Artist And Poetry: Writing And Language Vs. Visable Art
Someone was remarking how difficult it is to write our biographies here for our artists websites, and it got me thinking about language and what it is to be an artist.
'Saw this on Twitter today: "Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting."
Some biographies I note are seamless, belie difficulty, seem so effortless and work quite well, but this usually means hard work. I was thinking that being literary isn't any easier than artistic -- painting pictures with words, or with brushes. If we shape the thoughts in our head first, then it's just whether we paint them with words or with brushes. I guess how good we are with the language, or with the brush, then dictates the effect respectively.
Then I took the thought a step further: Maybe poetry transcends thoughts before we even shape them to become word or picture. Michelangelo did four art forms, they say, paint, archt, sculpt, and poetry, but few of his poems survive (he destroyed most of them, I understand).
Poetry seems to be the ideal, in our minds, before it gets shaped and becomes word or picture? I guess the success of good writing, or good painting, is how close it comes to the original poetry in our minds, before it got shaped. My thought being, that an idea emerges as poetry, first, in our minds, before it takes any other form -- that poetry might be the pure form of human thought.
I've often wondered if it wouldn't be better for an artist to major in literature, and only minor in art. Language is wonderful because it transcends what we see only with our eyes. Art is restricted to what we see with our eyes -- take away our eyes, and the art is useless -- except maybe, for tactile-type art.
So I thought I would post this here, for any possible discussion.
(I was not a literature major, nor even an art minor, btw -- largely self-taught)
