The Artistic Medium

The Importance of Form

Everything is defined through the constraints and abilities with which it has. Just like a person born without sight can only do so much, a fully textual novel can only do so much. But that does not mean that something constrained is necessarily worse than something with large possibilities – it just means we have to recognize the differences that it brings. For an artist, a medium is something that must be chosen carefully. Not only will the artist decide the medium, but the medium will help decide the art. Every kind of form a piece of art can be will give certain conditions that the artist must work with, and so the art will change accordingly. This seems inherently negative, as it is restricting the artists, but a restriction can be a positive thing. By forcing the artist down a specific path, they can oftentimes have a better focus for their messages. While artistic freedom can seem like a pure addition to an artist, too much freedom can cause a lack of direction and specific ideas. This is why medium is important to recognize.

Fun Home‘s Medium

This idea of form’s importance brings us to Fun Home. Being a graphic novel, Allison’s memoir has a rather unique medium. Thus, the question we have to ask ourselves is how this medium affects the way Allison gets to present her memoir. By understanding not only the reason why Allison chose this medium, but also how this medium will shape her art, we can hope to uncover some truths about Fun Home.

Graphic Novel Affordances

Let’s start with the possibilities that the medium gives Allison, as they are rather easy to find. The obvious start are the pictures – Allison gets to use images unlike a regular novel. This allows for Allison to put out a specific image in mind, rather than trying to get the reader to create one themselves. This gives her a lot more control over her reader’s interpretation. Furthermore, they are drawn pictures, not photographs. This means that she can create whatever image she wants, does not have to stay within the physical possibilities of the world, and can make up any story through the images. It’s not just the images that make it special – it’s also how she can use text. A standard novel is pretty simple – text filling up as much as possible from left to right. A graphic novel, on the other hand, gets to put the text wherever the author pleases. Starting in the middle of the page, in a circular container, in a square container, within a picture, next to a picture, completely separate from a picture, a picture itself, etc. While certain standards are followed so that the reader can actually understand, for the most part Allison can do whatever she pleases with the text. This is the same with the pictures. It is not as if she is limited to a large image like a painting – she can have however many panel of whatever size she wants strewn about the page in any configuration. While there are many more affordances of that this medium gives, (cough cough comment more if you think of any cough cough),  I’ll stop here and summarize: when compared with a novel, Allison gets incredible freedom from her medium.

Graphic Novel Limitations

With all this freedom, it can seem daunting at first to think of how it is limiting, but literary analysis is usually negative so let’s give it a go. One of the first thing I can think of is that the images are still. A medium like a film allows for movement, while graphic novel’s are limited to snapshots. Another problem is the amount of time that it takes to draw pictures. Allison isn’t immortal (as far as I know), so she probably is only willing to spend a certain amount of time on each panel. This means that small details can only be done in excess, and the main focus must be on the important pieces. This can also be seen in the book’s lack of color. While perhaps it can be seen as an artistic choice, it undeniably saves time, and limits some of the detail that could be had in an ideal world. The next limitation comes in the form of standards. While Allison has a lot more freedom to move stuff around than in a novel, she still has to have the reader understand how to read her book. She must stick to left to right, top to bottom, and use classic comic conventions such as panels and clear differences between captions, speech and narration. She might technically have freedom to do what she wants, but she is limited by the fact that people have to understand her story. Again, there are many more limits we can find, (also again a bit of cough cough), but I’ll stop here.

Conclusion

For the most part, I’m going to leave this conclusion rather lackluster. The reality is that I’m not even halfway through Fun Home, so it would be rude to consider my knowledge of the story strong enough to draw any deep meaning. For now, I can just generally understand the medium and what it means. A graphic novel gives a lot of freedom to Allison, but who’s to say that is all good? By painting the pictures for us she has more control, but maybe it’s better for us to paint the pictures for ourselves. By letting image and text interact she can create some new kinds of interesting narrative, but maybe the time it takes to add detail to the images is not worth being taken away from fleshing out the text. There will be drawbacks and bonuses to any medium, so it’ll be important to consider Allison’s medium while continuing through Fun Home.