Debout devant le chevalet garni d’une toile vierge, le peintre contemple le vide en taquinant son menton de l’extrémité de l’ente de son pinceau. Formes et couleurs se bousculent dans son cerveau en gestation. Lentement le projet prend forme, notre artiste n’est pas, cela se sent, un automatiste. Il a besoin, avant de donner le premier coup de pinceau, de voir l’œuvre dans sa tête.
Plus la scène se précise, plus l’angoisse l’envahit. Jamais il ne pourra élaborer ce bleu si intense, reproduire cette lumière dorée de l’hiver, lumière chaude et froide à la fois. Cet arbre dénudé aux formes un peu obscènes dans leur dépouillement constitue un défi insurmontable à ses yeux. Ces personnages anonymes sous leurs chauds vêtements, aux figures cachées derrière d’épais cache-nez, comment leur donner forme humaine sans trahir le froid qui les transit?
Page blanche de l’écrivain, toile blanche du peintre, même doute, même angoisse, même sueurs froides. L’artiste le sait, la production finie ne sera jamais celle qu’il avait entrevue. Pourtant, il se lance, trait après trait sa déception prend forme, son mécontentement, sa grogne s’amplifient. Cette croûte immonde ne vaut pas d’être vue. Il va la détruire…quand entre, dans l’atelier, un visiteur inattendu qui s’exclame : « Quelle beauté, quelle richesse de coloris, est-elle à vendre? »
Paul Costopoulos, mercredi, 19 janvier 2011
Wow! How true both for artists and writers to have an idea of what they want to produce and yet, even with all the preparations, the final product is always different.
RépondreSupprimerA very thoughtful remark.
That's the challenge — to get from the idea to the finished product without messing things up.
RépondreSupprimerThank you to both of you. Coming from writers the appreciation is even more meaningfull.
RépondreSupprimerThe only time I have ever been happy with something I wrote was when I started out with no idea where I was going. I think you are on to something.
RépondreSupprimerSled, you have just described "creation". In classical college our teachers gave us dissertations to write on various subjects and we had to write our plan on the first page. I ALWAYS KEPT THE FIRST PAGE BLANK and filled it in once my text hade been written.
RépondreSupprimerI never could follow a preset plan...and there was no Word back then to change everything without a trace.
Heh, we are all better at concealing our tracks now that all is potential, like a quantum, until it is printed.
RépondreSupprimerWhen I wrote my mystery novel I shot a guy in the first chapter and spent the next three weeks deciding who did it, and why. The answer startled me.
".....Page blanche de l’écrivain, toile blanche du peintre......."
RépondreSupprimerVous oubliez l'écran blanc du blogger!!!
Si le produit fini de l'écrivain ou du peintre est ce qu'il avait prévu, c'est sans dout merde.
Le titre de votre essai est "Le Doute". Tous d'entre nous avons le doute. Le doute est existentielle.
John Patrick Shanley, l'auteur d'une pièce intitulée "Doubt", a écrit dans sa introduction:
"..........It is Doubt....... that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he's on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you've gone the wrong way and you're lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present......."
Ceci est applicable au peintre dans votre essai, je pense.
Vous avez raison Philippe et ce M Shanley traduit bien le rôle du doute dans nos vies. Le doute est négatif quand il nous paralyse mais il positif quand il nous amène à de nouvelles découvertes sur nous mêmes et sur ce que nous faisons ou croyons.
RépondreSupprimerVery nice new painting on your blog site:)
RépondreSupprimerThank you Zeus, glad you like it.
RépondreSupprimer"...la production finie ne sera jamais celle qu’il avait entrevue. Pourtant, il se lance..."
RépondreSupprimerLike living life, itself.
Indeed Jenny, indeed.
RépondreSupprimer"Life is what happens while you are making other plans..."
RépondreSupprimerI like the new blog background but miss your picture.
Lovely post and interesting conversation. I’ll summarize some of it all pls allow me.
RépondreSupprimerPaul highlighted what many of us feel while writing, painting, playing /composing etc.
We may have an initial idea or project (although we sometimes just let ourselves go without a plan) that we try to realise but, as Rosaria said, “the final product is always different.”
Sled said she is never happy with the result unless she started with no initial idea. I very seldom am happy with my results, no matter what. Sometimes maybe when I toil starting from a project, since perhaps to me planning plus toil have a value in themselves.
Philippe added that doubt is constructive and Paul integrated Phil’s thought by saying that « 1) le doute est négatif quand il nous paralyse mais 2) positif quand il nous amène à de nouvelles découvertes. »
Des nouvelles découvertes. He probably meant - and his header post seems to suggest it too - that even if the final product doesn’t correspond to our initial plan, it may bring about new patterns and unexpected solutions. The guy sold his painting.
Thereupon I often cite the case of the Beatles. They confessed they tried hard to imitate American pop & rock, but, they surely failing in their plan ended up by inventing that delightful, creative English pop and rock we all love.
Amen
:-)
PS
RépondreSupprimerSledpress, you are always courting Paul.
Sledpress. I may reinstall a picture but smaller, the last one I felt was too ostentatious.
RépondreSupprimerMoR, you have summarized very well the intent of the post and the conversation it generated. The Beatles example is most to the point. As for the painter selling his painting, I'm not sure he did, he could have kept it, no?
Yes, of course, he might have kept it.
RépondreSupprimerGreat new graphics here. I wonder if I should change mine too.
I guess once in while changing the graphics is part of our creativity.
RépondreSupprimerRoma, you are just fishing. ;)
RépondreSupprimerFishing? I am serious. I'm fishing ideas for a new graphical theme. I found this them I can customize: http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/koi/
RépondreSupprimerBut it doesn't fully satisfies me.
PS
Nice new pic Costo. Now I have a big collection of you (I'd say of you all virtual friends, except a few of you)
I get my themes staight from Blogger.com and do not fiddle with them. I guess Blogger provides very good material and very diversified.
RépondreSupprimerThis picture was taken by my almost 5 years old granddaughter using her Vtech camera she recieved at Christmas and it was one of her trial shots.
I wanted to tell you that your new blog header is brilliant: you the artist, with a smidgen of northern light for inspiration. Ah!!!!!
RépondreSupprimerRosaria, a smidgen is right. At our latitude we very seldom see the northern lights and when perchance we have a smidgen, as you say, the city lights hide them as they do for most of the stars save the very bright ones.
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