Art should work at all levels

I was writing a song today, and I realised that I had neglected song structure. The individual parts made sense, but not the whole. Then I started thinking about all of the other layers. Every note. Every guitar riff. Every section. I realised that each and every one of them should be as close to perfection as possible.

When analysing great works of art, such as the painting above (Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". you realise that each detail is precisely chosen and made to fit within the context and generate a harmonious composition. I have found this applies to writing, music, painting and I suspect it's pretty much a universal principle.

Great artists seem to develop an intuitive sense of how everything fits together. If you try to hold all of the elements in memory at once you will be overwhelmed. But over time, with practice, you start to feel how everything should be pieced together to create great work. Just like when learning to drive you found all of the actions you needed to perform at once overwhelming but over time it all became second nature.

We should all strive to develop this

Thank you for reading!