The Art of What is Not Said

Here is something Emily Dickenson wrote that I find very beautiful:

That love is all there is
Is all we know of love.

What is remarkable about this short verse is what is NOT said. Reading this, I believe this statement is true, and yet there is no argument being made. What makes these lines so effective is how much WE fill in. I, for one, believe that Love is all there is, and so when I read that first line, I think, Yes, you're right. And then I read the second line. This second line tells us that this thing that we know is true, which is in fact the sum of all life, is a mystery. A mysterious truth. How wonderful. And yet she doesn't say THAT. All she says is

Is all we know of love.

But this is all art. All art is metaphorical. Art is not a documentary. Hamlet is not about whether you should avenge your father. The odyssey is not about how to get home from war. Ulysses, for that matter, is not about how to buy soap. All art is metaphorical. And the power of the metaphor is the contribution made by the listener, the audience. Art becomes an interpretation. But the artist must create fertile emptiness into which the audience's imagination is impelled to flower. Great artists, then, are master of what is not said.

This then is the most gracious job for the artist. They are there to inspire others to create. Art, the sharing of art, becomes a shared creative experience. No one is passive. For consider: what the audience fears is inside the closet is bound to be worse than whatever the horror film maker might put there. They may not be picturing anything specific, but their imagination fills in with horrific abstractions.

There is no escaping participating in your own life. Art, at it's very best, impels us to create what is most meaningful to us.