Showing posts with label Van Gogh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Van Gogh. Show all posts

The Mania of Owning Things

Some of the paintings of great artists are concealed in safes and the owners, who spent millions in purchasing them, guard them as though the paintings themselves are prisoners that someone might attempt to rescue. Such is the case with many priceless jewels whose owners wear replicas for fear of theft, while the originals are stashed away somewhere and never seen.

How strange it is that beauty is thus confined! And how wonderful that no one has (as yet) managed to own the sun or the moon, the stars or the ocean, for surely, if they could, someone would by now have hidden it away and relished the fact that they owned these things, while having no appreciation of their beauty.

There are items and treasures of people of the past, which miser-like some people take great pride in possessing. If such things came into my hands, I would want them out for anyone to see - anyone, that is, who appreciated their beauty. There would be no pride on my part in owning them. How could there be? After all, how can some be proud of owning a Rembrandt or Van Gogh, a Rolls Royce or a diamond that they didn't actually create themself? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to be proud to possess someone else's work...makes even less sense to then stash it away in an archive, cupboard or simply brag that you happen to 'own' it. The only pride is in creating something, and even then, the pride can only come in the delight it brings to other people. Possessing something is nothing,. Sharing something is joyful. Pride doesn't come into it.

What bizarre notions humanity has about 'owning' things.
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"O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!"

"O let me not be mad, not mad sweet heaven!
Keep me in temper. I would not be mad!" said King Lear.
Queen Victoria, tapping on her forehead, uttered, "My nerves! My nerves!"

So many artists so feebly attempt to imitate a kind of insanity or sense of being 'different' and the difference is what makes them the same. What is madness and what is sanity anyway? Van Gogh, John Clare and countless other artists tapping at their foreheads and unable to stand the way the world works or their own demons come over with a kind of genius now. People who were once described as 'village idiots' often turned out to be the wisest of all. In some cultures, what we call madness is revered.

Obviously, not including behaviours that harm ourselves or others, does insanity simply mean an inability to 'fit' what is expected? What of the madness of entire regimes that commit genocide or stifle the soul? Often led by madmen (Hitler, Stalin and the like) in their day, these regimes are seen as sane and those who stand outside them are mad. In ancient times, madness was seen as 'possession by the devil' and it's interesting to observe that many of the leaders of horrendous regimes, who managed to brainwash nations, were haunted by their own demons - not an external 'devil' but their own insecurities and fears.

We live in such a structured society that, for all the over-the-top attempts at political correctness, any variation from the norm is seen as 'madness'. It's sometimes fashionable among artists to pretend to be 'a bit mad' - it's kind of 'cool' to be off-the-wall, but I find most of those who want to be 'off-the-wall' are very much on-the-wall - rather like those who defied wearing particular clothes in the 60s because they were seen as 'uniform', and so they created their own uniform of jeans etc. Those in suits were the outsiders - the mad ones - then. In the days when anything (except not fitting in with political correctness) goes, the real genius lies in not even being aware of what is normal or expected.
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There Is So Much More....


Perhaps it is dangerous to say that, amid the chaos of economies crashing and banks and bail outs and everything else in the news, I believe that what is now being reported so widely, is not so great a catastrophe as the loss of individual self-expression and the deep appreciation of beauty and freedom. What is happening, to my mind, is the natural outcome of a world where we have lost our way as far as individual freedom and the recognition of beauty goes. If we hang our hopes on economics, and let art be defined by unmade beds, piles of bricks, lights turned on and off, thrown-together things by those who are afraid to say, "The King is in the altogether," what can we expect? A throw-away society, depending on nothing of substance is bound to end up with nothing.

Happily, in spite of what they would have us believe, all is not lost.

That which is truly beautiful always prevails in the long run. That which is truly beautiful is always individual, original and free of the constraints of trying to be fashionable or living up to anyone else's standards or the general consensus of 'it must be this way...it must be that way...'

Isn't it fascination (aside from the power of individual thought and the circumstances we create for ourselves) that so many artists who were not recognised in their lifetime, now have their paintings stored in safes and selling for millions? It was ever thus, I think. The vast majority of us, most of the time, are asleep and want to be told what to do, what to think, what is good, what is bad. Whether these instructions come from governments, churches or are the acting-out of our childhood, we feel safe that way, because, when it all goes wrong, we have someone to blame. Hence, the individuals who couldn't fit into that - like Van Gogh or John Claire - ended up in 'asylums,' and then, when their art is recognised, along come those trying to emulate that 'madness' by trying to shock. It's so passé and unoriginal!

Looking for true beauty, it is so wonderful to come across truly original eyes - the kind of work that makes you stand back and think, "Yes!!! There are people who don't give a damn for what is said to be the norm because they are real artists and truly have an eye for the real!" There are several websites that seem to me to speak this way. I love this page filled with Heinrich Heine quotations and beautiful pictures and messages:

http://ravengrrl.blogspot.com/2007/04/wandering-meditation-on-life-art-trees.html

I love all the loveliness in this site, by Tom:

http://www.tkinter.smig.net/

And I truly love the beauty of the brilliant photography of André Hilliard, whose orchids photograph appears above:

http://www.andrehilliard.com/

So, we think the collapse of banks is so important? Maybe it is on one level. At the same time, there is more to life, and when we stop listening to the fluster and control-stuff, and think for ourselves, we can see that there are brilliant people all around us and there is far more to life than what goes on in 'The City'. We don't have to live in boxes. We don't have to be protected or told what is beautiful. We need only open our eyes and see that there are geniuses everywhere, and I, for one, am honoured to have seen some of their work.
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