through examination of his many self-portraits that adorn his work. Kahlil Gibran’s famous self-portrait adorns the cover of his 1923 book,
The Prophet.
E.E. Cummings, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allen Poe and Dylan Thomas also produced self-portraits.
There are also artists who could be studied for their writing. Vincent Van Gogh’s letters to his brother provide an interesting narrative into the artist’s life. Journals and pieces written by famed artists such as Picasso, Degas, Chagall and O’Keefe serve as reminders of the connection between art and the written word.
Other examples of writers as artists and artists as writers, too numerous to examine here, can be found quite easily. Writer/artists more appropriate for the age level; grade level or academic focus can be substituted in the unit to fit teachers’ academic needs.
Thurber and Poe
There are several reasons why I have chosen James Thurber and Edgar Allan Poe as the writer/artists with whom I will conduct the lessons of the unit. First, both Poe and Thurber wrote material that I feel fits into the eighth grade curriculum well. Poe’s “Tell- Tale Heart” is one of many great stories included in our eighth grade textbooks,
The Language of Literature
. Both authors also did self-portraits. This was important to me as students will be asked to produce self-portraits at the end of this unit.
Thurber and Poe had some common characteristics that might play out well in classroom discussions of the writer/artists. Both men came from a journalistic background. Both did freelance writing early in their careers and both went on to become editors at either magazine or newspaper publishers. Both men wrote detective stories, which would serve as another means of studying the writers in comparison.
Contrast was also important to me. Thurber and Poe’s written works are overall quite different. Thurber is a light-hearted writer who loved to poke fun at society and often wrote stories “tongue in cheek.” Poe on the other hand often writes of the darker side of the human condition. His short stories and poems are often sad and mournful, or, as with “The Tell-Tale-Heart” terrifying. Their art also reflects this difference in the writers’ work. Like his writing, Thurber’s artwork is light hearted and comical. His pictures are simple sketches that reflect the lightheartedness of his prose. Poe’s sketches, on the other hand, seem to epitomize the author’s tortured soul. (See Hjerter’s
Doubly Gifted: The Author as Visual Artist
.) Poe’s dark eyes stare out from a self-portrait that reveals the uneasiness of the writer’s soul.