why is moby-dick such an art-inspiring text?

**The title of this post is the link to the website**
The link is to a blog post about artist Justin Quinn's project of creating drawings and prints composed entirely of the letter 'e'. In this case the number of 'e's corresponds to the letters and words in a single chapter of Moby-Dick (Chapter 55 is used for this particular image)

I enjoyed the way Quinn writes about his interpretation of the reading-seeing relationship and his deconstruction of language. I am also fascinated by the fact that of all written texts to grasp at for a sense of structure to this series in his greater project, he went for Moby-Dick. I am getting the sense that Moby-Dick is America's (intellectual?) book in a much bigger way that I originally thought.

Here is what Quinn had to say about his project (from the website):

"The distance between reading and seeing has been an ongoing interest for me. Since 1998 I have been exploring this space through the use of letterforms, and have used the letter E as my primary starting point for the last two years. Since E is often found at the top of vision charts, I questioned what I saw as a familiar hierarchy. Was this letter more important than other letters? E is, after all, the most commonly used letter in the English language, it denotes a natural number (2.71828), and has a visual presence that interests me greatly. In my research E has become a surrogate for all letters in the alphabet. It now replaces the other letters and becomes a universal letter (or Letter), and a string of Es now becomes a generic language (or Language). This substitution denies written words their use as legible signifiers, allowing language to become a vacant parallel Language— a basis for visual manufacture.

After months of compiling Es into abstract compositions through various systemic arrangements, I started recognizing my studio time as a quasi-monastic experience. There was something sublime about both the compositions that I was making and the solitude in which they were made. It was as if I were translating some great text like a subliterate medieval scribe would have years ago—with no direct understanding of the source material. The next logical step was to find a source. Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, a story rich in theology, philosophy, and psychosis provides me with a roadmap for my work, but also with a series of underlying narratives. My drawings, prints, and collages continue to speak of language and the transferal of information, but now as a conduit to Melville’s sublime narratives."