Saturday, December 17, 2016

OF ARTS AND ARTISTS


“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

I confess, if not totally carried away, I’m flattered each time I’m called an artist by others. But it gives me creeps first, knowing that being an artist could be a blessing or a curse.

Long, long before I came to completely read the Holy Bible with its amazing story of free salvation and priceless redemption, I’d had already embraced arts and poetry and had loved the world love stories whether or not there were rhyme and reason.

When I first heard the song “Love Story” during my early elementary days and came to know about the fictional love story behind it featuring a Montague and a Capulet, I wondered why they loved that way and the world would like it thus I too dreamed to love like what Romeo did and wished to be loved as well by someone like Juliet.

Never did I realize that love actually is not always similar to what that "hard-luck" young couple had for each other most especially in a marriage life. In the real world, one would offer a poison to a husband or a wife, and the other would gladly drink it after stabbing himself/herself with a knife.

Well, kidding aside, if you review your history about arts and artists especially the sort of those that are extremely popular worldwide, you’ll find that a good number of them or its dominating majority had ungratefully left this cruel but beautiful life through suicide.  Yes, I find it beautiful, regardless of how life would come through, but most people see only an artist’s beauty and life’s real beauty itself the world doesn’t know.  Even my favorite folk singer then, the great Don McLean, has his own regret to Van Gogh:

“But I could've told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

As far as I know, it seems that almost all fields of arts have their own share of their fine artists who decided to end their lives with their own hands. I’m not just sure if it’s due to unbearable fame or boredom like what happened only this year to one of Hollywood’s talented happy man Robin Williams.

Like the most privileged race and special creatures called the Israelites, artists are peculiar people likewise. It’s so because unlike common individuals or ordinary human beings, they see things beyond the naked eyes.

I think, being an artist becomes a curse if the artist would use and do arts for his own personal glory or for his pride to uplift. If it caused him to forget to acknowledge or give back the honor and praise to the One Who graciously gave him such a gift.

Forgetting that the all-knowing Lord God Almighty is the source of all talents and knowledge in arts and everything best. As He is He Who designed this universe in magnificence, gave each planet its own path to follow, He being the Supreme Artist.

Of course, running away from Him in pursuit of our own happiness could also be called an art as there’s worldly honor to make. But Proverbs 16:5 says that every proud heart in this world is an abomination to the Lord, but, it's still art for art's sake:


The art of making mistake.

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