One of my former students, an aspiring and rather talented artist, just posted this on Facebook: “ugh, taking art history next semester, someone kill me.” This sort of hit me sideways. It is the kind of thing that drives home the idea that one’s own set of parameters simply does not apply to everyone; the lens each of us sees through is different. What was a given to me as a young musician and writer — that the history of my arts was both essential and fascinating — simply does not fall into everyone’s conceptual parameters. Do we need, as artists, to study (and respect) the history of our respective arts in order to be our best?

Of course, the first problem is defining “best”. There are those out there who are extremely liberal in their evaluation of art and who would place as much merit on the work of a guy who crumples paper and puts it into a see-through trash can as they would on the work of one of the Dutch masters. But we can stick to some vague sense of “our personal best” for this piece. That’s all that really matters in the end, anyway. Time will sort out the rest.

After having seen the post above, by this budding young artist who dreaded art history, I asked illustrator Matthew Stewart how he felt about taking art history when he was at Parsons:

I think it’s essential. I always enjoyed it as a subject, even studying genres of art I don’t like. I think having a good grasp of the whole of art history (not just the stuff going on now or the stuff you like) allows more individual creativity. You have more to draw upon. Whether you’re aware of it or not, your art is going to be a melding of your influences to a good extent. The more influences you have, the better you will be. I know it wasn’t technically an art history class, but I learned as much from going to the Met on a regular basis as I did in class.

One of our greatest American songwriters, Jimmy Webb, maintains, in his tremendous book, Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting, that songwriters have an obligation to know the work of the great ones before them, but that there is danger in “listening,” as well:

It is a paradox. It is possible to get into trouble by listening — both legally and creatively. On the other hand — and this is my view — we run a much higher risk when we go through life wearing earplugs. I was speaking to a young writer [who unknowingly took a line from the McCartney song “Blackbird”] . . . I am sure he didn’t mean to plagiarize McCartney [but he did]. Is there an excuse for this? Sadly I write that I am hard pressed to think of one.

Early in the book, Webb emphasizes the importance of knowing the greats — Foster, Porter, Berlin, etc — as a means of setting one’s artistic roots firmly into the ground.

It all makes sense. You use the works of the past as building blocks. (For me, unquenchable curiosity drove me forward like a rowboat on flood waters, so it is hard for me to relate to needing to force one’s self into looking at the work of the past.)

But there are also those who consciously avoid exposure to the works of others. Even Webb admits to “turning off the radio” for days at a time as he writes. Steinbeck was known to stop reading while working on a novel, for fear he would be influenced and altered during his creative process, but I would argue (and so would he, I think) that his voracious reading up to that point helped define him as an artist.

I guess I’m comfortable if someone has a philosophical reason to not pay credence or to study the works of the past, but I think the laziness that comes along with just not wanting to study will manifest itself in slipshod, shallow work, later. No decision made out of laziness ever really yields healthy fruit — nor does a tree without good roots.

I suppose there can, some day, be born a phenom whose concepts, born out of nearly complete artistic ignorance, will change the art world forever, but I, for one, am just not that good. Originality comes out of force of will, I think — taking all of the ideas we have stolen from everyone else and bending them into completely new shapes. In the end, you couldn’t ever have had have a McCartney without a Dowland; a Steinbeck without a Chaucer; a Howe without a Michelangelo.

I can’t help but think it is impossible for us to do our best without exhaustive knowledge and an intimate understanding of what came before us.

What do you think? Does ignorance sometimes help or is it the proverbial millstone necklace?

Chris Matarazzo’s ARTISTIC UNKNOWNS appears every Tuesday.

• Author Bio
• Latest Posts

Chris Matarazzo

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, which is currently available. Chris is also the composer of the score to the off-beat independent film Surrender Dorothy 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, is nice, too, if you get a chance...

Latest posts by Chris Matarazzo (Posts)

• Book Review: An Encyclopedia of Tolkien - October 14, 2019
• The Emperor decrees an end to positive comments about “selfies” - June 16, 2015
• The Emperor decrees that graduation clichés will cease - June 9, 2015
• The Emperor decrees that all official documents will be printed in Comic Sans - March 24, 2015
• The Emperor decrees that the letter “E” shall no longer be spoken as an “A” - February 10, 2015

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo // 2 Comments »