The 'Artistic' Temperament-

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 May 06 - 03:13 PM

Sorry for my shirty response, Guest. I thought you were one of the Mudcat clever dicks (of which there are many!).

TTFN

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 04 May 06 - 04:45 PM

Peter T., how do you know that Rodin and Michelangelo improvised as they sculpted? This is a sincere question. I am interested. Rodin made many models before undertaking a final work, at least in the case of major sculptures, such as "Homage to Balzac" and "The Burghurs of Calais." Michelangelo believed that he was a freeing an image that was already present in its entirety within the stone; his task was to chip away the excess in which it was imprisoned.

Regarding perfectionism, I can only speak from my own experience. The inspirations for artistic works: images in the mind's eye, and the thoughts and emotions that demand outward expression, are never adequately replicated in concrete form in songs, musical compositions, artworks, or pieces of writing. The work of art never lives up to the inner experience that nudged it into existence. In that sense, it always feels like a failure.

Such is the conundrum of human life. We are matter and spirit. In my opinion, how we integrate these seemingly opposite values (or don't) is part of the essential challenge of our species.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 06 - 01:58 PM

wow ~sirepseh~ very insightful ...

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 05 May 06 - 08:29 PM

Hesperis, I just saw that you expressed the same sentiment, only more articulately. Apologies. Brain cells on overload, or self-absorption, to be more honest about it.

E.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 06 - 08:48 PM

- Or perhaps you both are on the same frequency?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 05 May 06 - 09:23 PM

I wouldn't wish my frequency, or infrequency, on anybody.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 May 06 - 09:38 PM

I can only speak from my own experience.

Exactly so. That doesn't in any way invalidate anything you say, of course. But personal insight is personal, and persons vary, creative persons no less than everyone else.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: hesperis
Date: 06 May 06 - 03:41 AM

Elmer Fudd:

*Differently* articulately. (Ack, grammar!)

I enjoyed reading your personal response to the eternal conundrum as much as I enjoyed writing mine.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 May 06 - 07:39 AM

I think one can see from Michelangelo's sketches, and the process of various monuments like the Medici tombs, and the strange emergence of the last works more or less like a cloud forming, that Michelangelo did draft as he went. The Platonic "it was there all the time" was, I think, more for popular consumption. Like most sculptors of my experience, he was a problem solver -- stone has its quirks too.

I don't think, personally, that all art works are failures that didn't match the original impulse. Often they are better!!!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: John Hardly
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:38 AM

"I don't think, personally, that all art works are failures that didn't match the original impulse. Often they are better!!!"

amen.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:02 PM

Thanks for explaining the thinking behind your statements about Michelangelo, Peter T. Perhaps he believed both in a form existant within the stone, and in his personal ability to problem-solve the best way to coax it forth. He lived in deeply religious-philosophical times. If only we could ask him!

An unmanifested idea and $1.50 gets a cup of coffee. No matter how brilliant the inspiration, it's a whole lot of nothing unless the artist brings it forth into some sort of being, whether or not he/she feels it matches up to the original idea.

Coleridge and his "Xanadu" is a cautionary tale in that regard--also one about artists and drug use to stimulate the muse!

Hesperis, by your description I suppose I am mostly an introvert, needing to be alone to create most of the time and cranky as hell when interrupted. However, if I stay isolated too long with "a head full of ideas that are driving me insane," it is counterproductive to creativity. Interaction with people more balanced than I, some fresh air, the stimulation of a rich, multifarious universe outside my gnarly, overloaded brain offers stimulation, inspiration, and often deep relief.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 May 06 - 10:10 PM

"If the portion that's divine has well conceived
the face and gestures of someone, then through that
double power, and with a short lived lowly model,
he can give life to stone, which is beyond craft's power"

Michelangelo, one of his sonnets.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:14 PM

Ah! Many thanks. The man sure could turn a phrase along with a chisel.

I had no idea that "the image within the stone" was in Greek philosophy; I was always under the impression that it was Michelangelo's personal experience.

This discussion brings up another aspect of the artistic temperament: artists commonly attach psychological and mystical significance and/or fetishistic beliefs to their media.

Sometimes these are personal totems: Musicians feel certain instruments have magic. Painters often have strong personal associations with specific colors and pigments and sculptors speak of emanations coming from different woods and stones.

In other cases they are cultural traditions. Some cultures find gender in stones used for sculptures, using male stones for carving male subjects and female stones for carving women and goddesses. Tibetan painters call their brushes mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc., and a ruler is called the guru because it guides the artist in the straight path.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 May 06 - 02:19 PM

"I gave her gifts of the mind, I gave her the secret sign
That's known by artists who have known
the gods of sound and stone....."

-- Raglan Road.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 07 May 06 - 03:34 PM

It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome. The artist begins with a vision -- a creative operation requiring an effort. Creativity takes courage.
                                                                   - Henri Matisse

Lord, let me always desire more then I think I can do.
                                                                   - Michelangelo

I've decided, I'm going to feed every little addiction and silently go mad 'cause right now my writing sucks.
                           - Zaffel (whose authorship seems to be recognized mainly for this quote)

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 May 06 - 08:58 PM

"Of course, perfection is (probably) not to be expected in this world, but that ought not to become an excuse for not vigorously pursuing it."

