November 4, 2003

Manual Photography: Hopkins, Ruskin, etc.

            Bump concludes that “by learning to draw well [Hopkins] had, as Ruskin advised, ‘found something to interest him in the least things and the farthest-off thing’” (415).  One learns to draw by first cultivating the “microscopic eye” trained to scrutinize for details.  Ruskin emphasizes that “sight is more important thing than the drawing; and [he] would rather teach drawing that [his pupils] may yearn to love Nature, than teach the looking at Nature that they may learn to draw” (417).  In an enlightening experience comparable to Hopkins my eye “gained physical power by the attention to details” (414). 

While at a scenic stop hidden away in the mountains of Yosemite National Park, I lazily walked along the route paved uninterested in what was about me—I had just woken from a nap.  Like before I continued to be surrounded by an immense amount of greenery.  Something caught my attention.  I stared at an interesting formation in the shape of a rock.  As I studied the formation and zoned in on what seemed to be a log, I realized that I was actually look at the fortress of some ant species.  Like Hopkins I noticed “the smaller crumbs and clods were lifted fairly up from the ground on upright ice-pillars, whether they had dropped these from themselves or drawn them from the soil: it was like a little Stonehenge” (415).  Upon further inspection I discovered tiny, ruby jewels tricking up and down in an orderly line from an opening in this natural phenomenon impressively created by the smallest creatures on Earth.  As I watch the ruby ants, I notice that all carry a crumb of dirt between their pinchers.  How I wished I could draw them or at least share this moment with friends at home.  I took my digital camera and attempted to mechanically capture the moment.  I did capture the exact moment; however, “the problem of clearly delineating the outline of an object with the sun behind it” (413) persists in all modern photography to successfully bleached out and distort the white rock face.  Furthermore, “[the image] is not true” (413) for beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not the beheld.  Much more beauty can be seen in real-time; perhaps that explains why people often have to see for them selves the beauty contained within national parks.  With the thorough study I conducted, I “seize[d] and retain[ed] thousands of ideas that would otherwise escape [me]” (416) through my intense concentration on the ant mound.  To appreciate the environment is to give your full attention to every detail that can be read.

In Hopkins’ “Spring”, Hopkins consistently puts “responsibilities as a priest before his poetry” (423) as cited by Everett in a brief biography; he makes references to Christ.  Hopkins had always been motivated to express “the infinite number of things an infinite God has created” (404).  Through out “Spring”, one may note the recurring theme, also know as “inscape” in nature objects, to be all nature objects blessed with the rush of life.  The theme of plentitude can also be cited in words such as “lush”, “blooms”, “richness”, and “all this juice” (434).  The “Spring” is Hopkins’ attempt to word-paint his experience on the page before us so that we may understand the true in what he has seen.