Why should we write or draw?  Wilde thought we should make art for joy alone whereas Van Gogh believed art was a grand gesture of generosity, a means of sharing something he loved with the world, whether it was a surreal St. Remy sky or a red poppy field.  Kurt Vonnegut, on the other hand, believed we should make art because it teaches us about ourselves and makes our soul grow. 

British philosopher Alain de Botton adds one more reason to the list of why we should write and draw.  In his infinitely insightful The Art of Travel, Botton argues making art can aid us in better appreciating our travels.  In one of my favorite chapters, Botton suggests artist and art critic John Ruskin can teach us to preserve beauty.  In normal life, if we encounter a thing of particular beauty— a pristine blue sky, a field of golden poppies, a quiet suburban street dappled in spring sunlight— we might note that the scene is rather lovely but never become fully conscious of its many aesthetically-pleasing qualities.  The result?  We only ever experience beauty fleetingly.

If we want a more enduring experience of beauty, we should take out a pen and paper and get drawing.  Ruskin, who wrote several instructive books on the craft and taught drawing between 1856-1860, argues art is just as essential as languages and arithmetic.  “The art of drawing,” he writes, is of “more real importance to the human race than that of writing and should be taught to every child just as writing is.”

Why is Ruskin so passionate about art?  What is the point of learning to sketch?  Do you really need to understand the principles of color, line and composition?  Certainly painting isn’t as important as knowing the alphabet or basic math.

For Ruskin, art is invaluable because it rouses us from our usual stupor of inattention.  By requiring us to stop and study our subject, art sharpens our powers of observation.  If we look closely at a cherry blossom tree, for instance, we start to see it more clearly: its petals— which were once just a blur of pink— become more defined.  They’re not just a plain pink, we realize, they’re a delicate pink and their edges fade to white.

When we travel somewhere, we should therefore make an attempt to draw our surroundings.  Even if our “art” is as unsophisticated as a kindergartner’s crayon sketch of stick figures and trees, the exercise will be enlightening.  In trying to capture the gothic grandeur of St Mark’s Basilica, we will be able to see— truly see— its gold mosaics and breathtaking architecture.  On the other hand, if we rush past to feed pigeons on the plaza, we won’t appreciate its beauty as profoundly.

Not only did Ruskin recommend we draw pictures of our travels, he suggested we record them in a diary.  As dedicated diarist and fashion icon Anais Nin once said, “We write to taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospect.”  By attempting to capture what we see and hear and smell in writing, we a) feel these sensations more strongly and b) cement our impressions in our memory.

When we document our observations, we should be as precise as possible.  As Botton writes, “We can see beauty well enough just by opening our eyes, but how long this beauty survives in memory depends on how intentionally we have apprehended it.”  Rather than simply describe the weather in Rome as “pleasant” and the sightseeing as “wonderful,” we want to paint a picture.  Inexact, catch-all adjectives like “pleasant” and “wonderful” offer a value judgement without providing any real, concrete sensory details.  What— exactly— was so “pleasant” about the weather in Rome?  Was the autumn air warm without being sweltering like it is in summer?  Did a balmy breeze blow every morning through our window?  Or were our romantic evenings strolling through Piazza Navona inviting and invigorating, slightly chilly without being uncomfortably cold?  Ultimately, our experience of beauty is directly proportional to the precision of our description: the deeper our descriptions, the deeper our experience.  To fossilize our impressions of a place in the sediment of memory, Botton— and Ruskin— advise we ask ourselves questions and strive for specificity:

“We were all, Ruskin argued, able to turn out adequate word-paintings.  A failure was only the result of not asking ourselves enough questions, of not being more precise in analyzing what we had seen and felt.  Rather than rest with the idea that a lake was pretty, we were to ask ourselves more vigorously, ‘What in particular is attractive about this stretch of water?  What are its associations?  What is a better word for it than big?’  The finished product might not then be marked by genius, but at least it would have been motivated by a search for authentic representation of an experience.” 

Want more travel tips from The Art of Travel?  Read how to overcome the boredom of sightseeing and how traveling to new places can inspire new thoughts.