            —Classical guitar virtuoso Eduardo Fernandez in the "Introduction" of his manual Technique, Mechanism, Learning.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 06 - 08:43 PM

and even if you no longer have the will to pursue it vigorously. keep gigging. it will give you something to talk about on mudcat. and us mediocre ones are the people in need of reassurance, love and completely unwarranted praise.

we may not be good, but we are artistic.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: alanabit
Date: 09 May 06 - 05:32 PM

I have been reading this thread with interest and wondering whether or not to pose the question of whether "artistic temperament" is just an excuse for bad behaviour.
In reply to WLD's point, I think we all have to do the best we can and try to be good. Particularly in the case of performers, we can all possibly move somebody in a way that they get something from us, which they can't get from anyone else. By many people's criteria, I might not be any "good". However, as long as I can give people an experience, which is in some way unique, I reckon it is worth keeping at it.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 07:25 PM

One of the points many have made here is that there is not one, stereotypical artistic temperament. There are plenty of even-tempered, plodding geniuses as well as histrionic drama queens, along with a wide range of other behaviors. But yeah, in the arts there always seem to be a certain amount of people lurking around who are more interested in dressing and acting bohemian than in having to actually (gulp) work at their craft.

What people deem to be excellence in the arts is subjective. And artists are often their own nastiest critics. In my experience, the better they are, the harsher their judgements of their work.

For instance, "mediocre" is not an adjective I've heard others apply to your music, WLD.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 May 06 - 07:51 PM

some nights, mediocre would be high praise. some places just bring out the darnright bad in me!

I think part of bitterness that often been detected (and resented) in my communications on the mudcat is the fact that I've always had to play tough gigs for a living. In fact I think most folk music that doesn't have that seasoning that comes from tough audiences is hardly worth the name folk music and comes out as impossibly twee.

Occasionally of course you don't want to fight for your audiences attention, but there is something very insipid about those artists (so beloved of our current crop of folk djs in England)who have always been able to take devoted fans as a given.

Most of us who live in the real unsubsidised world of professional musicianing fight hard for the self respect that the world is very slow to give us. This can be mistaken for arrogance.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 08:00 PM

Heavy rejection of one sort or another is endemic to the arts. It tend to render many of us just a titch grouchy and jaundiced as the years roll by, in private if nowhere else.

I know whereof I speak.

E.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 May 06 - 09:02 PM

I haven't been posting much this last while but I really enjoy the exploratory tone of this thread. Thanks.

To toss a crumb to follow, here's a thought:

You know how they say that many of us go into professions that we ourselves need? As in psychiatry- - the practictioner wants to understand her or himself better so s/he studies it and gets a degree in it and practices the profession.

Taking that premise to be true, what is it that the artist is trying to express or to learn or to expose or to hide?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 06 - 09:14 PM

...him/herself.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:02 PM

Been pondering your question, Ebbie. It's one for which there is probably a different answer, or a variation on a few basic themes, for each person. I'd be interested in knowing why you make music and engage in your creative pursuits. You must have been thinking about it to post the question.

Also, the answers, if honest, would undoubedly be quite self-revelatory. So I'll be the first (actually the second; someone else took the plunge under the anonymity of the "Guest" handle) to jump off that bridge:

I create because deep down under all the layers of societal niceties I perceive myself as essentially flawed, ugly, and not quite worthy of the title, "human." Ultimately, I try to create things of beauty and harmony because those qualities are so opposite to the way I feel about myself.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 May 06 - 08:31 PM

Whoopa. Was the above too dark an act to follow?

Not to worry. To all but those very few who know me best I am reasonably sane and emotionally de-clawed. It is only the deep cover of the internet that elicits such raw confessions to strangers.

Why do you create music/songs/art/ writing/performances/whatever?

E.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 May 06 - 08:31 PM

I tend to think that we each exist in multiple layers. You may think, Elmer, that you are trying to compensate for your utterly unredeemed self. But higher - or lower - than that level may be another one that says that you are among the enlightened ones who are here to show us the way. *G*

The reason I say that is because there are times when I think that I'm talented and creative and wise beyond my years (now that I'm 'older', that one is hard to put into the equation. *G*). On the other hand I sometimes KNOW that I'm substandard and barely functioning above the 'trainable' level. And that everyone else has known that about me all along. *G*

So which is true? Probably neither one.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 May 06 - 08:49 PM

Looks like we were cross-posting, Ebbie. I didn't say my self-perceptions are the Truth with a capital "T," but, for better or worse, they are personal banshees that drive my creative motor.

Entire religions are based upon the notion that all humankind possesses an essential flaw. We certainly live in a society that screams at us that we're not complete unless we buy this or that material thing, from mouthwash to cars, to make us happy and whole.

To get lofty about it all once again, I think it comes down to the human conundrum of integrating spirit into matter--of expressing our glorious, most beautiful visions through our clumsy, ache-y, aging, endlessly annoying if not downright miserable bodies and this veil of tears we live in.

As Gully Jimson said so eloquently in "The Horse's Mouth" by Joyce Carey,

"When it's raining shitstones, art is your only umbrella."

: > ) Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 May 06 - 11:04 PM

I think it was said here before, but it seems to me that a lot of artists are trying to create a wholeness or fix something in their artistic life that was broken, or won't mend in real life.   But some people (Picasso again) seem to be just playing for the love of it.


yours,

Peter T.