When we create art we do it with one eye fixed dimly on the work, from the vantage point of our audience. We do art because it puts into form, deep emotions and perspectives that have to come out.
But communicating an art form isn’t quite as satisfying if it isn’t appreciated hopefully during our own lifetimes. We’d like for everyone to respond to that expression with favor, wonder and awe.
And that rarely happens. Actually it never happens that EVERYONE responds that way.
So we might bend our form a little bit for the sake of the masses. Or when you make music professionally like I do, you are almost always required to bend and even emulate forms that have little to do with your own expression.
So the trick there is to find the art of that. You still have to be truthful in your expression. It needs “heart” even when you work for hire. If you don’t, the work sounds sterile and lifeless.
Whether it be for a job or for just appealing to a large audience, bending our own expressions to that of a required theme or form, can be frustrating. But when we do, we’re in good company and there are good examples of how it can be done with integrity.
Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci might have been very familiar with the inner battle to remain inspired while being supported by the Roman Catholic Church for most of their works. “Christ, if I have to paint one more religious image!!…” You could say their day gig was working in marketing for religion. Still look at the work. Inspiring and transcendent.
Once can wonder what their art would have reflected had they been supported to create freely without requirements of form. Could it be that the work would have been sublimely rooted in the their minds and hearts down to the core? Imagine that!
