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The secret to becoming a genius


Satsuki Murashige

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I guess these video's were not aimed at me!

"Who wants to make art in the dark?", well I spent years cultivating obscurity as an experimental filmmaker.

It was nice to have this safe little sandbox in which to make my work. Of course it turned out not to be so safe.

I'm not sure it's healthy to bury ones head in the sand in this way. That aside...

 

It also really glosses over what happened to Vincent Van Gough while saying it won't do that.

Lets be clear here. Van Gough spent ages in poverty while struggling to make his work. It badly damaged his health till it came to the point that he couldn't work anymore because of ill health. He ended up shooting himself with a pistol and died really slowly as a result. His final words were allegedly "The sadness will last forever". This is not the happy story depicted in the video. For that matter the Tesla story is also not a happy one.

 

I can't relate to these videos' but then I'm not worried about turning 30 (Yikes!) and don't recognise the famous actor who we all should recognise (who?)

 

I liked the cool splice it up style of the video's tho. Very nice.

I also think there is something to be said for the whole thing of spending a long time dedicated to your craft and trying not to give up but I don't like stuff that glosses over poverty or makes out its all a bit of a laugh as is the trend these days.

 

Freya

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The famous actor in the video is Harrison Ford.

 

I really don't think the filmmaker glossed over Van Gogh's poverty or personal struggles by leaving out how he ended his days - those facts just weren't relevant to the point he was making about how long it took Van Gogh to be able to create his masterpieces.

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The famous actor in the video is Harrison Ford.

 

I really don't think the filmmaker glossed over Van Gogh's poverty or personal struggles by leaving out how he ended his days - those facts just weren't relevant to the point he was making about how long it took Van Gogh to be able to create his masterpieces.

 

Wow! I can't recognise Harrison Ford! That is a little scary!

 

I was more under the impression that he was trying to get across something about the idea of being popular and how that has taken on a great importance. I think there is something to be said about that but I don't think everyone suffers from that. However he also throws in successful into the mix and here I'm more uncomfortable. Fame and popularity are one thing but some kind of success is another.

 

The point I was making was not so much about how he ended his days, although the fact that he was so unhappy he couldn't take any more is very much at odds with the idea that "the extremes of Vincents struggles were tolerable to him". I think there they are just misunderstanding what it is like to be completely committed to your work.

 

The point I was making was more that there is a danger to being completely committed to your work to the extent that it damages your health because then you will struggle to do more work and you will suffer a lot.

 

It's also worth noting that it's a lot easier to not worry about having any kind of success if you have parents and a little brother who will constantly support you as much as they can. Many people aren't in that position and will fall through the cracks a lot faster.

 

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair. It's mostly the third part I had a lot of issues with.

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Thanks for posting this Satsuki!

 

I probably won't get the same thing out of it that other people do but at least it's made me think about various issues in more detail and that can be a really helpful thing.

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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I also think there is something to be said for the whole thing of spending a long time dedicated to your craft and trying not to give up but I don't like stuff that glosses over poverty or makes out its all a bit of a laugh as is the trend these days.

 

Freya

 

 

One has to develop a zen/buddhist attitude towards the material world, as in it all illusion... that or use some form of chemical modifier, to deal with 'being an artist'...

 

And worse than being an artist, especially a poor artist... is being an artist's muse... one who expected to be the muse... leads to either acquiring an even deeper zen view... or more chemical assists...

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There were many moments I wanted to stop the video and take to task what was being said in the video, but giving the video some extra time, it would reverse it's apparent position and I'd find agreement with it.

 

For example, at one point I was furious and wanted to point out that the reason artists do what they do (in general) is not out of any need to satisfy anyone. I was convinced the video was completely missing this point.

 

The video would then go on to suggest this very same thing. And this occurs throughout the video - antithesis first, followed by the thesis. It's a clever rhetorical device.

 

But this particular point about reasons why an artist might do what they do, also suggests why an artist's biography is not necessarily that important. If van Gogh achieves what he achieves, it's not because he lives alone in poverty (chops off his ear, commits suicide, etc). It's because making art is what gets him out of bed in the morning. He is compelled by it. In other words (if we follow the thesis) van Goghs famous personal life is more about those particular cards he happened to be dealt, rather than anything to do with his art. If they play any role at all, it's as an obstacle to his art.

 

In simple terms, the secret to "success" in art is not the pursuit of some starving artist mythology. It's finding that which gets you out of bed in the morning, regardless of your circumstances.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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In simple terms, the secret to "success" in art is not the pursuit of some starving artist mythology. It's finding that which gets you out of bed in the morning, regardless of your circumstances.

 

C

 

 

See that's nice and everything but it assumes that you have a bed to get out of in the morning which you won't have unless you have a certain amount of economic success or a backer of some kind. My point is there is a danger in being so committed to your art that you damage your health or do not have the financial ability to continue your work, or worse.

 

Vincent was able to continue to work because his parents put him up in their house and his brother sent large quantities of money to him so that he could buy painting supplies.

 

I don't think you can just dismiss the fact that he lived in abject poverty and damaged his health and look only at the art he made. This is something that people constantly try to do but the art is tied closely to the economic circumstances and ultimately what happened to him.

 

Hey it's great we are talking about famous painters on ciny.com! :)

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I think it's important to keep perspective on the context of when Van Gogh was working. The clip compares Van Goghs prolific determination with one anonymous presumably current "filmmaker" frustrated with her low view count.

 

But if Van Gogh were working today, odds are good he'd be way more frustrated and bewildered by the "art" world and it's mysterious barrier to entry that often has everything to do with who you know and how you're promoted/marketed etc.

