“Boredom, Art, and Evolution” (2022-2023)

My first exposure to Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) was in my 12th grade AP European History Class. My teacher, the affable and ardent Mr. Lawyer, imparted his wisdom to us at any opportunity, preparing us not only for our final exam but also for the university and the world beyond it. After his spiel on the painting’s historical value as it related to our syllabus, he delivered a heartfelt speech about inspiration and hope. Essentially, we were the man in the painting, with the fog-filled landscape as our lives stretching before us. To fish the specifics of his monologue from my hazy memory would require some fabrication, but I do recall several tearful reactions at the end. We were moved. We were eager for life. 

This experience resurfaced a few months ago, as I was drafting my paper for “Writing the Essay.” I was working with a painting I found at The Whitney Biennial, The Guiding Light (2018), as well as a slew of sources about technology, boredom, and beauty. My goal was to explore the relationships between boredom, beauty, and creativity, with an emphasis on the complications caused by technology. I found my topic fascinating, yet my words felt barren. Essentially, my essay had a vertebrae and no beating heart. Until I found a heart, my essay could never stand on its own. Writing about the dangers of technology helped me to self-soothe my frustrations with so much contemporary art. I scrolled through website after website as mindlessly as I would have through social media. I didn’t feel stimulated or excited; I felt like a dull-eyed neophyte scouring Britannica on a Saturday night. 

Then, as if the ghost of Caspar David Friedrich felt a great pity for me, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog crossed my screen. I recognized it instantly, which felt momentous, and remembered Mr. Lawyer’s words. Deciding to incorporate the painting as another artwork in my essay, I felt as if I unlocked history within the world of my writing. My focus until then had been strikingly contemporary, and this limitation had calcified my paper in ways I only partially recognized. Embracing the very real, very rich history of boredom and artistic inspiration kickstarted the beating heart of my paper, inspiring me to submit a draft that traveled from the Digital Age to the Old Stone Age and back again. 

Kelli Converso, ‘25, is pursuing a double major in film & television and cinema studies at Tisch School of the Arts. Growing up in the small town of Roscoe, Illinois, she felt more like an admirer than an artist. At NYU, she dedicated her first year to the development of her own creative process and artistic identity. She became fascinated with the evolution of artwork: from inspiration, to idea, to creation, to revision, to masterpiece. This concept of process became foundational in her essay “Transcending Tedium,” which asserts that boredom is an essential experience in the pipeline of production. In the future, she hopes to write everything she can, as well as endeavoring to start directing.