Biography Series

COMMENT:

An author may need many months or even years of time to complete writing of a biography. A serious reader needs at least several days or even weeks to read through the book. For an ordinary reader, it will take several months to finish the reading. While for a non-serious reader, it probably will never finish. Ordinary people tend to shy away from biography book, because they cannot afford to spend so much time going through the boring black-words-printed-on-white-paper pages after pages.

In comparison, movie viewers will go to see a biography movie because it takes only a few hours to finish. However, shooting a movie is not a simple matter; it takes a team of professional workers, significant amount of capital investment, plus several months of shooting and editing time before the movie can be released.

There is a saying: A picture worth thousand words. With his science-oriented background, Wen is trying to extrapolate the saying into a larger scale; ten picture will worth ten thousand words. Why can't we use oil painting approach for biography interpretation? It takes only couple weeks(without counting the time spent for information gathering)of artist's time while enjoy doing it. Human brain is much faster with graphic communication than reading. Also the memory impression is much deeper. A viewer can complete a painting minutes in a hurry. Complete biography can be seen simultaneously without page turning or commercial interruption. Here is the basic composition of Wen's Biography painting:

The circle at the center symbolizes the earth. Every life starts from the bottom. The red band symbolizes the vitality of the life, grows clockwise with age. Each small painting represents important life milestone.