Pygmalion and the Artist’s Love Affairs

29 Aug 2018 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

When I first heard the myth of Pygmalion, I took it literally.  I thought it was about a sculptor who made a statue of a beautiful woman.  She was so beautiful that he fell in love with her.  Pygmalion (the sculptor) implored the gods to bring his statue to life, so that he could have a life with his creation.  I first thought that the sculpture being a beautiful woman was what caused Pygmalion to fall in love with her.  I read the story differently now.

An artist falls in love with each creation that comes out well.  Deeply in love.  I have some songs of my own which I love deeply.  I listen to them with enraptured delight.  I have certain poems that I feel the same about.  Now a poem or a song can’t come to life.  But that doesn’t change the love affair that the musician or poet enters into with these creations.

There is, of course the matter of public’s reaction to an artist’s creations.  That would be more like a parent’s feelings about her or his children.  And that would be a different myth.

Art Has No Limitations

01 Jul 2018 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

I remember how disappointed I was when I heard the last symphony of Beethoven’s 9 total.  I was 18 years old then.  One by one, I had discovered each symphony that I’d never heard before.  I would so look forward to hearing another symphony of his that I hadn’t heard yet.  I don’t remember what order I heard them in, but I still remember how sad I was that there were no more Beethoven symphonies to discover.

Then, a few years later I listened to the third symphony again.  For some reason, now I heard things in it I’d never heard before.  Then I heard the sixth symphony played live when I was in Ohio.  Again, I noticed sounds I hadn’t heard before.  When I told this to the conductor at the reception after the performance, he raised his eyebrows as if I were suggesting the orchestra played some wrong notes, which I wasn’t.

Then there is the ninth symphony.  For the longest time, I never understood the first movement.  I have struggled, trying to find a melody.  Melodies are so plain in the other works.  So even though I’d heard the first movement many times, I didn’t get it.  Then I heard a Cleveland Symphony Orchestra performance conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi.  His interpretation finally made sense to me.  Now, I had a glimpse of what Beethoven was doing in it.  I was hearing it for the first time, in a way.

I read a critic from Beethoven’s own time period, Carl Maria von Weber, who complained about the sustained “e” in the first movement, “Always that miserable e,” Weber writes and suggested that Beethoven must have grown deaf to the “e” and was now ripe for the madhouse.  That gave me a new way into the 7th symphony.  I listened intently and heard that sustained “e” I’d never noticed before.  It was like hearing the 7th for the first time.  And as I wrestled, trying to think up with horn lines for my own compositions, I listened intently to Beethoven’s orchestrations–yet another way to hear his symphonies afresh.

Beethoven wrote that the true artist could have no pride.  While he might be admired by a world-wide audience, he realizes that art has no limitations and awaits the time when the greater genius will shine forth like a blazing star.  Art has no limitations.  Great art holds so much that one can return to works of great art again and again and hear, see, read and experience it as if for the first time.  While my ear has listened to all 9 of Beethoven’s symphonies, my soul hasn’t heard all that is in them.  I can keep coming back, and discover Beethoven’s 9 symphonies for the first time.

Criticism: Only Sophisticated Opinion

15 Jun 2017 1 Comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Of course the things that I like are better than the things that other people like.  I can bring intelligence and learning to support my likes and show why they are better than what other people like.  That is the way of the critic.  But for all the presumption of criticism, the reasons critics adduce for the arts they approve of are dressed up opinion.

Lately nihilism is en vogue.  “Moonlight” and “Manchester by the Sea” are examples.  This is because intelligent people today fancy themselves quasi existentialists and emulate Kierkegaard but without God.  Everything is meaningless and human effort is doomed to failure.  So they will come up with sophisticated reasons why art that favours this world view (their world view) is good.  I’ve been to Manchester, Mass.  I went there because Singing Beach is there and it is a beautiful beach and a solace from the frenetic pace of Boston.  Manchester is a place of peace, not a symbol for quasi existentialism.  My Manchester by the Sea and everything it means to me is as sophisticated as the Academy Award winning movie and everything it stands for.

