Steven Wiltshire’s Life

and

Steven Draws the Landscape of London from Memory

Steven Wiltshire, a British artistic savant, has been called the artistic camera. He can look at a building for 10 minutes and sketch it from memory in less than an hour. He sketches the exact number of windows and floors, accurate position, and other details, without error. In a test of Steven’s ability, he was taken on a 15-minute helicopter ride above London. From that one experience of the city, he was able to sketch every building in the city in perfect location and detail. Someone who watched Steven work remarked, “He goes into another world. Absolute stillness is the word I would use to describe Steven as he becomes the artist. He’s just responding to something greater, beyond himself.” That other world is the world of experiences where he is able to access the experience of seeing the City of London. Then he refers to that experience as needed to make his drawings.

In this video, he draws the landscape of London after a brief helicopter ride above the city.