Art and Awakening

[Windrunner]

So this is something I've wanted to discuss for a while now, but never got around to. Somehow art and Breath interact on Nalthis, and it does some interesting things.

This is our first major clue (though a subtle one at the same time) that there might be something to the religion of the Iridescent Tones. Lightsong does see something in this painting that an ordinary person wouldn't be able to. A well-crafted piece of art, made by a person channeling the Tones and connected to them via Breath, can speak to a Returned. Now, in this case, it doesn't work quite like Llarimar says it does—Lightsong doesn't actually prophesy about the black sword in the way the priest thinks. In other words, Lightsong isn't prophesying that he'll see the Black Sword (Nightblood) in the day's activities.

GORDON

The paintings (I think there were at least two, right?) that remind Lightsong of his dreams and the Manywar etc. Is the Artist someone we know? If not, will we eventually meet him/her in a later book? Does the artist hope to affect Lightsong this way, or is it just some guy giving abstract art to his God?

JARED

Is the artist that painted those paintings Hoid?

BRANDON SANDERSON (GOODREADS)

Hoid did not make the paintings. The goal of those paintings—and this is spoilery, by the way—the paintings are actually what the text implies that they are. They are abstract paintings which Lightsong, having a touch of the divine, is able to see and read into things that aren't necessarily there.

Beyond that, art is a magical thing in the world of Warbreaker. When an artist creates a work of art, part of the artist's soul ends up in the artwork. Someone who has many breaths and who's Returned like Lightsong has the inherent ability to see into the art and perceive that. So Lightsong can interpret correctly an abstract piece, based on what the artist is trying to convey, in a way that a normal person couldn't.

I was not trying to make the artists anyone specifically important. In the case of those paintings, they are wonderful artists — I think they are two separate artists, if I'm thinking of the two paintings that you're indicating. As Lightsong has a splinter of divine nature inside him, he is able to interpret the paintings—to foresee, using them, and to see into the soul of the person who made them.

Source

So their soul actually ends up in the work. How does this happen? What does everyone think? I've never been able to come up with any great ideas on the subject so I thought I'd put it to the community to discuss.

[Zas678]

Perhaps when you paint, or when you create anything, you put an aspect of yourself, just a touch of your cognitive self to say "This Person Made Me", or "This person wants me to do this thing". I mean think about Emporer's Soul magic. You are looking at the history of something and changing it. This implies that the cognitive aspect of objects remembers what was done to them, and could possibly remember what they were made for.

Now art is something special. When you make a shoe, or a hat, your just making an object. But when you create art, you work at it, you pour emotion into it. When art (in whatever form) is done correctly, it changes the person who made it and the person who is observing it. I've had pieces of music that have done that to me.

So perhaps what painted art has is an especially strong Spiritual Presence.

Let's actually go through the creation process step by step to try and work it out. Because right now, I'm just spewing stuff that I think is right, rather than actually contributing anything.

Objects each have their own cognitive and spiritual and physical presences. A Goblet, as we see in Way of Kings, even though it is made of many tiny atoms, is one object with one cognitive presence. We can assume it has one spiritual presence as well.

So that means that at the beginning of the painting process, when I get my canvas, my paints, my pallet, my brushes, I have a bunch of seperate objects. Now when I begin painting, begin putting some of the paint onto the canvas, I begin melding some of the cognitive selves and the spiritual selves into a new object, with my personal self, shaping how it looks physically, cognitively, and spiritually. Now I really care about this canvas, these paints, and I know, in my mind already what the painting should look like, and that is what it comes out looking like. I know what this painting is about, and I can see, since I made it, and since I know it so well, the clashes between the people, the black sword killing maliciously, the horrible things that I set out to convey.

Other people see a swath of crazy reds and blacks.

But Returned. With their Uber-Breath, with their Splinter, they are extra sensitive to the Spiritual Realm, especially to things with color. They can see what I set out to convey, they can see the chaos, the craziness, the battle. They can see the sword.

So, in other words, when people create things, especially pieces of art that are meant to convey a message, they put some of their intent and emotions in the cognitive and spiritual aspects of that object. People who are sensitive to the Spiritual Realm, such as Returned, can detect these implied meanings by looking at the spiritual aspects.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the magic system was based on music, and someone great had created a symphony about this battle, that Lightsong would be able to detect those same meanings.

[ReaderAt2046]

I think it works much like the "spits" in Stoneheart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneheart

[Feloxia]

I hadn't even thought about that before. It sounds really cool...and now I want to live there even more.