It starts from Love — or “The Ontology of Art”
From Tolstoy’s essay “What is Art?”
“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?”
I am from a world where the whole concept of Art occurred to me a frivolous. Something that people who are impractical engage in.
It’s not that anyone explicitly said this or anyone called me out when I was making art it’s just how it seemed to me when I read between the lines of the most people I interacted with.
What I noticed in myself is that, though I found it very attractive to explore art and make art myself, I never would show it to the world or let people find out that I was deep down inside an artist.
How absurd right, what could there be possibly there to hide even?
The point was you would be laughed at, and when you would be laughed at, it would end up meaning that you are ridiculous or someone who’s not to be taken seriously.
This kind of a thought process, needless to say, brought down on me a sense of resignation and endless cycle of asking myself “why bother?, why bother doing anything, there’s really no point.”
I would excuse my interest to fiction, comic books, literature of the past, etc. as a justification that all of this would help me financially someday.
As I grew up and became more comfortable with exuding my artistic tendencies I was in the search for what is that one idea, that one place to come from that would make your art really connect with the people and in short makes it really popular?
Yes, I was looking to make big cash out of my work, a total sellout, guilty as charged.
What I found was, no matter how many times you explore what kind of story, it helps when you start your story, painting, poem, script or movie from Love.
Love is that binding force that makes everything tick.
Makes the world go round and as a great poet once said , you’ll never find a cure for.
All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky
The holy books are open wide
The doctors working day and night
But they’ll never ever find that cure (cure for love) — Leonard Cohen
