Art Now: The Essence of an "Elder Artist's" Mind

By Eli Gross

A young child draws a smiling sun, a flower, and a house. Their world is vibrant with sharp colors, an unconscious determination of every line, color, and space. Their world is pure of concepts, free from the accumulated sediment of their surroundings, without in-depth exploration or trial and error of the relationships between the multi-dimensional world and the two-dimensional painting surface, without proportions or sublime composition.

An elder artist paints while glancing over their shoulder – at potential viewers. From a broad, possible perspective, they examine whether the colored areas, shapes, and perspective are acceptable. Their technical experience is vast, invested automatically to satisfy the need to please themselves, mainly by ensuring their environment has a desired response – appreciation for their creative ability, the story of the work, or even creating opposition that will push the work and themselves into public discourse.

Throughout life, between the young child and the elder, character and abilities are shaped. Technique is acquired, and accumulated experience matures into creation. The emotional spectrum becomes increasingly complex over time, in changing situations, with only routine preserving sanity.

The knowledge acquired over the years filters what constantly rises to the surface, guiding the emerging images to the correct, possible path, in the painter's opinion. "Correct" means it will meet their goal, "possible" means it can indeed visually express the "correct."

The artist's goal is primal – existential, therefore dependent on their personal, economic, and socio-cultural state. The definition of culture is infinitely broad, perhaps including the artist's shaped character and essence, but certainly encompassing the approach of the near or distant environment, which the artist aims to reach with their work. Current fashion solidifies their activity, if they wish to improve their economic situation.

Few can ignore fashion, venturing into the free realms of their creation. The successful in any field set the example and tone. Those seeking recognition for their work will also try, perhaps not as a direct imitation but as a new line within the existing fashionable ensemble. Culture has also shaped its interpreters, whose livelihood depends on pointing out some line in the work, colorful and noisy enough to create sales promotion.

Both depend on each other, relying on each other for their existence in the great struggle of life. All are immersed in the same cultural quagmire. If one sinks, they may drag others into the depths, into oblivion.

Raphael's pure technical ability lies in archives. Supreme technique is not part of current fashion. Those who rebelled against classicism in recent centuries created new, intensifying fashions in the open information age. When everything is allowed, one must exaggerate to stand out, to exist. In the current cultural approach, "whoever shouts, is right."

This attempt to clarify the essence of an elder artist's mind reveals that somewhere along life's path, when daily existence sanctifies the goal, when information is open to all, and the way to stand out is to shout "louder," the shout is important; otherwise, it will be swallowed by the general noise among millions of artists and works. In this situation, everything is possible, and sophistication requires abandoning the pursuit of supreme technique and the story of the work, and recreating the emperor's new clothes.

But the emperor remains naked. So shouted A. Kishon ("Picasso's Sweet Revenge"), who, in his unique way, held a mirror up to us. A resounding (relatively) silence characterized the response from those in the field. This too is a method – to lower the head and minimize the body's outline until the storm passes. It should be noted that the method succeeded.

Note: These words do not represent my personal approach to creation. I will discuss that at another time.