The beauty of the detail

Several weeks ago I led my historiography class in a discussion of the work of Giovanni Morelli, a 19th-century connoisseur of Renaissance paintings who is still reasonably well known for his idea that an artist will reveal his individual style most obviously in minor details (earlobes, say, or thumbnails) that are unlikely to be studied closely by most viewers and that have not inspired common formulas. It's a neat thought, and one that still colors some work being done today, but in reading Morelli this time around I was also struck by the value of his simple willingness to look long, and closely, at paintings. Too often, we miss the detail in the corner of the painting in our hurry to get a sense of the museum wing as a whole; we scan, instead of devoting ourselves; we save time, instead of taking time.

I don't mean to imply, though, that I'm somehow above such habits. If anything, I'm more guilty than most; en route to a story time, or pushing to grade papers during Cleo's nap, I've hardly had the time, of late, to study much of anything closely. But for that very reason, two recent experiences have stood out to me - experiences that underline the beauty of the incidental, or the value of the transient.

More matter, my readers say, with less art. Okay. Since New Year's, I've been a gym rat in the way that 40-year-old dads are gym rats: abbreviated workouts, at random times of day, in gym clothes that date from the late Nineties. But I've enjoyed it, and I've even come to enjoy the fact that the weight room's sound system is permanently tuned to a satellite radio station that only plays the Top 20, in an infinite loop that varies only slightly from week to week. As a result, I've become deeply familiar, for the first time since about 1985, with mainstream, top-of-the-charts pop. Kesha's "We Are Who We Are"? I've heard it at least a dozen times. Enrique Iglesias? You bet. The Script, Bruno Mars: they're like a Greek chorus, commenting as I struggle with the bar on the decline bench. But while some of the songs grate, and others simply fade from memory, I've been struck by the impact of a few small details. Take, for instance, Katy Perry's popular "Firework": after about 45 seconds of utterly conventional, intoned five- and six-syllable lines that bounce between two or three notes, she creates a potent briedge by singing "ignite/the light" in a rising cascade (A-flat; B-flat; C; B-flat; D-flat) that surprises in its richness, suddenly justifying the plodding opening through an uplifting contrast that's the very point, I think, of the song.

Or this. Part of Cleo's bedtime ritual, like many kids', involves sitting down with a book or two, for a goodnight read. We usually let her choose the titles, from a small pile of bedside books; for s a time, her favorite was Goodnight Moon, and lately it's been the lovely Good Night, Gorilla. No surprises here, as both are old favorites - and I don't think any parents reading this would be surprised, either, to hear me observe that it can take a little creativity to avoid getting a little tired of the same read, night after night. But that's exactly where the small details matter. Sure, I've read Goodnight Moon with Cleo many, many times. But it took me, in fact, quite a few of those reads before I noticed that the moon rises, subtly, in the sky outside the window, and that the tiny mouse scampers from place to place, as we bid goodnight to the brush, the mush, the cows and the bears. Similarly, Good Night Gorilla offers a gentle, engrossing central narrative - but it also rewards the attentive reader in its treatment of a rising balloon, in the representation of photos on a shadowed wall, and in the place of a flashlight. Even the number of neighbors in a tiny, lit window in the distance changes over the course of a story: are they watching what we're seeing, as well?

I don't know. And I don't know if such details reveal, as Morelli might suggest, the idiosyncratic habits of Clement Hurd or Peggy Rathman. Nonetheless, they serve their small purpose - to give back to those who give time - beautifully.