Genius Art
Artists work diligently at their craft, calling forth years of experience and drawing deep into a grab bag of tricks and techniques, applying every particle of their being and pouring the very essence of themselves into a project to produce something which they may judge grudgingly as “not bad”. And then along comes some genius who produces a work of art, seemingly effortlessly, that is just so far above these earnest efforts, so conceptually beyond one’s own comprehension, so aesthetically pleasing that it cannot be denied as being outstanding above all the rest.
Victor Hugo is one such genius. Yes, that Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo (b.1802, d. 1885) of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and “Les Miserables.” Beloved by all France in his lifetime. Synonymous as the very soul of France through his writings and his effective political activism. Did you also know that he was a visual artist? His works are on paper in pen and ink and watercolor. Wikipedia describes this as a “casual hobby” of his. This “casual hobby” produced 4000 pieces of work of which 3000 are still in existence! Intrigued, I researched his art.
Here are three of his pieces for your perusal:
I use the term genius to describe Victor Hugo. I believe in such a thing as genius, and it is a rare gift. Listen to a Chopin piano piece and you realize that his thinking transcends individual musical notes, that his brain is not functioning in a linear path (one note after the other) but is instead transcending conscious thought. That must be part of genius, to conceptually know what obviously should happen next without thinking about it.
Though not all artists are “genius”, I profess, based on my experience, that all artist do experience this “transcendence of conscious thought” during the creative process. Indeed, just experiencing art, whether visual, written, or audible, may produce this transcendent moment. It is why we cry during a play, become enraptured by a musical passage, or be moved to strive to be a better person by a written turn of phrase, as in this one written by another genius author, William Shakespeare: “this above all: to thine own self be true…”
Could this be why the arts are so fundamentally entwined with the human experience?
