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Sincerity: The endangered artistic ingredient

Posted By Chris Matarazzo On In artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo | 6 Comments

For anyone who has read a few of my pieces, I know it sometimes seems like I am on a mission to downplay the arts — to take artists down a peg and to reduce the glitter factor in the perception of the world’s audience. That’s because I am. The drama is supposed to be in the work, not in the lifestyle and in the peripherals of the performance. All that stuff is tabloid bull, not artistic expression.

I operate under the principle that the most important part of the artistic formula is sincerity. I guess some people won’t agree with me. And my distaste for what I see as insincerity and pretense is extreme — I acknowledge that. I’d rather see performers in their street clothes than in glitzy costumes. I wish symphony orchestras played in jeans and T-shirts. To me, having dancers behind you in a concert is phony showmanship. In fact, I even hate the word “show” because it is often preceded by the phrase “putting on,” which, to me, sounds like lying.

I know — I almost want to satirize myself. But if I am writing about sincerity, better to be honest.

If one acts much differently on a stage than one does in real life, one is not communicating one’s most sincere emotions and ideas. Right? Would I address a group, anywhere else but from the stage, by saying: “Helooooh! How you all feeling tonight? I said, how you all FEELing tonight?” (My acting brethren — and sistren, for that matter — are excluded from this discussion. They open up another can of philosophical vermicelli that I will certainly boil to a nice al dente at some other point.)

My extremist self hates the idea of the focus being taken off of the art itself. At a concert, one should listen to the music, not watch the lasers and lights and dancers. You could argue that all these things in performance enhance the music. Sure they could. But it makes me wonder why the music needs enhancement. Isn’t it good enough on its own?

(Dancers, please don’t get mad at my statement above. I’m not cutting on dancing. If anything, I am arguing that it should be focused on and not used as an accessory to the main show. I suppose this raises interesting questions about ballet. Strange that I have no problem with music being second fiddle to a movie or to choreography, but somehow that feels more like a blending of arts rather than the use of one art as a decorative bauble for another’s vanity.)

To me, there is a difference between showmanship and the pure communication of emotion and ideas. The latter is the higher art. It is what inspired most of us artists from the earliest awakenings of creative desire. (The musicians, for instance, who say they went into rock and roll “to get women” ought to have their musicians’ licenses revoked. They’re an embarrassment. This doesn’t mean they are bad musicians, necessarily, just inane people.) There are also those who have always wanted to be on stage; to perform. That is a different calling than the one the predominantly creative artist hears — a slightly more needy drive, but an understandable one.

If the truly creative artist performs, it is because of the need to communicate, not the need to be clapped for. This is an important distinction. For him or her, the joy is in the creating, not in having created and not in basking in the audience’s applause. Sure, everyone needs to be validated — we all want an audience for our work, or I wouldn’t be writing this article. What the sincere artist needs is not the wild applause of millions, but the praise (and even the constructive criticism) of those he or she respects.

Maybe, in the end, that is why there is such a soft place in my heart for the artist who creates without fame, perhaps from childhood to death: the pure desire to do — to make something profound. If the unknown artist has accepted this obscurity, he or she is free (though maybe not by choice) of marketing concerns and ticket sales. Making good art is the only motivation, especially to those who have come to grips with their anonymity; therefore, they are simply trying to produce the best work they can, free of vanity, free of pretense, free of glitter.

A lifetime of anonymity is also kind of a crucible. If you are still churning out work without the success, you must really mean it. If you are really talented and you really mean it, how can your work not be brilliant and powerful? How can it not be sincere?

What can be a better source of good art than the life of a person who has worked and worked and matured in her art all of her life and who has never given up, even though no one was buying? She has come ever closer to mastering her art and, now, she is unfettered by peripherals like fan expectations, maintenance of an artistic career and the cultivation of an image. Now, all she needs to do is her best writing or her best composition or her best painting, sculpture, etc. And it can come right from the head and heart. Sincere and direct. She is in control of her work.

Let’s wish for her to gain some positive feedback to keep her going; maybe a few sales. You could see this as a paradoxical, but, it would be a shame if some of the world didn’t get a chance to enjoy artistic purity, for once, without the lights, costumes, dancers and tricks.

I’d be interested to hear people’s take on this, bearing in mind that I am admittedly an extremist, here. I guess everyone has his “line” with tolerance for “show.” It is not as if I want a stage to look like a naked warehouse. Ambiance is good for the communication of art. But when ambiance turns into pizazz, I start to feel lied to. At what point does that happen to you? Or does it not ?

Chris Matarazzo’s ARTISTIC UNKNOWNS appears every Tuesday. 

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Chris Matarazzo [4]

Chris Matarazzo is a writer, composer, musician and teacher of literature and writing on the college and high school levels. His music can be heard on his recent release, Hats and Rabbits [5], which is currently available. Chris is also the composer of the score to the off-beat independent film Surrender Dorothy [6] and he performs in the Philadelphia area with the King Richard Band. He's also a relatively prolific novelist, even if no one seems to care yet. His blog, also called Hats and Rabbits [7], is nice, too, if you get a chance...