The focal length: conceit insightful /
In effort to find lensing rightful. /
Close-up, panoramic, /
Or scope more dynamic, /
For stories hued deep to delightful.
This week’s poem makes yet another summer jump, this time back to the concept of “focal length” as a metaphor for artistic viewpoint. This builds from an insightful metaphor in Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit and is an image I’ve found helpful before.
“The focal length: conceit insightful /
In effort to find lensing rightful…”
I was reminded of “focal length” this summer in hearing an outstanding podcast related to a (likewise outstanding) book by Victoria Finlay, as both overlapped with a topic I’ve taught in class.
The concept of the focal length, as introduced in Tharp’s book, pointed out that artists often engage with their work via one of three perspectives. She writes, “All of us find comfort in seeing the world either from a great distance, at arm’s length, or in close-up… [W]e focus best at some specific spot along the spectrum.”
I’ve discussed here before how, as I’ve been writing more creatively about chemistry topics, I’ve realized that my teaching relies fundamentally on the “arm’s length” view afforded by discipline-specific jargon. It’s been humbling to realize how much I have to learn about the other two views, in communicating via more accessible writing about either molecular behaviors (“close-up”) or big-picture phenomena resulting from those behaviors (“great distance”). Finding the “lensing rightful” is an ongoing challenge.
“Close-up, panoramic, /
Or scope more dynamic…”
I have found some interesting support and connections this summer in considering this challenge.
I encountered the National Gallery’s superb podcast “Stories in Colour” last year and have greatly enjoyed it since. This season, they presented an episode on ultramarine blue, as the natural pigment that is responsible for blue in older paintings.
In terms of “focal length,” the jumps between various perspectives were fascinating, as the discussion moved from the mineral underlying the pigment (“close-up”) to the pigment’s use (“scope more dynamic”) and ultimately to several applications across art history (“panoramic”). Victoria Finlay was a guest expert commentator, and I realized in listening that I’d read her excellent book on pigments years before. I was particularly taken by how one of her most striking images was used in both her podcast interview and her book, but in different places.
A brief bit of background: historically, ultramarine blue was a much rarer pigment than those used for other paint colors. The mineral lapis lazuli was the expensive source for the color, due to its challenging geography and preparation (themes I will likely revisit more succinctly via an April 2026 poem when I’m in “Chem in Art mode” in the autumn). Famously, Michelangelo left his 1501 painting The Entombment unfinished, and scholars speculate that it is because he had been waiting on a delivery of ultramarine blue pigment from a patron, with which to depict Mary and her traditionally blue robe in the lower right corner. It did not arrive in time; Michelangelo moved on to other projects; the gap itself is now a major aspect of the painting.
This story is what Finlay uses to introduce her chapter on blue in her book Color: A Natural History of the Palette. Listening to the podcast on blue, I noted that in the Q&A format, the discussion of Michelangelo’s painting did not arise until much closer to the end. Both presentations worked incredibly well, and I found myself thinking about why. In this case, it wasn’t so much that the focal length changed that the medium did.
A podcast, with its interactive approach, can draw in listeners in a different way than a book chapter, which must asynchronously stand alone. The story of the painting raises such an interesting question (I remember literally “minding the gap” in reading Finlay’s book, in that I quickly was invested enough to continue on and seek out the answer!) that it is a perfect lede with which to begin a written chapter. The podcast began with more technical, close-up information, bolstered by the inherently insightful, accessible Q&A format; it could build to a later discussion of the painting.
“For stories hued deep to delightful.”
As I have been working on more general writing here and via other projects, both focal length and medium are helpful constraints to keep in mind, in sharing stories from chemistry more broadly. (Many of these stories have begun in the interdisciplinary overlap of chemistry and art, for me, as highlighted by the telltale use of “hue.”)
Chemphasis 