Back To The Artist and The Craftsman

We're circling back to our discussion of the artist and the craftsman at work. Our little break to refresh our sense of balance in our own work serves as our launch pad.

The artist and the craftsman both need balance, in the same way we do. We might easily see this in the craftsman's work. But what of the artist? Do we have an impression that the artist by his or her very nature is more mercurial, sometimes even emotionally unbalanced, even crazy? 

It's certainly possible that some are. Immediately the image of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" pops up, along with the fact that he apparently cut off his own ear, and ultimately committed suicide. But such facts are not essential to him as an artist. He did have emotional problems, but that wasn't some singular motivator for his art. Look at his body of work, and you can see variety, albeit an unusual perception of color and shape that did unfold in his later years.

Switching to music - first classical - let's check in on Beethoven and Brahms. We think of Beethoven as an emotional whirlwind, shaking up the musical world, innovating, creating new combinations of sound and orchestration. Add to this that a large portion of his work was composed as he became progressively deaf. (Indeed his monumental and revolutionary 9th Symphony was composed when he was finally totally deaf!) Try to imagine the frustrating emotions that he had to struggle with in this matter alone. Yet he worked steadily until the day he died. If he had no balance - at least when it came to how he went about composing his music - we would have no Beethoven.  

Brahms, on the other hand, was a man of completely different character. He did not rage at the world, at tradition, and did not suffer from any ailment to compare with Beethoven's deafness. His creations were not intended to revolutionize music. But they were no less creative in the tonal and structural composition. 

(We might note here that beauty comes in many different forms.)

Switching to rock or pop musicians, these must have some part of their lives segregated to their art - such as it is. Even those whose lives are addled, even ended, because of alcohol and drug abuse, or other forms of dissipation, had at least some parts of their days or nights devoted to their art. 

Dancers can serve as a most striking example of daily dedication and the balance required to stick with it. Ballet would of course be the supreme example. If you've ever witnessed a live performance, you would have been in awe of the physical control and expressiveness that a human being can exhibit in conveying this art form. But all dancers share the need to keep their bodies in good form to respond to the extraordinary demands put on them. 

I guess the common thread of these and all who we consider (or who consider themselves) artists is the need to keep their days and nights under some form of discipline. Thus some kind of balance is required to keep alive the artistic expression and protect it from the sometimes all too natural inclinations of fallen human nature. 

Fact is, art requires some sort of steady, persistent work. It's not just some whimsical inspiration that somehow comes up willy-nilly in the course of a day or night. Sure, inspiration can and does play a role. It can start the ball rolling. But for the really accomplished artist, it cannot be the mainstay of their success. It's the work that goes into shaping their art form into something (ideally true, good, and beautiful) that really does the trick. 

Now, on this matter of "true, good, and beautiful," let's concede that there's a lot of purported "art" out there that's far from being, under any definition, beautiful. But that's a subject for another time.

The key point here is the need for some semblance of balance that fosters the disciplined process that is needed to produce art of any kind.

We'll have more to say about this next time. 

 

Happy Easter!