What makes A Great Artist?
In my desperately humble opinion, first and
foremost, sincerity, talent, passion and honesty are the main,
critical ingredients.
A true artist is a creative individual who is
sincere about their work and expresses original perspectives
in any particular medium. Add talent and we arrive at the
term "gifted artist", add philosopher and we begin
to see a artist with the ability to offer us new ideas and
interesting perspectives and we begin to see this person needs
to be taken seriously. Add struggle, either internal or external
and we see an artist with something to say that maybe we don't
want to see or are too deaf to hear. Add passion and this
creative individual is getting genuinely interesting. Add
honesty and this individual is aspiring to greatness. This
individual is driven to express their pain or their joy. In
this individual's work we learn a little more about ourselves.
Add charisma and this individual will reach an audience. Generally
speaking, the stronger the charisma the wider the audience.
I often Tweet that art is perspective and great
art is perspective that pokes us in the eye, and I believe
that to be true.
But to achieve legendary or iconic status the
creative individual will have to prove themselves time and
time again by consistantly poking us in the eye with challenging
perspectives with the artist themself consistently stretching
their talent and challenging themself to aspire beyond their
potential and the challenge has to come from within. An artist
who achieves their potential has nowhere to go. We as an audience
may think, 'This is brilliant! This is genius! This is the
best work we can imagine this artist capable of'... But a
creative individual with the capacity for greatness would
never believe or even think that. The artists themselves need
to believe, imagine, conceive they are capable of so much
more. So, in my 'everso' humble opinion, a great artist is
always destined to be dissatisfied with their work, which
is perhaps where we get the expression, 'one must suffer for
one's art'. An artist has got to dig deep and expose themselves...
Yet, I've just woffled on about artists challenging
themselves and stretching themselves and then you look at
Elvis! The guy was just himself! Why should he find it so
easy to achieve greatness! Well, in my definition of "artist"
Elvis isn't an artist. He achieved greatness as a singer.
Singing is certainly a creative endeavour, but in my view
it doesn't constitute art. But that is just my view. Elivis
achieved greatness because he dripped with charisma. He was
soaked in the stuff in the womb. He was fermenting charisma!
He didn't develop in amniotic fluid, he was brewed in charisma.
Every pour of his being was saturated... Here I go again on
another rant about Elvis... But sometimes life just isn't
fair... Why should he have found it so so easy...
When it comes down to it, this page needs to
be collaborative. I've ranted out my opinion, now let's hear
yours... Below is a link to watch a Ladysmith Black Mamboza
video... Pure originality...
Tim Rees
Click
here to watch a Ladysmith Black Mamboza music video.
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