Art is only an instant. That is all it is.
It’s a moment in the ear of a wave that we interpret as music, it’s a piece of decoration that catches our eye that can only cover a point at a time. If an artist does very well, it becomes a collectible item. Useless and purposeless.
And yet! And yet, millions are paid for pieces of art by this or that artist. Art is a symbol of status, a way to show that I can afford the price of having an “original work” hanging on the wall.
Isn’t it fascinating?
Art serves no purpose and yet it is expensive. And a sign of culture, sensibility and knowledge. “Cultured people” are supposed to like art… Aren’t they?
Why such a useless set of items continue to thrive amongst the worst of times? Haven’t you wondered? I have done it since I started painting!
Why does it fascinate us?
Furthermore, why do I continue to create art, whether people buy it or not?
It’s a question I have always asked myself seriously. I asked the question when my art was hidden in my house, and when I saw people in awe at it, I am asking this question as I am writing this… Why does creativity fascinate us? What is it about art expression that touches us so deeply?
Right at this moment, I am asking myself: Why do I write… if those who read me already know it and those I would like to talk to aren’t interested? Why do I keep on writing, as useless as it is?
And even worst! Why do I paint? As costly as it is! Even though I try hard, I don’t see its purpose in the daily life.
I mean, I do art, a totally disposable endeavor. And yet… There hasn’t been a day in the past nine years when painting hasn’t felt as needed as breathing.
It’s inexplicable, indescribable. There’s nothing in time/space that compares to it, and yet we have all experienced it at some point. Even if you’re not an “official artist” (I’m not an “official” artist because I don’t have a degree from an academy or university, mind you!). You have felt it, if only a little, in the playful rhythm of a song or in the look of a photograph that caught your eye.
Why… Oh! Why? I may have an explanation!
Art is the purest communication of Mystery with the human Spirit.
No one can describe it, no one can encapsulate it. And every artist knows deep down in their heart, against the resistance of their ego, that they have little or nothing to do with their work. It simply passes through the silence of our hands, our fingers, our bodies, and explodes into millions of pieces that we will never even begin to grasp.
No one knows the range of influence their presence has on the planet. Yet, the bull of Altamira has been winking at us for thousands of years without needing anything from its artist.
I repeat: No one knows the range of influence their presence has on the planet.
We know about some, from Plato to Mozart. The names are never important. In fact, the human behind the artist never is. What is transcendent is always the message.
The essential thing about art is its communication with the ineffable. (For those who don’t know what “ineffable” means, it’s a lovely Sunday word to describe what cannot even be imagined.)
Art speaks to your Spirit directly. And most of the time, you have no idea what it’s saying, but it changes you from within, leaving you amazed, touched, and marveling. The sublime and the grotesque alike.
It communicates through time and space. It’s not something the artist can capture. It’s there, despite numbers and statistics, despite wars and terror, despite the brutal boredom of comfort. It’s there, speaking to us through Beethoven and Metallica, through Kandinsky and the Greek who polished the Venus de Milo.
It was there in every dancing step of Isadora Duncan, all disappeared into the mist of time, and unexpectedly we will find it on the common platform of all mortals. In the infinitesimal instant of a chord or a spoken word that moves something, that creates a stir. Or joy, or whatever!
It’s there, through anyone who carries their passion as a banner and allows themselves to be in a state of permanent wonder.
It’s there.
Like Everything always is. Speaking to us.
It spreads like ivy and covers everything with wonders.
In the end, artists are like children who love to play endlessly. , and maybe, just maybe, we are just messengers of Another Voice, reminding everyone the absolute importance of having fun!
🙂