What effect does a muse have on creativity vs suffering?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by trevor borocz johnson, Jan 22, 2016.

  1. trevor borocz johnson Registered Senior Member

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    Anyone have any opinions or facts on this topic?
     
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  3. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    anecdotal limited experience:

    People who love their work[creativity] vs people just going through the motions[suffering].

    I'd a few models who loved modeling, and tried a few who didn't-------
    -(amazing how a model who was unhappy with her choices drained me and began to look really ugly---as did the clays which were destroyed and recycled)
    Flip side:
    models who enjoyed modeling and tried to hold the poses I wanted filled me and began to look more and more beautiful as we worked. When ere I saw them I wanted to recreate them is all their outer and inner beauty---------me. god, and a lump of clay--old story?

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    No man is an island
    and even islands are altered by the winds and the waves.
     
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  5. trevor borocz johnson Registered Senior Member

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    creative people moan there work is crap and people who work 9-5 moan they have to be at work. I think creative people have an edge though that there work is cathartic. (of course getting paid regularly is an up)
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2016
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  7. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    There's a fine line between a muse and a distraction.
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    The title is ambiguous. What is being compared?
    By "muse", do you mean inspiration, impetus, desire, a positive drive to create?
    By "suffering", do you mean something more akin to existential angst, bladder infection, privation and hardship, lack of recognition and social disdain, failure and frustration?
    And then, the question. Is it
    "Which effects creativity more - muse or suffering?"
    Or
    "Which does a muse effect more - creativity or suffering?"
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I am not sure if I understand the question.

    To me this sounds like being blessed with an artistic talent, which is able to use any *experience* to create Art.

    If not so blessed with artistic talent (not having a muse), pain and suffering will not make you a great artist, no matter how hard you try.
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The huge difference between working in an artistic field like music or the theater, and working in a more prosaic occupation like making sandwiches or building houses, is vastly exaggerated.

    Musicians, actors, writers and sculptors go through periods when it seems like everything they've created for the last month and a half was pure crap and needs to be done over. And at the same time, cooks, builders and bankers have really good days (or weeks, or months) when they're proud of what they've done and feel really happy about it.

    It's a cliche that a job well done makes you feel good, no matter what kind of job it is. Or as you put it, doing anything well is cathartic.

    As for the "muse," unless you believe in supernatural spirits, your muse is the part of your personality that is creative. Some days you need him/her, other days you don't because you already know what you need to do.
     
  11. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    9:1
    1 part talent
    9 parts hard work

    Going with the stimulus thing......if I have an idea and cannot find a model who really wants to help me find the vision, I am left to my own devises.
    I can do it, but it's easier with a good model.
    The mermaid was done sans model:

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    It took me longer than normal to finalize her. The stimulus was the commission-------and then my meticulous nature got involved and time drifted by.

    so-------------"any *experience*"?
    Maybe not so much so for me----see above.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    My question was: What two things are being compared, and in what particular function are they being compared?

    Talent and stimulus are not the same. Someone can have a talent and yet lack inspiration. That's why you see so much artistic talent wasted on misleading advertisement or trashy movies. (Well that, and the need to make a living, and some poor choices in chemical enhancers.) And someone with little or no natural talent can have such a strong impetus - such a need to communicate his message - that he overcomes his handicap by study, practice and perseverance. A muse can be very powerful, indeed.

    Of course not. In fact, there is a strong possibility that hardship, physical pain or social constraint prevents you making any art at all, even if you have both talent and a muse.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    IMO, that IS the question.
    In a metaphysical context, "having a muse" is the potential mental ability to create Art.
    My definition of Art is; "the creation of that which evokes an emotional response, leading to thoughts of the noblest kind".
    (It is a mental *mirror function*)
    I see this from the opposite view. IMO, a *muse* IS the emotional experience of the artist *essentially* mirorred as a shared experienced by the observer, as Beauty , but also as Horror.
    I compare it to a Tulpa.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    No, that cannot be the question. There is no possible answer to "What vs What?" That was my request for clarification of the topic.

    In which metaphysical context does art figure? When and how did metaphysics come into the topic?
    Well, stating your definition is a starting point for meaningful communication. My definition, of course, will be different. The poser of the question defined nothing.
    I'm not sure I understand this.
    What's the opposite POV? You don't believe that suffering and hardship can prevent someone from making art? You already said that suffering doesn't produce great artists, and I agreed.
    Okay. ?
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  15. trevor borocz johnson Registered Senior Member

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    one of my hobbies is to draw pictures of galaxies that look like something. I guess does that make nebulaes my muse?
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Ok. Let's start with the current definitions of the word *muse* as a form of having existence.
    I believe that my narrative does not contradict the meanings implied in this definition of the word.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    In me, that representation evokes an emotional response that leads my mind to a mirror reflection of the artist's Imagination in an empathic response to the image of the applied skills in his chosen Discipline. Those representations bemuse me and I want to contemplate the image in the manner you did.
    btw. It's beautifully executed and has many implications to contemplate in both worlds of the Arts and Sciences. Congratulations.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  18. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Right. So we now have - and, indeed, have had for several posts - one of the whats.

    Muse vs ??

    Then you fill in your definition of 'suffering' in this context, after which, we would have:

    Muse vs Suffering

    And then, we could ask a meaningful question about their relationship.

    But what we've been doing, which is riffing or free-associating on these related themes, is okay, too.

    (PS tbj - Space is a great muse! And it's possible to make a beautiful painting with no pain at all.)
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Of course it is. But artists tend to create impressions of Reality and reality includes pain. Why should that be off-limits to artists. I never said that pain is the only experience for creating great art, but it certainly MUST be part of artistic expression of reality.
    Beethoven greatest symphony is a testament of pain and emotional trauma.

    But you may want to read up on Buddha, who was rich, but purposely tried to discover the purpose of suffering, by nearly starving himself to death, before he came to his conclusion that Life inevitably brings both Joy and Pain.

    As Kahlil Gibran said: "We weep for that which was once our delight"
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2016
  20. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    And the universe includes black holes. So? That's not a definition of suffering, and it doesn't fill in the Muse vs What question.
    Who said anything was off limits?
    Why?
    Did he paint pictures or compose music? If not, how does he enter into this question? To me, the word 'art' has always referred to deliberate human creations that were also seen and heard by other people, and did not include dreams, illusions and subjective chimerae.

    I'm not at all sure we have a vocabulary in common.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Muse is a definition of a mental discipline, something that cannot be compared to something else. An abstraction of areas of mental creativity, the arts and sciences.
    Then why complain about it?
    Because pain is a common experience, and therefore also suited to artistic expression.
    He was a great philosopher and Philosophy is one of the Muses.
    That's a pity, You are a *painter* and I am a *musician* , we both possess a Muse (or it possesses us?)
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2016
  22. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Then, let's just stick to what we each know how to do. Communication isn't one of those activities.
     

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