Post by burk28 on Aug 21, 2009 9:44:46 GMT -5
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The Twenty First Century Artist
Aug 21st, 2009 | By W.B. Burkholder | Category: Featured Articles | Edit | 30 views
Who is the Artist and who is the Man, What differences lay therein?
Who is it that struggles more or less, is it a monopoly one over the other?
It is in the minds of all men to seek serenity and peace, to stand and hope for this is common to all.
Yes, we all have this in common, but the Artist has the tools with which to utter man’s dissent. This dissent to the injustices and violence’s waged upon the world and upon ourselves.
However, if the Artist believes that he is inculpable of these same injustices; his beliefs are that of indolence. For the Artist is no different in terms of the flesh and bone we speak of; this cage is inherent to all.
Struggle is also inherent. Who is it that has not done so? In this day and age as in most ages past, we have witnessed the violent upheaval of country against country, neighbor against neighbor. Americans and the world have watched towers and airplanes fall from the sky. And while this is agreeably horrific, we enlist and unleash a nationally based reprisal against our fellow human beings.
Yes, justice must be served, but it must be served by calm and learned hands. Some nine years later we find ourselves wallowed deep in the decay of war. And to what end has it been justified. The soldier will say that it is to bestow honor upon his fallen comrades and that is why the fight must go on. The politician will say it is to ensure stability in the affected region. The businessman will say it is to regain stability in the markets.
But the Man, the Woman and child only ask when will this end? The laid off workers, the new lower class of America, the grieving Mothers and Fathers, the limbless young men and woman. What is it that they see? The world’s future lies wounded upon an uncaring street.
And yet, what is it that an artist can do that a man cannot? The artist is a part of the melee, part of this violent soup. He may sit outside the bowl separate from the rest, but he cannot deny his complicity with this.
We must come to terms with our humanity as artists. For the artist to deny this would surely be the greatest lie. It is the twenty first century and we are the Writer’s, the artists of this age. What is it that we are prepared to tell the future? What is it that will be said of us and our work?
Let us not lie to them, let us not squander our opportunity to convey our perceived truths in the most laudable of lights. However we must all confess that we are first and foremost,
Man, simple men and women who struggle, who live, and die, who at times celebrate injustices, who embrace blind thought and bias’s, who breathe and bleed just as they, just as we… We are the heartbeat and pulse of these times. But let us not hold that above our brothers and sisters, Let our combined works embrace the common man. For if not for him, Art is meaningless.
About W.B. Burkholder:
Content Editor, Troubadour 21 - Bill is a Poet, Author, Digital photagrapher. You can find his work at Nirvanasgate
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Tags: art and man
©2009 W.B. Burkholder All Rights Reserved
2 comments
Leave a comment »
Karma Qsaay August 21st, 2009 3:47 am edit
I am definitelt a member of the “Melee, the Violent Soup” composed of Artists. This was a Tremendous Article and ALL who call themselves Artists, should read this. Even the gifted need to be reminded, of their duty, their mission, and yes, even their own passions!
Carlton Lloyd Smith August 21st, 2009 8:14 am edit
This is a very interesting piece, but I feel I must offer a somewhat dissenting opinion on this. Of course, this opinion is offered with the utmost respect for you and your work, but offer it I must. I honestly feel that as an artist, I am compelled to create only what I am moved to create. What my muse calls me to create, if you will.
In his wonderful essay Self-Reliance Emerson wrote,
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
If my muse does not call me to speak out against the calamity of war, or struggles of poverty, who am I to force it? And who is to say that my neglect is a misuse of my talent?
I honestly find your essay to be compelling and obviously heartfelt. And if your muse calls you to stand for those things through your art then you must. For you to disregard it would be dishonest and reprehensible. I note Dalton Trumbo’s novel Johnny Got His Gun and Wilfred Owens’ wonderful poem Dulce et Decorum Est to be just those types of art, and these works have been marking posts of my own life, without them I would not be the man I am today. I do however, have a distaste for compelling the artist to write or create that to which he is not called. And when he acquiesces to this pressure, whether for money or expediency, I find his action reprehensible.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance
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The Twenty First Century Artist
Editorial: Set Your Work Free!
Editorial: Dealing With Writer’s Block… or Not
A Great Opportunity For the Independent Author
Interview with Cinema 3956, Adam Klimek & Anthony Callis
The Bookseller and Author: A Symbiotic Relationship
A call for Poets, Artists and Story Tellers
With Regards To The Soul
Poet Chooses Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual Tracks to Follow
Poetry, Pages and Scribes
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All works are the sole property of their creators and are used on this site by permission. Do not reproduce without the express permission of the owner.
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The Twenty First Century Artist
Aug 21st, 2009 | By W.B. Burkholder | Category: Featured Articles | Edit | 30 views
Who is the Artist and who is the Man, What differences lay therein?
Who is it that struggles more or less, is it a monopoly one over the other?
It is in the minds of all men to seek serenity and peace, to stand and hope for this is common to all.
Yes, we all have this in common, but the Artist has the tools with which to utter man’s dissent. This dissent to the injustices and violence’s waged upon the world and upon ourselves.
However, if the Artist believes that he is inculpable of these same injustices; his beliefs are that of indolence. For the Artist is no different in terms of the flesh and bone we speak of; this cage is inherent to all.
Struggle is also inherent. Who is it that has not done so? In this day and age as in most ages past, we have witnessed the violent upheaval of country against country, neighbor against neighbor. Americans and the world have watched towers and airplanes fall from the sky. And while this is agreeably horrific, we enlist and unleash a nationally based reprisal against our fellow human beings.
