SO VAST is art, so narrow human wit. - Alexander Pope
“So you’re scared of the masters?” Sir J. looked at me with calculating eyes like he had known me for a long time, while in fact we just had the conversation for ten minutes. “I am 52, and believe me when I say that I was only enlightened about art two years ago”, he made sure that I am looking at him and continued, “I dreamed of them, you know, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and in my dream, although I am quite old I saw myself as a baby.” I just nodded. I have heard of those stories before even in music, most successful musicians claim to have had dreams of meeting their own masters; Dylan, Elvis, Marley…you name it. Sir J. really looked sincere with his story so I didn’t have a choice but to listen. “Our realm of relativity – the idea that beauty, which is the purpose of art, is weighed by subjectivity, is the binding chains of most artists.”
“So without individual judgments, the preferences, the criteria, how do we define what art is and what is not? Is the person who takes mud and smear it on a canvas an artist already? (A rich-boy with the most expensive camera can just take a picture of the canal and claim artistic freedom. A writer can just write random scribbles and sell it as a literary craft). Art, although a tool of expression, should also require skills and aesthetics to communicate excellently to an audience, right?” I asked.
“Well it’s not just expression, art is also an escape, an alternative... it is, above all, a way of life... no it is life itself. So, yes, everyone is an artist, regardless of how other people perceive their work.” He quickly reminded me.
Paraphrasing Tolstoy, I mumbled; “Saying that an art is good, but cannot be understood by a majority people is the same as saying that a kind of food is delicious but cannot be eaten by a majority of people.”
“What?” he’d hardly heard it, but I decided not to push it further.
Artists, as they call themselves, are complicated people – sensitive and free, structured but liberated, exclusive and universal at the same time. Some say that everyone is an artist, yet an artist guild may not include those who do not share their eyes…or their skills, or their eccentric personalities and maybe, peculiarity – that sort of kindred, they say. Universal…but exclusive, depending on who you ask anyway.
“Which do you prefer, a letter written by hand or an encoded one using the MSword?” I realized that this guy may not know about the MS softwares so I quickly explained the metaphor. “What I mean is that the heavy reliance of technology in art, will kill art. Musicians use autotune a lot and it will not sound authentic anymore. Photography using too much editing will not appear artistic anymore. Instead of using the machine...” “The machine uses... us”, we finished the quote together as we smiled at the duet.
“Interesting. I like you.” He flipped his sketchbook to explain the concepts of art which he thought I must absorb as a pre-requisite to his art therapy. The basics of lines, shapes, contrasts and perspectives, and what have you. The Irony. Discussing the “musts” of art, the requirements of beauty, the standards... and also preaching that art has no standards at all.
“One can draw a perfect dog, all the tiny strands of its fur and the complicated brush strokes on its face…and so what? Not all skilled people are artists and not all artists are skilled. That is why I pointed out that the art’s beauty is found on the effect of it to the audience. Example, your art work was bought meaning the buyer felt a certain connection to your artwork.” he continued.
“How?” I asked.
“Life imitates art, art imitates life... if he can relate to the art, maybe he finds something in his life in that art... a sort of relationship... then he would definitely take it home, put it in a frame, and hang it in a sacred space... it is like adopting a child, you know...” I nodded. It’s hard to let go of an artistic creation because there are memories in every strokes, time in every execution of techniques, a sort of attachment will definitely be there.
“I remember a doctor years ago who visited my mini-art gallery. After admiring the art works, he turned to me and declared that if he has a second life, he prays that he will become an artist." Then he searched my eyes before he continued; then the doctor asked me, ‘how about you, if you have a second life, what would you want to be?' Sir J. waited for my reaction before his revelation.
“What was your answer?” I asked impatiently.
“Still an artist.” He smiled.