Life & Style | People
Stephen Wiltshire's masterpieces
But what you don't know is the fact that the artist who sketched this detailed impression of Shaikh Zayed Road from memory is autistic. Gordon Torbet meets Stephen Wiltshire and unravels the varied mysteries of this complex condition.
- By Gordon Torbet
- Published: 00:04 August 1, 2008
- Stephen can create instant masterpieces after the briefest of glimpses.
- Image Credit: Photos by Kishore Kumar
But what you don't know is the fact that the artist who sketched this detailed impression of Shaikh Zayed Road from memory is autistic. Gordon Torbet meets Stephen Wiltshire and unravels the varied mysteries of this complex condition.
Historically, the great artists took days, months, even years to complete their masterpieces after meticulous study and countless sketches of their subject.
Most of us find it hard enough to take a good photograph, let alone draw our subject perfectly to scale with incredible detail and accurate light and shading. But that's exactly what British-born Stephen Wiltshire was able to do at the age of eight. And he still does it now – in fact, he is currently recognised as the world's foremost architectural artist.
But unlike the rest of us who would need to sit down for hours with pencil in one hand and rubber poised in the other, Stephen can create instant masterpieces after the briefest of glimpses.
Take Las Vegas at Night, Los Angeles Traffic or Some Yellow New York Taxis at Park Avenue at Night, for example: these have all been created from a moment's inspiration, almost like having a photographic memory. And he doesn't make mistakes.
Where the rest of us would struggle to remember the detail, Stephen's brain appears to lack the ability to forget them, so everything, literally, goes down on paper, positioning our perception of the images somewhere between a drawing and photograph. Stephen produces artworks in minutes that others train for decades to be able to produce.
Talent show
Yet Stephen has difficulty with the most mundane of tasks. Such is the experience of the autistic savant. While life seems to have dealt them a short hand in terms of learning abilities and social skills, the savant – a word derived from the French term meaning ‘knowing' or ‘learned' – is blessed with artistic or mental capabilities that the rest of us can only marvel at.
In the case of Stephen, his talent is undoubtedly artistic, being gifted at playing the piano as well as creating his incredibly detailed cityscapes and street scenes.
Another British savant, David Tammet is what we would ordinarily call a mathematical genius. The British press nicknamed him ‘Brain Man' – a reference to George Finn, the mathematical card-counting inspiration behind the Dustin Hoffman movie Rain Man.
However, unlike university professors and mathematicians, David claims that he doesn't calculate. Instead, he explains that he sees numbers as colours, shapes and textures that evolve to create the solution. "Every number up to 10,000 has its own colour, has its own shape, has its own texture," he explains.
The fact that he can explain this so articulately is as amazing as it is unique among savants. David is the only known savant to have the incredible talents without the psychological and social limitations visited upon others, and his ability to communicate his feelings and thought processes has taken the scientific community by surprise.
The world inside
This shows how little is still known about both autism and the savant phenomenon. For most, the disorder is characterised by developmental delays affecting an individual's understanding of body language and the spoken and written word, making social interaction extremely awkward or even terrifying. Thus, they prefer to isolate themselves in their own closed ‘bubble'.
For example, Stephen was diagnosed as being autistic at an early age after remaining mute and insular, and suffering from regular violent tantrums. At the age of five he was sent to Queensmill School for children with special needs in London, where it was quickly noticed how much he enjoyed drawing, and not the just typical scribbles of a
5-year-old.
The animals, buses and buildings he created had near perfect form and perspective. At the age of eight he started to draw cityscapes and began his obsession with illustrating cars (his knowledge of everything automotive is almost encyclopaedic). But he was still mute.
The only way to get him to talk was to take away his drawing materials so he would have to ask for them: his first word was ‘paper'. By the age of nine he was speaking fluently but was still happiest when he was concentrating on his art.
There are three different types of abilities that savants display: splinter skills (committing topics to memory on a grand scale, such as historic events or sports trivia), talent skills (having exceptional artistic creativity or mathematical ability), and prodigious skills (being able to recall books word for word or play a concerto after hearing it just once, for example).
For the most part, the savant's skill is memory-based, but unlike the rest of us who filter out or simply forget certain details, the savant stores everything.
Take Kim Peek, for example: he can read a novel in about an hour and remember around 98 per cent of the content, or Richard Wawro, who painted lifelike landscapes and subjects in wax, oil and crayon years after he became legally blind, or Leslie Lemke, who could play piano concertos after hearing them once on the radio without tuition and having been blind from the age of 6 months, or David Tammet, who learned Icelandic in a week.
Survival mechanisms
The ability to concentrate and absorb information like a sponge is one of the defining features of most sufferers of autism. Many savants are almost obsessive about detail. Like Raymond Babbitt – Hoffman's character in Rain Man – savants prefer routine and will continually count or check elements of their surroundings, as this can give them a feeling of greater control
and security.
So, what makes an autistic savant? Neurologists in the field believe that it is caused by a damaged left cerebral hemisphere of the brain (traditionally associated with creativity and language) being aided by the right cerebral hemisphere (associated with perception, motor functions and memory) – although scientists also warn against relying on too literal an interpretation of the functions of the hemispheres.
But this would help to explain the physical and mental dexterity possessed of savants such as David Helfgott, the masterful concert pianist who became the subject of the 1996 film Shine.
Approximately 1 in 150 children will be born with some type of autism, but the percentage of those who will exhibit extreme savant abilities is minute. And not all savants are born autistic or ever diagnosed as such.
Approximately 50 per cent of savants have some other form of developmental disability or brain injury. Alonzo Clemens, for example, developed his minutely detailed animal sculpting skills only after an injury to his central nervous system following a fall in childhood.
Not so different
But what can we learn from those with autism, especially the savant? Having spent some time talking to Stephen during his recent visit to Dubai where he spent four days drawing the city's skyline after a half-hour helicopter ride, it was easy to be envious not only of his incredible talent but of his levels of concentration.
Let's not forget that the savant's brain is exactly the same as ours except for a few necessary modifications to help it compensate for damage. Potentially, we all have their ability, as astounding as that may sound.
Stephen also possesses an aura which is difficult to describe, but which I was also envious of: the words that come to mind are ‘a pure soul'.
Dr V.S. Ramachandran of the California Center for Brain Study says, "I think one could say that time and again in science, something that looks like a curiosity initially often leads to a completely new direction of research. That may well be true with savants."
There can be no doubt that, at some breakthrough point in the future, the source of autism will be established and possibly eradicated at a genetic level before birth: whether that should be sanctioned or not is a
debate in itself.
However, just cast your eyes over the list of famous names for whom there is strong evidence that they may have been autistic savants, and you'll see that the worlds of music, literature and philosophy alone would be much poorer places without them.
M. Scott Peck's words, "share our similarities, celebrate our differences" are called to mind, and when Stephen sings Ben E. King's Stand By Me to his own piano accompaniment, you fully appreciate both.
Gordon Torbet is a Dubai-based freelance writer
Share this article
More from People
More from Life & Style
The complete magazine
Popular in Life & Style
-
Horoscopes
Daily Horoscope
Shelly von Strunckel reveals whats in the stars today
Life & Style editor's choice
-
Sexy beast: Maserati Gran Turismo
What does a bespoke Brioni suit have to do with the Maserati Gran Turismo S?
-
Things to see and do in Abu Dhabi
Explore takes a lap round the vibrant and ever-changing UAE capital
-
Me, my friends and Miami
You won't know what fun this city is, unless you are there with your gal pals...
