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Pearls from artists* # 301
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
In 1917 the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned a new libretto from Jean Cocteau. When the young poet asked for advice on how to proceed, Diaghilev replied with a simple directive: “Astonish me.” The phrase would serve Cocteau as a mantra throughout his career, resurfacing, for instance, at the beginning of his classic film Orpheus. Not surprising, as few statements could better encapsulate the impetus that has driven artistic creation since the beginning. Astonishment is the litmus test of art, the sign by which we know we have been magicked out of practical and utilitarian enterprises to confront the bottomless dream of life in sensible form. Art astonishes and is born of astonishment. There is only one thing that it can be said to “communicate” more effectively than other mediums can, and that is “the weirdness of the Real.”
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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Pearls from artists* # 55
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Once a work is completed, I have to wait before undertaking another. The completed work does not release me quickly. It moves its chattels slowly. The wise thing then is a change of air and of room. The new material comes to me on my walks. Whatever happens I mustn’t notice it. If I interfere, it doesn’t come any more. One fine day the work demands my help. I give myself up to it in one fell swoop. My pauses are its own. If it falls asleep my pen skids. As soon as it wakes, it gives me a shake. It couldn’t care less if I am asleep. Get up, it says, so that I can dictate. And it is not easy to follow. Its vocabulary is not of words.
Jean Cocteau in The difficulty of Being
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Q: How do you decide on the titles for your pastel paintings?
A: Usually a title suggests itself over the course of the months I spend on a painting. Sometimes it comes from a book I’m reading, from a piece of music, a film, bits of overheard conversation. A title can come from anywhere, but finding the best one is key. I like what Jean Cocteau says about this:
One title alone exists. It will be, so it is. Time conceals it from me. How discover it, concealed by a hundred others? I have to avoid the this, the that. Avoid the image. Avoid the descriptive and the undescriptive. Avoid the exact meaning and the inexact. The soft, the hard. Neither long nor short. Right to catch the eye, the ear, the mind. Simple to read and to remember. I had announced several. I had to repeat them twice and the journalists still got them wrong. My real title defies me. It enjoys its hiding place, like a child one keeps calling, and whom one believes drowned in the pond.
Once I have the best title, I make sure it fits the painting exactly. How I do that is difficult to explain. It’s an intuitive process that involves adjusting colors, shapes, and images so that they fit the painting’s meaning, i.e., the meaning hinted at by the title.
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Pearls from artists* # 45
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Why do you write plays? I am asked by the novelist. Why do you write novels? I am asked by the dramatist. Why do you make films? I am asked by the poet. Why do you draw? I am asked by the critic. Why do you write? I am asked by the draughtsman. Yes, why? I wonder. Doubtless so that my seed may be blown all over the place. I know little about this breath within me, but it is not gentle. It does not care for the sick. It is unmoved by fatigue. It takes advantage of my gifts. It wants to do its part. It is not inspiration, it’s expiration one should say. For this breath comes from a zone in man into which man cannot descend, even if Virgil were to lead him there, for Virgil himself did not descend into it.
Jean Cocteau in The Difficulty of Being
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