contemplating art

Note: masculine-gender-specific language has been used throughout this blurb, on account of I get tired of saying “she” all the time when I mean “he/she”. Affirmative action is cool, but I need a break.

Simplicity is the lynch-pin of artistic “oomph”. An artist must never try to say more than one thing in a piece of art. That one thing he chooses must be the driving purpose of the entire work, into which all other aspects are subsumed. If the artist achieves this, then he’s been true to the piece and multiple shades of meaning will be free to emerge as a result of his subconscious creative self, which is basically just a space/time specific manifestation of the creative Force that is an attribute of the entire universe.

To achieve this, an artist has to strive for abject humility. Humility puts creativity before self-aggrandizement. Pride sounds a death-toll for true creativity. Great artists are not necessarily humble people; but they all have learned the knack of disassociating their sense of self-worth from the work they are completing. This is necessary because a work of art must go through various stages on the path to completeness. These stages are always inferior in self-integration to the desired end, and pride or the self-consciousness it produces prods the artist to take shortcuts to completion. No work is ever perfect, but a great work perfectly expresses the artist’s experience and intention in the given creative moment. This takes time and patience.

Great ideas are something beyond what any one person can claim. They are the major threads woven through the timeless conversation of creative action we call art. For what are one man’s ideas, and what his muse? A hard-working, intelligent man may study and learn and gain mastery of the ideas of others. But the masterful fusion and absorption of ideas necessary to create something truly innovative and great must ultimately come from a source the artist of genius does not control, understand or master. Once the artist is able to recognize this, he can in humility shove his ego aside and let the art come. Rarely is this a holistic experience. For great art, though, you need only be humble enough for the piece of the moment.

The art thus produced can then rightly be called the voice of God, since it is an experience of creation ex nihilo, which is an attribute of the character of God as he is understood by – well, pretty much everybody. Must the artist be aware that he is doing this? I think not. Trees and wallabies don’t cognitively experience their humble state – but they experience it nonetheless.

In point of fact, artistic greatness rarely emanates from great, self-aware people. This is because God is the sort of chap who uses the low to humble the high and the simple to confound the wise. The artist is but a conduit of expression for God’s ongoing creative work. Great art is never made – it’s discovered. The reason it is discovered is that God intends it to be, so that humans will have an outlet for our collective excruciating inexpressible grasp of Him. He does this, essentially, so that we do not explode.