An Artist’s Reflections
My Life is not my art
My art is not my life
Yet we are like husband and wife-
When you know my Art
You begin to know me.
Life is not Art
Art is not Life
Yet they are like reflections
When you know life
You begin to know Art.
Life does not imitate Art
Neither should Art imitate Life
For when art is at its purest
You begin to know
Truth
Nor should there be a mere copy,
Differentiation making them different,
As
Imitation is just that –
A mockery that insults the original -
Canopy.
This is a blasphemy-
A sin, not an honour,
Vain flattery:
Lip service with no voice-
Denigrating the Artist.
Pure hypocrisy!
Life
Is the reality,
Art the representation,
When you try to cross them
You get only a dull
Opaque
Colour obscuration.
Artists do not blaspheme life
They do not practise hypocrisy
-Demeaning Art!-
They know, as observers, the limit:
That life overshadows all
And so represent the beauty of Life,
In Art
Distinctly
Allowing Life and Art to stand alone, together
Separate
Apart
Acknowledging the beauty that lies within Each
Not mistaking either for the other
Because One is the real thing,
The Origin
And one is only the mirror.
Isobel
Mon 16th Nov 2009 20:28
Love the ideas within this.'When you know my art, you begin to know me'. How true is that? How and what we express says so much about us all. In fact I think many of us bare our souls here on WOL, in a way that we would never do in day to day conversation....
I guess you are going on to say much more than that. Art can become too pretentious and up itself as can some artists. Can art exist outside of representation? I'm not sure - I'm not enough of an expert on all forms of art. Just know what I like in poetry - things that move me in a none mushy or over sentimental way - I guess that springs from life....I like your poem.