Intention

The other day I watched a short video clip in which U2’s ‘The Edge’ showed how he created the guitar solo for the hit song ‘With or Without You’.

The music itself is not complicated. Even so, it can still make the hairs on the back of one’s neck stand on end.

At first glance Paul Cézanne’s painting ‘Still Life with Apples’ is equally simple. Up close you see a series on not especially complicated brushstrokes: the method of creation. But stand back and you see life captured on canvas.

In both of these examples the intention of the artist comes through in the finished product, despite the apparent simplicity of their method. Of course the method only appears simple until one tries to reproduce it.