Another tardy post! Who could ever have guessed...
Today's post is it for this week. I'll be back on Monday with more of my usual blend of nonsense, insight, and filibustering.
Until then...
Tim
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Back in the summer, I read in one of John O'Donohue's books that it is so strange how one minute we do not exist and, in the next minute, we are here.
What is stranger still is how rarely this is discussed. Where do we come from?
No one truly knows. But people discuss what they could not reasonably know the truth about all the time- the supernatural, what it is like to be a bird, why the Patriots always win, and so on. So, there is no special reason why this topic about our origins comes up so infrequently.
In a sense I think the same question applies to art. Where does art come from? It seems like one minute there is a block of stone or an orrdinary wall, the next minute there is a sculpture or mural.
To me, a full answer to the question would consider how the work of art lives in the artist until it is brought to life in a completed work. It could not have existed in any other person because no other person processes life experiences the way the person who lives through them does.
It is a burden of sorts for the artist. Failure to bring forth what is uniquely their own deprives the world of something that could exist through no other. If the artist does not bring forth what exists only in them, no other artist will come along to do it for them.
To take responsibility for bringing a work into the world involves using their experiences and technical skills to process their lives and find the meaning in it. As the chaos of life's unique experiences are put into order, an artist starts to see ways to bring the truth that resides within them into the world. The journey culminates with the arrival of a work of art.
Creativity brought forth in ways conflicting with those ideas is explored in Ryonusuke Akutagawa's 'Hell Screen', one of two stories I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my August reading review.
The story is about a painter who is regarded as the best in the land. He excels in particular at vividly depicting those scenes he has witnessed with his own eyes. This strength becomes a problem when he is tasked with painting 'the hell screen', a series of panels depicting various forms of suffering, because (of course) being a mere mortal, he has never witnessed hell for himself.
He solves his own problem by initially harming and then outright torturing those in his power. He closely witnesses their reactions and captures their suffering for his work. He makes excellent progress working through the various panels in this way.
As he reaches the final panel, however, the painter finds himself in a position where he must manufacture one final scene to complete his work. The climax of the story is how the problem of the painting the final panel is resolved. (1)
Again, the story looks a little bit at my half-formed idea above- the creative process for artists involves closely witnessing the events of their own lives. As experience is processed and order imposed on the remaining confusion, the pieces which may come together in the next project start to emerge.
Of course, the flip side to that is, sometimes, all that works leads nowhere. To plunge fully into a project is no guarantee that it leads somewhere productive.
I think it is these creative cul-de-sacs that Akutagawa is writing about in 'Hell Screen'. His protagonist finds himself at a contradiction of sorts because he takes on a project with a defined end product yet does not know how to paint a scene to which he was not an eyewitness. He manipulates his experience as needed to overcome this obstacle but this approach does have obvious limitations.
I suspect all artists confront such a crossroads at some point on their journey. It calls to question how an artist balances their life and their art. What happens when one's own life experience is inadequate as a source of creative material? (2)
The path taken by the protagonist explores the results of manipulating one's life to fuel one's art. His doing so is fully understandable. Such a path allows the painter to take full advantage of his skill with the brush. It only requires that he tailor his life experiences to bring the best scenes for him to witness.
His commitment to this path means that, no matter what, he will not let his life prevent him from producing his best art. He slowly loses the balance of life and art for his life is increasing a fraudulent experience serving only to inspire his art. As his commitment to his art takes him further and further out of balance with his life, he causes those around him to suffer.
I read recently that 'you have to show up for your own life'. This was the second time, I believe, I had read that idea, but it made much more sense this time around. Stories like 'Hell Screen' bring further clarity to the concept.
A life fully witnessed, processed, and owned by the individual is critical to creating. The art that results might not be in demand. The work might not seem like much at all, even to the artist. But because it could not be created by another, it does at least belong fully to its creator.
There is something fraudulent about art that leans so heavily on technical expertise, on 'know-how'. Too much of this leads to artificial results in the sense that the work is intentionally created. It is based on life experiences that are deliberately constructed. This kind of art will eventually lack an important ingredient- the artist.
'You have to show up for your own life.' It makes more sense to me every day. It makes more and more sense as I learn about all the unique ways artists approach the creative process. What you can create and what you can produce are two very different things.
The only way to find what is truly your own is to show up, every day, and pay close attention. To an outsider, what such a process creates might seem mysterious beyond comprehension. It brings forth the big questions- where does art come? How did it get there? Where was it before?
Those are the big questions that do not get discussed all that often. I suppose one reason artists don't bother is because they work through those questions each time they get back to work. Like any exploration, their discoveries are merely unearthing what has been there all along.
Where does art come from? The answer is probably different for everybody. But the journey that brings it forth involves the same work- witnessing, processing, accepting that your own experiences are valuable and worth the effort of comprehension.
The process may bring art or it may not. It doesn't matter. The key is to remember, no matter what, to keep showing up, to not to let results shake the value you place on your own experience, and to remember that what you look for is always found in the last place you look.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Spoiler alert, sort of...
I suppose if you are not interested in reading the full story, you can look up the rest of the plot yourself. It is on Wikipedia. The entry is best accessed by Google searching 'hell screen wikipedia'. It is amazing what people bother to put online...
It is initially confusing how simple it is to search Wikipedia through Google. But it makes more sense when you consider that Google's entire purpose is to search the internet and find what you are looking for.
2. Spoiler alert, definitely...
Click here for the link to that Wikipedia summary I reference in the earlier footnote.
In this summary, there is a quote from Makoto Ueda (who is someone, I suppose, well positioned to comment on such things as short stories from one hundred years ago). His quote takes a slightly different (and probably more insightful, and definitely more succinct, and certainly more conclusive) look at the story than I did:
"For Akutagawa, the dilemma was insoluble: if the artist chooses to place his art ahead of his life, in the end he must suffer the destruction of his life."The mental hurdle that I suspect many struggle with is something resembling the inverse of that- will placing one's life ahead of one's art lead inevitably to the destruction of one's art?
I don't think that needs to be the case. I could see it being true, though, especially for those who impose expectations on what 'their art' is supposed to be. A photographer whose idea of art involves only capturing the wilderness, for example, is going to see the potential for creating that art stifled and ultimately suffocated by a lifelong commitment to urban living.
There is a concept here that comes to mind (again from the same source where I drew the idea that you must show up for your own life)- a love based on conditions is a diseased love. At some point, the conditions will become impossible to meet and the love incapable of lasting.
I think creativity might work along those same lines. To impose conditions on creativity poisons it. Ultimately, these conditions limit the ability to create.
