Art is a Manifestation of our Critical Thinking Over Insecurity.
How I Learned from the Artists to Overcome Monotony
In this article, I have comprised my personal experience with the experiences of artists whose lives influenced me to see a better picture of my own and how I managed to counter a depressive state of living. I was good in arts and crafts, a good reader, and somewhat a good writer as well but neglected my skills and interests to succeed at something where I wasn’t meant to. Art, for me, was restitution, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory on art. So, if you are going through doubts and need to mend things with what you already possess, please have a read.
It has been implicitly dictated to me that artists nurture amidst the chaos within. So, a painter, writer, singer, dancer, or musician is reborn when one creates a stable exhibition of that profound chaos. I have struggled with constant hesitations dealing with what should be a good career field, a constructive lifestyle, or a sensible relationship. I had trouble with a sense of inefficiency triggered by monotony, losing hope in myself was just an outcome of what should have been only an excuse for apathy. But in the last few years, I have engaged myself with arts and the elemental conception of the artist. I realized that many artists had somewhat the same conundrum as I have and so, I without flinching, began my indulgence in many forms of art.
Initially, it was difficult to regulate my time with my studies and job, but this new interest was unconditional and not to be compromised. Soon, it was a part of my life, my music changed, my phone was replaced by books and canvas, and my discipline toward lifestyle was improved. It never bothered me that I couldn’t be as good as my motivators because the effort was not meant to compete with anyone or anything but only to establish self-contentment. Most people are afraid to take on practices that are not their forte and the rest, preferably choose challenges in their own domain. But we are creatures of curiosity, and our intellect shouldn’t be hindered by mere mediocrity. So, why not take up a challenge that delivers you from hopelessness to manifest tranquility? If it worked for me, it sure would for you.
People don’t view the world as you do
Some don’t like war; some don’t want peace. Some don’t like life; some don’t want sadness. Some don’t like art; some don’t want to struggle. It has been in centuries of our existence that our escape from perplexing reality is portrayed in colors and music. But many evade the comfort of accepting art as an answer, not the only one but yes one with natural values and honest emotions. A close friend once saw me painting a beautiful white canvas with only black acrylic. The next day, he added one other friend on a phone call only to ask me if I was in a concerning mental condition, they were being friends and not critics. By the way, I was trying to paint a tired panda but later on, managed to dilute it into a dark-night landscape. My demeanor didn’t suggest to them my indulgence in something as profound as a painting rather its perspective did. Art is certainly not a monotony of gloom or excitement, instead, it is a typical expression of one’s unexplainable feelings. Since some feelings couldn’t be phrased, the only acknowledgment remains unexplainable as well. The consuming nature of indulgence in learning the unknown is never a symptom of insanity, rather it is a schooling of one’s mediocrity.
Edgar Allan Poe and his morbid perspicacity
Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most influential poets in today’s generation, owing to his unique style of delivering graphic sense, vividly. My interest in literature was solely provoked by his life’s peculiarities that made him one of the few eccentric writers in the literary world. Poe, in my understanding, became an artist when his art led the insanity to be consumed by his terrorizing view of the unstable world. This perhaps, made him more independent rather than a captive of human’s emotional intelligence. His unhinged aura encouraged the very storyteller I wished to be but was constrained by a lack of words inherited from my emotions. Poe is a poet whose poems echo in our minds for as long as we don’t hate the way he lived. ‘The Raven’ is arguably his most acknowledged work, a poet as dark as Poe yet so subtle with his style that he provokes a contrasting sense with only a bird uttering the only word “nevermore”.
Vincent van Gogh and his colors of chaos
Vincent van Gogh is one of the most celebrated artists indeed, but when I first looked at his work, I found it mediocre, to be honest. But I only looked, unfair to the genius of Vincent. After reading about his personal life, and how he went through years of struggle, self-inflicted pain, and solitude, I realized that sometimes it’s not the art alone that can make someone an admirer, but the artist also can. Vincent put his simplistic view into an audacious palette and said, “Real painters do not paint things as they are, they paint them as they feel them to be.” These words along with one of his paintings ‘The Bedroom’, in my bedroom, made my mornings and my nights, good. Each day, since my introduction to Vincent’s lifework has produced hope and belief to look ahead.
Ludwig van Beethoven and his Symphony with life’s orchestra
Ludwig van Beethoven, a virtuoso among ordinary beings, his passion led to the birth of compositions that romanticized the generations. His life didn’t treat him as he treated us, you may know that in his mid-20s, he began losing his hearing ability, nevertheless, his transcendence to greatness was imminent by virtue of his passion. He pronounced his passionate nature as he once said, “To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.” Listening to his music, while working, resting, or reading only accentuates my efforts, and comfortably, places me into a frame of mind where I need to be. I don’t find myself lonely, anymore, despite being alone. What I learned from Beethoven and realized from his art is that Sadness is a state of mind and is excusable, but we should be willing to accept it so that we can replace it with hope.
Afterward
Art is a medium to channel an impressive persuasion into a state of gratitude and peace, the two features that all of us once possessed but surrendered while on our long journey through struggle and tragedies. Being an artist is obviously different from becoming an artist, but if art or any artistic manner can bring you satisfaction then why not let it bother your imagination, even if it consumes energy and time, because what success with purpose can be achieved can’t be achieved without it. We just have to be Sisyphus in our own way.