 

As hard as Van Gogh's life was, it might have been even more miserable for him to see contemporaries rise and fall based on fleeting trends than working in modest anonymity and this rollercoaster of reactions or complete apathy from an audience seemingly so close and accessible might have crushed his hopes even faster than having no one around. It's hard to know any of this cause the context is so different now.

 

Either way, It's great to remind us all about the AutoTelic idea and working for the sake of working because we're driven by more than the audience reaction. Even if we already know that all too well.

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See that's nice and everything but it assumes that you have a bed to get out of in the morning which you won't have unless you have a certain amount of economic success or a backer of some kind. My point is there is a danger in being so committed to your art that you damage your health or do not have the financial ability to continue your work, or worse.

 

Vincent was able to continue to work because his parents put him up in their house and his brother sent large quantities of money to him so that he could buy painting supplies.

 

I don't think you can just dismiss the fact that he lived in abject poverty and damaged his health and look only at the art he made. This is something that people constantly try to do but the art is tied closely to the economic circumstances and ultimately what happened to him.

 

Hey it's great we are talking about famous painters on ciny.com! :)

 

Well, of course, a bed is just anywhere one finds a place to sleep - be it palatial, or the rubble in the centre of a war zone.

 

The issue here is whether there is some cause/effect relation between working on one's art, and one's circumstances. If we accept there is some cause/effect relationship then we should have no problem blaming the war in Syria on artists working in the rubble, on their art.

 

Certainly van Gogh's life is a far cry from a war zone, but the logic (or the lack of such) is the same. Working on his art (or desire to do such) is not van Gogh's problem. His problems will be his poverty, mental issues, etc. His problems are not a function of his commitment to his art. The problems constitute obstacles to such. His art is not necessarily a solution to his problems - but his art is certainly not the problem.

 

Or at least this is one way we can read van Gogh's life/art. That, in whichever way we might commit ourselves to art (be it based on van Gogh or any other inspiration), that we don't have to follow a starving artist interpretation of such inspiration, ie. we don't have to agree with a conclusion that commitment leads to (or requires) poverty, or wars, etc.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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That's a very fun watch. I hit the brakes at "autotelic".

 

The artist begins a work in one state of mind, condition of experience, and completes it in another. This traverse, transmutation or evolvement of identity, is what motivates the artist deep down. The work itself is, one could say, just an expression of that traverse. Then again, the artist, looking at the completed work, may not quite understand how he/she achieved it. The entity of the completed work often seems bigger than one's sense of self, when looking at the work, post facto to the experience of creating it.

 

Applying, or even comparing modern pop culture sensibilities to the perception of the work of Da Vinci or Van Gogh is quite perilous. But it was fun.

In any age, the consciousness of inhabitant humans express a whole strata of values from the profound to the profane. The uneducated field worker passing Van Gogh's easel may have had a better sense of him and his work than any of us in 2016. He had a huge capacity for what we may think of now as redundant or non escential experience.

 

Concieted as we are, we in this age are in many respects less.

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Concieted?

 

No.

 

It's I before we except after see.

 

Conceited.

 

Which is what we can call the idea of art as self expression. Not that there is anything wrong with self expression. It's just that's it's not a necessary pre-requisite in the creation of art. Indeed it's arguably a complete furfy.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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That was poor spelling. Have to bow my head on that one.

 

Myself, I didn't use the notion of art as self expression. That shorthand is too murky, given how loosely used the word self is in this age. I said that if the artist undergoes a traverse, transmutation or evolvement of identity, the work is an expression of that. Well, this indicates something of the art I value anyway.

 

But of course art can be something else. A purely intellectual provocation with no sense of spirit or core. Or an emotionally charged fragment of experience that may actually be quite damaging, but is somehow percieved as cool and necessary. Etc.

 

Apologies in advance for any more poor spelling.

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DaVinci was NOT;

 

1) harassed at work

2) did not have his phone tapped

3) did not have his net activity tracked

4) was not forced to sell his home

5) didn't have some DFN looking after him from afar

5a) didn't have that same DFN try to maneuver him to be a teacher

5b) nor have that same DFN drug up his food and test him to see if he was sexually "repressed" (for lack of a better phrase)

6) MAY have had some religious zealots trying to force their views on him

7) didn't have some scum bag film maker thinking he had lived a privaledged life, and try to force him to live in the sh_t section of Marin County to "teach him a lesson in humility" and "hardship" so he could work at ILM

8) and didn't have some nut case of a family thinking they were doing "god's" work

 

No, for all the delays and getting screwed by those delays, I'd say DaVinci had it easy in many ways.

 

There is absolutely NO REASON to WAIT to "pay your dues" to realize your inner genius.

 

It is simply pure f_ing BS to state otherwise. The sooner you can realize your talents and whatever genius you have, the sooner you can share it with the world so both you and the world benefit.

 

How you handle that success is your own problem.

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I don't think the videos were suggesting one should wait for the emergence of one's inner genius.

 

Indeed I think it was suggesting there is no such thing as inner genius. Rather one becomes a "genius" (so to speak) through learning and practicing one's art, ie. as distinct from just dreaming it happens by magic.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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You need to have specific brains and early life experience to be a genius. 99.99% people can work as hard as they want and they will just become good at exercising their bad taste (or executing popular cliches). However, if you really have a special vision, then you probably dont need that much work for it to successfully shine through.

 

There are tons of hardworking people in the industry who are producing garbage/average stuff, minority of hardworking people who are producing good stuff (but not nearly on the level of genius), and only a couple each generation who could maybe be considered geniuses. And what distinguishes between them is most certainly not the hard work.

 

Making art is infinitely complex, there are infinite decisions on each level, and if you don't have the right mind to guide you, you will not succeed in creating "genius art" even if you practice for a thousand of years. You just won't be ablet to get it.

Edited by Peter Bitic
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