We all have our likes and dislikes.  In school, they taught me “appreciation” for things I didn’t understand.  And to a large extent, they succeeded.  I now can appreciate things I didn’t like that much, before.  This has made my world expand and I am richer for it.  And the habit I acquired of appreciation continues.  There are certain arts I don’t like and I don’t bother with trying to appreciate.  And I think that this is a character defect in me.  But I can appreciate the fact that others appreciate those arts.  When I was younger, I would try to convince others that the arts they like, but I don’t, are inferior arts.  Now I affirm the likes of others.  That I may not like those arts is to my detriment.  But to assault the likes of others is mean spirited.

This isn’t relativism.  I remain true to my personal likes and dislikes.  Affirming that others have personal likes isn’t me liking those arts.  I still have reasons why I like the things I like, and reasons for the things I don’t like.  I will express my reasons, if asked.  But it all really comes down to, “I like this or that,–you like this or that.”  Live and let live.  I think that’s what an honest, and humble (remember that word?) critic would admit.

When Art Tries to Be Art

25 Apr 2017 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

When art tries to be art it fails and offends.  Novels should be a good story, film should be good drama, music should be rhythmic and melodious, poetry should be the marriage of sound and sense, paintings should be about space, figure, and form, and beauty is important, as is passion in all this.

I saw a movie that began with a woman walking in a graveyard, in the autumn.  “Here we go,” I thought.  Where could the movie go from there?  As the story progressed, it kept cutting back to the woman walking in the graveyard.  Something about death intruding into a quite ordinary story.  Then there are films with odd camera angles.  An odd camera angle that adds to the dramatic tension works.  But there are too many films that show odd angles for their own sake, under the mistaken assumption that those camera angles make a mediocre movie into art.

I’ve heard musicians who add performance art into their songs, so that they will be artistic.  I saw a singer wrap herself in a blanket with an image of the whole world on it, as she bowed.  I wasn’t sure of her point, but I was sure she was trying to be artistic.

I’ve read poets who use precious words, poetic words, so that they would be making poetry.  One such word is gossamer.

I saw an artwork that was a spiral cut of paper with great works of art reproduced on it.  Something about art being about art.

A good story will be art.  A good poem doesn’t need poetic words to be art.  A riveting movie will be art.  A song that touches the soul and bespeaks humanity’s pain, joy, and passion will be art.  A painting you can’t take your eyes off will be art.  Art doesn’t need to try to be art.

Discovering Art

31 Oct 2016 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

Good art affects me like symphonies.  Art moves my spirit and evokes states of mind in like manner as good music stimulates my feelings.  Colours laid together to create an effect, shapes, background, objects.  When I gaze on good art, I am lifted into a transcendental world and sacred space of the mind, heart, and soul.  Art is made of sensual materials–paper, visual shapes, and colors–and yet its effect is inner, intangible, spiritual.

I finally brought the fine art print I spent a lot of my liquid monthly income on (more than twice my monthly rent) into my home.  It’s a massive limited-edition print that covers almost half the wall from the ground to the ceiling.  I came home from church today, and when I looked at the print, I realized that the service wasn’t over for the day.  This work, “Spring Fed” by Andrew Wyeth, is both a realistic painting and not realistic at all.  It’s not really a painting of anything.  It is a painting of a square cistern in the foreground with a square window behind it.  You can see the square cistern in the foreground and look at the square window behind it, and the square window panes of the window, then look through the window at some cattle and a hill with patches of snow.  Is it a painting of a cistern?  Of a window?  Of cattle and a hill?  I don’t know how to consider the painting as a whole.  It is a magical complexity that is not an image of anything.  Then there are the colors.  The painting is almost a monochromatic.  The cistern is dark brown, the hill is brownish green, the cattle are brown, the walls are grey-green-off-white.  The complexity of the multiple layers of imagery and the color combinations create a wonderful effect that no photograph could.

Artists know that their work will end up on a wall, and that people will look at it day-in-and-day-out.  And yet the monochromatic color choices render the painting something that is even room decoration, too, and can be looked at again and again without tiring the eye and mind.  I say this with no deprecation of the greatness of it’s artistry.  Unlike a piece of music, which one can’t listen to over and over again without getting sick of it.

I have always enjoyed visiting museums and viewing art.  I’ve never owned a consummate work of this quality–even though it is a limited-edition print and not the original.  I don’t know of a purchase I have been happier with.  The cost is of no consequence.  My living room is transformed by this work of art, as I am, and will continue to be.

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