By Martin Anton Smith
And so on this wintery day in late September in New Zealand, I think of the artistic mind & it’s tempestuos temperaments. . .will this be the forever homeostasis? Or are the winds of change being encoded into our futures as we speak?
An artistic mind can never win in a conservative town, suburb or country. No matter how much they say “we promote the arts here” …. they’ll always look at the artistic temperament through squinted eyes.
Luckily the Art itself @ the artistic process won’t ever actively reject the artist. Of course, this doesn’t mean most art, be it painting or poetry isn’t bad to ordinary.
The main point is twofold: firstly, every bird wants to sing & on a personal level that’s a harmony. Secondly it has wider importance. Artistic temperament & its unfolding works is the thing that can question society in real time @ in a meaningful way. The “hold a mirror” cliche is terrible, but at least twice true.
And as History plays itself out & the fascists of the particular time in question don’t totally succeed in ‘burning all the books’ – at least a few people the future will truly appreciate its maker and its mark left in future-time.
I’d like to think that sometimes when I concentrate enough on the past artworks & what they say – I too am one of those people from the past’s future, who now understands it a little better…or hell! even gets the chance to know that those things were going on at all back then.
And one related thought is this: when a true thinker ages. & finally, wisens up, they realise that it’s art, fiction & imagination that holds the best truth on offer. Yes Sir @ Madam the “non-fiction reference books” tend soon show themselves up as dry propaganda. At the risk of sounding glib, I think It fair to say that ‘Good art really is like a fine wine for the mind’ – if in time you can find a bottle in some forgotten nook or cranny that is. If you do, @ you pop the cork & take a sip? Simply sublime.
P.s. One of these days I am sure all the unknown future readers of the world will finally unite, if only just for one day. For then perhaps the struggling artist who swims in a seemingly forever-ly conservative soupish milieu might just grab an infinitesimally small slice of warm-feel-goodian pleasure out of those modern day mainframe smokestacks that fill our skies. But if that happens the art would suffer for it and ipso facto so would the truth. Thus we must always be persecuted in order to be effective. So Marcus Aurelious & the stoics were probably correct – those crooked smiles on weathered faces are a real currency during monsoon seasons of (artistic) life.
P.P.S Some’s truth’s surely will never evaporate: Even if a very rich bloke or bloke-ess & their mates deem it false. Despite the chastisements we’re for the independent thinkers, perhaps not even born yet.
Anton Martin Smith Writer 