I have been pondering this headline while recently reviewing very talented artists. For example, David Tinsley, who I reviewed two weeks ago, who painted 3,500 paintings in 10 years.
Is being prolific important? It helps, because the more you do the more the magic can slip in. But nothing — happily — is an assurance for creating art.
Why is this? Because nothing that has ever been thought about great art makes it a system for producing it. Neither realism nor expressionism nor proportion nor coherence nor good color nor originality nor depth nor technique — in and of themselves — will guarantee great, or even good, work. There is also no subject, either, that will compel an artwork, say, a painting, to be great. Say you want to do a work on death or love or redemption. One is perfectly capable of doing a crappy work on death, love or redemption.
So what, then, makes a painting “great” or “good?” People say that judging art is subjective, and that, no doubt, is true. However, so is truth (see the various systems of string theory) and goodness (the sages have been arguing for millennium over “just wars”) to some extent, and of necessity, even. For as Hegel said 200 years ago, human beings are geist, which translates to “spirit” or “mind.” So, for me at least, robotic, though even excellent technique, or trying to work as a mindless camera, is not the way to strive for a great painting or a great photograph.
Now, to totally confuse my reader. I will state that all the things I said weren’t that important are of course very important. Opposites coincide! Yet none of them can stand alone. There are even times where you can break many valid rules and still create great art. But one must know what one is doing or have a happy accident.
Great art is a happy accident. Some artists, even great ones, say that they plan out every line before they draw or paint. I would bet a dime to a dollar, though, that if the artwork came out really great they were surprised by something and even found or discovered something — and not only made something.
In great and even good art we are moved. We feel things. We think things. We try to understand the artwork endlessly. That moving Kant thought — as an art viewer — of the imagination, is what makes a work of art “great.” Kant did not think though that there was anything to be found in art, though we just keep looking.
I am more in harmony with Hegel who thought that art was geist— spirit, or The Absolute in sensible form, and therefore had truth to it. An artwork is not comprehensible not because it has nothing to understand, but because, like God, it is infinitely capable of being understood.
I have said before that great art is transparent to God, being or experience. Therefore there has to be energy — even great spiritual energy — involved in the making of art. A flattened personality, energy-less, and without great life will — and can only — create flattened, energy-less and lifeless art. Who but a van Gogh could paint like a van Gogh?!
So read all the art how-to books you can — and then forget them! Great art cannot be taught at all. I assume that all true teachers will agree with me on this!
So if you want to paint a great painting — or write a great novel, or play a great song in addition to all the stuff that is necessary to learn —try some zen-like unlearning. Without that, we would not have had a Monet or a Cezanne, and we would still be looking at a lot of often lifeless academic work.
So what is art? What is great art or even just good art? I cannot say even if I knew, for it, like the Tao, cannot be said, cannot be told, cannot be revealed.
But don’t despair my fellow artist, or art lover. They are not different! For it can be sought for, it can be adored and it can be loved. And if you seek for it, and adore it, and love it, it will most assuredly be given and revealed to you. For the artist what Jesus said is true, “Seek and you will find”.
And as I always say — after all this maybe too profound melodrama — just have fun! For I have little doubt The Great Artist does, and is — always. Now.
He made the Giraffe! Can you hear Her laughing?
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