2021, I am reading ´The Art Spirit ´written by Robert Henri (in 1915-1928).
As maker I feel frustrated and very digital. I miss the world of theatre and live stage. I feel alone. Isolated. My talents wasted and my energy needs to be fuelled by real life action. Robert Henri helps me as he speaks to students, artists with helping words and observations.
I feel I can relate, and feel strength and hope we recover, as art always has.
My top 10 selection:
1.
It is only in creative work that joy can be found
I think the real artists are too busy with just being and growing and acting like themselves to worry about the end. The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfilment; the great happiness is creation…It is only in creative work that joy can be found.
This one resonates, I'm happy when I make something.
2.
Every work are mistakes of the past to build on
Every work is a man’s vision, an outside experience, useful to us in our own constructions. The wisdom and the mistakes of the past are ours to build on, and the picture painted yesterday, now hanging on the wall, is already of the past and is a part of our heritage.
And even stronger: you are no longer the person you were yesterday; the world is changing. Everything is potential.
3.
Value of art cannot be measured
No way have been devised for measuring the value of a piece of art. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong. It’s not that the juries do not mean well, or at least think they mean well, bit it is simply that art cannot be measured. Very few if any prices or medals are awarded to the artists who are after their death the glory of the nation.
Art is unique, subjective, personal, authentic, for everyone.
4.
Life is permeated with rich thoughts
We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not. Today we do not know how much we owe to Plato, Ibsen, Shakespeare. Life is permeated with the thoughts of all great artists who lived. If you are to make great art it will be because you have become a deep thinker.
I like this one so much, that it is totally embedded in the world - and you can never see anything ‘separate’, everything in connection and without borders. That's when I feel free. Everything we think is good (in a way) and everything is part of this universe.
5.
Do not state you know more or less than you know
There is a weakness in pretending to know more than you know or in stating less than you know.
I like this one, it gives a kind of calmness.
6.
We destroy what we love in general, yet the important impulses will go through.
What our civilization is doing, mainly, is smothering greatness. It is a strange anomaly; we destroy what we love. The genius who is great enough to cut through our restraint wins our applause; yet we restrain him. We build up the institution on the cornerstone of genius and then we establish rules and laws, until commonplace. We would circumscribe our music, limit the painter, curb our sculpture, we would have a fixed form for our poet. Fortunately, the great, significant, splendid impulses can force its way through every boundary.
This one is painful. I hope it is true. That all truly good art is strong. And that we can break through from-everything, or then later say it wasn't important enough then. I can cry about this one at the moment.
7.
Say what you have to say
It’s a question of saying the thing that a person has to say. A man should not care whether the thing he wishes to say is art or not, whether it is a picture or not, he should only care that it is a statement of what is worthy to put into permanent expression.
Yes, and as long as it's powerful enough and strong enough it doesn't matter at all.
8.
No material thing is beautiful.
A teacher should be an encourager.
An artist must have imagination.
No material thing is beautiful.
All is as beautiful as we think it.
Ultimately, it is about meaning and people finding each other in subjective form. It is striking that Henri distinguishes here between teacher and maker - he was both. It is up to the artist to show imagination. The teacher encourages.
9.
To a teacher ‘there must be someone who has the courage to show them’
If by standing for the thing you really believe in, fighting for it, giving to other the reason you have used in your own conviction, making no weak concessions, you fail. Such failure is success. You keep your likeness, anyhow.
You can depend on it, there are everywhere some people who will recognize your wisdom, truth and courage, and you will be repaid by having won the appreciation of such people, even if you come back, as a result, out of job and strapped.
Don’t be fooled. There are those who want to know, and there must be someone who has the courage to show them. These are the words of the old teacher before you again – get mad at me if you like – but it’s the same as I used to say when I was teacher and you were pupil, and it was such ideas in which you then saw truth and value, that made you come to hear me.
Teachers are courageous. They have the strength to carry out what they stand for, i.e. to give strength to others. So how much strength must you have? Enough to spare! To be able to carry over. wow. These then are the most powerful and courageous people in the world.
10
Great students - they stir the waters
It is a splendid thing to live in the environment of great students. To have them about you in person if you can. If not in person, in their works. To live with them. Great students agree and disagree.
They stir the waters.