I like the following quote from Georges Seurat especially because of the last phrase, "...the vision peculiar to each artist." So simple yet so true.
"Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist."
- Georges Seurat
A French painter, Seurat is from the neo-impressionism movement, and is most known for his pointillism style of painting, (an amazing-looking style of impressionism using dots). He studied color theories his whole life; experimenting with different ways of representing form, and definitely had a unique and original vision.
I took guitar lessons for a short while once and my teacher told me that anybody can repetitiously learn to play scales really fast and that may sound awesome to some people, (as he easily demonstrated). But the real challenge is to develop a style that, when anyone hears just a bit of it, they instantly know that it's your work. I rarely play guitar anymore but I never forgot that lesson he taught me that day, and It's a good example of what I think Seurat is saying in the above quote.
Everything hasn't been done because there is always new days, new people, new ideas. I believe each of us has in them a vast potential for uniquely individual creativity, expressible in an infinite number of ways. This idea, simple but powerful; is part of the reason I am an artist. I find joy in the search for the expression of my soul. A fingerprint of the soul if you will, is what I am after and what each of us has the potential to express. Every method for expressing this is equally valid, the real value being the particular vision of each person.
I took guitar lessons for a short while once and my teacher told me that anybody can repetitiously learn to play scales really fast and that may sound awesome to some people, (as he easily demonstrated). But the real challenge is to develop a style that, when anyone hears just a bit of it, they instantly know that it's your work. I rarely play guitar anymore but I never forgot that lesson he taught me that day, and It's a good example of what I think Seurat is saying in the above quote.
Everything hasn't been done because there is always new days, new people, new ideas. I believe each of us has in them a vast potential for uniquely individual creativity, expressible in an infinite number of ways. This idea, simple but powerful; is part of the reason I am an artist. I find joy in the search for the expression of my soul. A fingerprint of the soul if you will, is what I am after and what each of us has the potential to express. Every method for expressing this is equally valid, the real value being the particular vision of each person.
Forest at Pontaubert, 1881, Georges Seurat.
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