190. The Search For Style

The artist’s concern is always style. It is the style of an artwork that most grants it aesthetic value, and it is this value that we most appreciate. The artist wants to develop a style that is beautiful so that the works they create will be popular and loved.

But the artist only ever has one style available to them. It’s the style that emerges directly from the sincere expression of their aesthetic intuitions. These intuitions arise out of the totality of the artist’s experience. This includes the works of other artists they have seen and their own history of art making, but it’s also more. It is all of the events of the artist’s life, all of their feelings and thoughts and perceptions, all of their memories and dreams, all of their judgments and values. In other words, the artist’s unique style is a reflection of their own composite humanity.

In this unique style, the artist is most able to be creative and expressive of their awareness. But the artist might worry that their style will not be appreciated, that it will not be popular or even understood. In response to this, a strong urge can develop to imitate styles that are accepted or trendy, simply out of the desire to be relevant.

But just like any other desire, the desire for popularity, relevance, or fame can be dangerous. Attachment to it means the artist will spend their time trying to be something they are not and trying to create something not truly their own. While they might achieve some limited success, they will be blocked from pursuing the path that would allow them to reach new heights of creative expression.

An artist is always the most original and creative when they lean into their own style as much as possible. Doing this requires great honesty and courage, for it means revealing the self, and there is always a chance that an artwork expressing a unique self will be rejected by others.

Rejection will mean the determined artist will have to continue refining the expression of their style, or devise a way of linking it to past styles or movements, which is no easy task. The risk here is not trivial, but still the artist’s unique style remains the best path to novel creations that are both exciting and aesthetically groundbreaking.