Live Like an Artist – No Guarantee of Happiness
— This week I’ve turned, once again, to Benjamin Moser’s book The Upside Down World. In a chapter discussing Meindert Hobbema, there is the line, “Painting is no guarantee of happiness. Neither is not painting.” Does either matter? Whether you write or don’t write, what’s the difference? You might as well write. (Or paint).
— How long will your work last? Does it matter?
— In a chapter on Rachel Ruysch, Moser reminds us that “not all paintings last, and that pictures of flowers last less than most.” This is because, he says, “there are too many of them, and too many are ugly or — putting it generously — decorative. Because of their quantity — because of the sheer numbers of people who try their hands at them — these paintings face tougher odds than most.”
— To look at contemporary flower paintings I guess you have to go with your gut. But it helps to be good at seeing. It helps to be good at seeing paintings. I’ve been looking at flower paintings for a long time now. Of course your taste comes into play. But some painters have been at it longer, have more talent and vision. You know I’m biased being long married to a painter of flowers.
— Another quotation by Benjamin Moser:
“When you look at a vase of flowers painted by Picasso, or Van Gogh, or Manet, you are not seeing the flowers; you are not even interested in the flowers. You are interested in Picasso, Van Gogh, or Manet, whose personalities, no matter what the subject, come through clearly. If a flower painting is to last, the flowers must be incidental. You must feel — as in Rachel Ruysch’s paintings — the hand, the soul, that painted them.”
““...the flowers must be incidental.””
— How to get “good at seeing?” Practice. Seeing is like anything else. It’s like writing. We all do it so we think we’re just fine at it. But look at a painting in person for a long time. Look at another painting and circle back to the first. It’s fine to look on a screen as that’s all you might have. But try to go to your local art galleries. Nothing replaces the way paint looks on a canvas in real life. Some people would think this sounds snobby. But it’s the same with anything. A car looks different in person than in an advertisement. Curtains. A pair of jeans. We’ve all had our internet shopping fails because the way things look online don’t match up in person. There’s no texture. The eye needs texture!
— We all know the great quotation by Virginia Woolf on style, and it’s the poetry and breath and touch and soul of the brushstrokes that you can recognize in a flower painting, too.
— “Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.” — Virginia Woolf
— A while ago a lot of people were quoting a fake Virginia Woolf passage. Right away you know something is off if you’ve ever read Woolf. This is from the Virginia Woolf Society:
“Several people have contacted us asking about this ‘poem’, which they found on social media. It comes in various versions, often with US spellings and misspellings as below, many appearing in online posts in December 2024.
‘Whatever happens, stay alive.
Don’t die before you’re dead.
Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose hope, don’t loose direction.
Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.
Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.”
— Every time I saw the lines being quoted, I decided to just bite my tongue because no one loves a pedantic bore. If people enjoy the lines, great. The Society points out that quotations that are incorrect are of various types: out and out fakes, misattributions, adaptations, and that some, are “simple mistakes.” I don’t think most people sharing these are doing anything malicious. But it does result in erosion, a dumbing down, and in the end it’s all just embarrassing, right? And what an insult to one of the greatest writers of all time, Virginia Woolf.
— The way around this is to double check your quotations. Best way to do this is to quote from a book you actually have in your hand, from your own library or the public library (or other library). It’s the least you can do. Be more like the librarians :)
— Side note: Indie bookstores are having a moment right now, and public libraries too. Did you know that most books borrowed in Canada last year were print books? Library users are also book buyers — over half of those who borrowed books also bought books. In the centre of that Venn diagram are my people!
— I can’t help thinking that a book I wrote years ago is increasingly relevant now. Check out Hive: a Forgery on my website.
— We continue on in the traumosphere but we do continue. Some days the news is harder to witness than others but it’s all hard. We used to try to console each other, ourselves, we who write blogs. But there’s no consolation possible for what we’re living through, and we’re living through the difficult times relatively easily. At least I hope you are.
— I have no answers for anything these days. I’m trying to write down details. Remembering. Looking. I’m trying to keep my bearings in the forest of the world as it is now. I’m noting rhythms, I’m trying to catch the wave in my mind, I’m checking my sources.