Yes, justice must be served, but it must be served by calm and learned hands. Some nine years later we find ourselves wallowed deep in the decay of war. And to what end has it been justified. The soldier will say that it is to bestow honor upon his fallen comrades and that is why the fight must go on. The politician will say it is to ensure stability in the affected region. The businessman will say it is to regain stability in the markets.
But the Man, the Woman and child only ask when will this end? The laid off workers, the new lower class of America, the grieving Mothers and Fathers, the limbless young men and woman. What is it that they see? The world’s future lies wounded upon an uncaring street.
And yet, what is it that an artist can do that a man cannot? The artist is a part of the melee, part of this violent soup. He may sit outside the bowl separate from the rest, but he cannot deny his complicity with this.
We must come to terms with our humanity as artists. For the artist to deny this would surely be the greatest lie. It is the twenty first century and we are the Writer’s, the artists of this age. What is it that we are prepared to tell the future? What is it that will be said of us and our work?
Let us not lie to them, let us not squander our opportunity to convey our perceived truths in the most laudable of lights. However we must all confess that we are first and foremost,
Man, simple men and women who struggle, who live, and die, who at times celebrate injustices, who embrace blind thought and bias’s, who breathe and bleed just as they, just as we… We are the heartbeat and pulse of these times. But let us not hold that above our brothers and sisters, Let our combined works embrace the common man. For if not for him, Art is meaningless.
About W.B. Burkholder:
Content Editor, Troubadour 21 - Bill is a Poet, Author, Digital photagrapher. You can find his work at Nirvanasgate
Share and Enjoy:
Tags: art and man
©2009 W.B. Burkholder All Rights Reserved
2 comments
Leave a comment »
Karma Qsaay August 21st, 2009 3:47 am edit
I am definitelt a member of the “Melee, the Violent Soup” composed of Artists. This was a Tremendous Article and ALL who call themselves Artists, should read this. Even the gifted need to be reminded, of their duty, their mission, and yes, even their own passions!
Carlton Lloyd Smith August 21st, 2009 8:14 am edit
This is a very interesting piece, but I feel I must offer a somewhat dissenting opinion on this. Of course, this opinion is offered with the utmost respect for you and your work, but offer it I must. I honestly feel that as an artist, I am compelled to create only what I am moved to create. What my muse calls me to create, if you will.
In his wonderful essay Self-Reliance Emerson wrote,
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
If my muse does not call me to speak out against the calamity of war, or struggles of poverty, who am I to force it? And who is to say that my neglect is a misuse of my talent?
I honestly find your essay to be compelling and obviously heartfelt. And if your muse calls you to stand for those things through your art then you must. For you to disregard it would be dishonest and reprehensible. I note Dalton Trumbo’s novel Johnny Got His Gun and Wilfred Owens’ wonderful poem Dulce et Decorum Est to be just those types of art, and these works have been marking posts of my own life, without them I would not be the man I am today. I do however, have a distaste for compelling the artist to write or create that to which he is not called. And when he acquiesces to this pressure, whether for money or expediency, I find his action reprehensible.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance
Leave Comment
Logged in as W.B. Burkholder. Logout »
You are subscribed to this entry. Manage your subscriptions.
More from this category
The Twenty First Century Artist
Editorial: Set Your Work Free!
Editorial: Dealing With Writer’s Block… or Not
A Great Opportunity For the Independent Author
Interview with Cinema 3956, Adam Klimek & Anthony Callis
The Bookseller and Author: A Symbiotic Relationship
A call for Poets, Artists and Story Tellers
With Regards To The Soul
Poet Chooses Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual Tracks to Follow
Poetry, Pages and Scribes
Archive for 'Featured Articles' »
Ads & Sponsors
Support Troubadour 21 by Making Your Amazon Purchases Through Our Search Tool
Browse Categories
Artwork
Events
Featured Articles
Music
News
Photography
Poetry
Short Stories
Browse Archives
August 2009 July 2009 June 2009
Stay informed
Entries (RSS)
Comments RSS)
Follow Us On Twitter
Follow us on Facebook
Troubadour 21 Merchandise!
Troubadours
Adam Klimek
Carla Dodd
Carlton Lloyd Smith
Courtney McClenahan
Dianne Borsenick
Emmanuel Osondu
Heather Ann Schmidt
Ingrid Henkel
James Lehan Paulin
Jen Pezzo
John Burroughs
John Ecko
Joseph Meckes
Karma Qsaay
Lane Robbins
Maggie Voysest
Missy Bickel
Olga Kazantseva
Paquita Roth
Shelley Seale
Steven B. Smith
Susan Walker
Tari Marshall-Day
Tony Renner
W.B. Burkholder
Tags
advant garde antiwar Artwork Blank Verse blue monkey book signings Cat Concrete Poetry Dee Girard Detroit digital Digital Art Editor's Desk English Sonnet Events featured poets Feature Poet Flop house Free Verse Garden Gigi Haiku humanity hunter Imagine Interviews last wordsmith Moon Online Dating Stories Painting Pantoum peace Photo Photography plight Poetry Events Renaissance Center Rhyming Rondeau shadows stories The Adventures of a Thoroughly Confused Gigi Villanelle Visual Poetry Wine Women and Song
Staff
Carlton Lloyd Smith
Executive Editor
W.B. Burkholder
Content Editor
Carla Dodd
Content Editor
Adam Klimek
Art Editor
All works are the sole property of their creators and are used on this site by permission. Do not reproduce without the express permission of the owner.
© 2009 Troubadour 21 | Site created and administered by Carlton Lloyd Smith | Contact Troubadour 21 by sending email to support@troubadour21.com
Log out | Site Admin