{"id":48019,"date":"2022-10-06T11:42:52","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T11:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=48019"},"modified":"2022-10-06T11:42:55","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T11:42:55","slug":"the-art-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/10\/06\/the-art-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Art."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple of days ago I had an interesting realization.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it went like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018People don\u2019t create abstract art.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned this to an artist who’s a client, and she was puzzled by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She creates abstract paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People express themselves in ways that we might CALL abstract art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not the goal of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s merely a label, a made-up categorization like we always do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art is ultimately about creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about personal, inspired, boundless expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s life being endlessly flexible and flowing, fascinating and touching, weird and wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it doesn\u2019t really matter whether we can put it in a box or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The box is unimportant (unless it’s a real box, used by an artist).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reminded me of some other things I saw not too long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because we have the tendency to make the steps of the process and the build-up and the materials far too important, if you ask me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technique is merely a way to get to a result, but the result is never really about technique, or the sum of techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can definitely help translate the natural, raw expression and ideas that arise out of nowhere into something tangible, and it can give the artist more tricks to make it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it shouldn\u2019t be regarded as the most important element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This also goes for coaching or spiritual philosophies like Buddhism, to name just a few things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can get really good at something in a technical sense or well-equipped on an intellectual level, but that is never really the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddhism is not about becoming a really good Buddhist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coaching is not about being nothing but a technical virtuoso with a million well-rehearsed questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technique becomes most interesting, in most cases, when it\u2019s somehow left behind, mostly invisible and completely transcended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes sense to regard a photorealistic painting as technically superior to an abstract canvas with some white paint and a bottle cap in the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is it, really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not even the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What seems the most elemental and most exciting thing to me, is expression itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who cares what that\u2019s called?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @socialcut, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of days ago I had an interesting realization. And it went like this: \u2018People don\u2019t create abstract art.\u2019 They don\u2019t. I mentioned this to an artist who’s a client, and she was puzzled by it. She creates abstract paintings. So I explained. People express themselves in ways that we might CALL abstract art. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,96,117,100,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48021,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019\/revisions\/48021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}