Developing Your Artistry

”To be an artist is to believe in life,” said English sculptor Henry Moore. In many ways, artists serve as
the eyes, ears, and interpreters of the very complex world in which we live, expressing our hopes,
dreams, sorrows, joys, and disappointments, and enabling us to understand and process the world
around us. At the same time, artists need to be able to feed themselves, pay the bills, and make a living.
Many of the skills needed to be successful—to gain the time, space, and money to dedicate to art—have
to do with understanding the present, planning for the future, and knowing how to bridge the gap. They
also have to do with understanding who you are and who you want to be as you develop and grow your
career.

Developing Your Artistry explores what it means to be an artist—both from a philosophical and practical
perspective. It will examine artistry and how it has been defined throughout time, in addition to topics
such as creativity as a habit, aesthetics, health as it relates to your work, planning, and sustaining your
career. Throughout the course, you will focus on developing and refining your artistic
statement/purpose and planning your career in the music industry. The course features several
compelling artist profiles and interviews, including Victor Wooten, Nona Hendryx, Henry Diltz, Tibetan
monk Lama Sonam, and many others.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

 Explore your life choice as a music industry professional

 Recognize the definitions of “artistry” and “creativity” as they apply to your professional work
 Define your own artistic, personal, and professional goals
 Consider the role of the musician in society
 Maintain an electronic portfolio of the work and products that you create at Berklee
 Articulate how you want to present yourself online, in writing, and in person

Exploring Definitions of Artistry

: artistic quality of effect or workmanship

 the artistry of his novel

: artistic ability

 the artistry of the violinist

 a lawyer's artistry in persuading juries

(Merriam-Webster)

Aristotle's Theory of Art

What did art mean to Aristotle? How does he make distinctions between such things as poetic art,
history, tragedy, comedy and the likes?
Let's look at several points to consider, which is followed by an informative excerpt.

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher views art as an imitation of life. He develops ways to categorize and
evaluate art in his writings.

Art is defined by Aristotle as the realization in external form of a true idea, and is traced back to that
natural love of imitation that characterizes humans, and to the pleasure which we feel in recognizing
likenesses. Art however is not limited to mere copying. It idealizes nature and completes its deficiencies:
it seeks to grasp the universal type in the individual phenomenon.

The distinction therefore between poetic art and history is not that the one uses meter, and the other
does not. The distinction is that while history is limited to what has actually happened, poetry depicts
things in their universal character. And, therefore, "poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than
history." Such imitation may represent people either as better or as worse than people usually are, or it
may neither go beyond nor fall below the average standard.

Comedy is the imitation of the worse examples of humanity, understood however not in the sense of
absolute badness, but only in so far as what is low and ignoble enters into what is laughable and comic.

Tragedy, on the other hand, is the representation of a serious or meaningful, rounded or finished, and
more or less extended or far-reaching action -- a representation which is effected by action and not
mere narration. It is fitted by portraying events which excite fear and pity in the mind of the observer to
purify or purge these feelings and extend and regulate their sympathy. It is thus a homeopathic curing of
the passions. Insofar as art in general universalizes particular events, tragedy, in depicting passionate
and critical situations, takes the observer outside the selfish and individual standpoint, and views them
in connection with the general.

Tolstoy's Theory of Art

Having rejected the use of beauty in definitions of art ( aesthetic theory), Tolstoy conceptualises art as
anything that communicates emotion: "Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to
other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain
external signs".

This view of art is inclusive: "jokes", "home decoration", and "church services" may all be considered art
as long as they convey feeling. It is also amoral: "feelings … very bad and very good, if only they infect
the reader … constitute the subject of art".

Tolstoy also notes that the "sincerity" of the artist—that is, the extent to which the artist "experiences
the feeling he conveys"—influences the infection.

Purpose of art
Just as in the evolution of knowledge - that is, the forcing out and supplanting of mistaken and
unnecessary knowledge by truer and more necessary knowledge - so the evolution of feelings takes
place by means of art, replacing lower feelings, less kind and less needed for the good of humanity, by
kinder feelings, more needed for that good. This is the purpose of art.
Universal art
"Universal" art illustrates that people are "already united in the oneness of life's joys and sorrows" by
communicating "feelings of the simplest, most everyday sort, accessible to all people without exception,
such as the feelings of merriment, tenderness, cheerfulness, peacefulness, and so on". Tolstoy contrasts
this ideal with art that is partisan in nature, whether it be by class, religion, nation, or style.

Tolstoy's examples: he mentions, with many qualifiers, the works of Cervantes, Dickens, Moliere, Gogol,
and Pushkin, comparing all of these unfavourably to the story of Joseph. In music he commends a violin
aria of Bach, the E-flat major nocturne of Chopin, and "selected passages" from Schubert, Haydn,
Chopin, and Mozart. He also speaks briefly of genre paintings and landscapes.

Obscurity versus accessibility

Tolstoy notes the susceptibility of his contemporaries to the "charm of obscurity". Works have become
laden with "euphemisms, mythological and historical allusions", and general "vagueness,
mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses". Tolstoy lambastes such works, insisting
that art can and should be comprehensible to everyone. Having emphasised that art has a function in
the improvement of humanity - capable of expressing man’s best sentiment - he finds it offensive that
artists should be so wilfully and arrogantly abstruse.

Artificiality
One criticism Tolstoy levels against art is that at some point it "ceased to be sincere and became artificial
and cerebral", leading to the creation of millions of works of technical brilliance but few of honourable
sentiment. Tolstoy outlines four common markers of bad art: these are not however considered the
canon or ultimate indicators

 Borrowing
 Imitation
 Effectfulness
 Diversion

Borrowing
It involves recycling and concentrating elements from other works, typical examples of which are:
"maidens, warriors, shepherds, hermits, angels, devils in all forms, moonlight, thunderstorms,
mountains, the sea, precipices, flowers, long hair, lions, the lamb, the dove, the nightingale".

Imitation
Imitation is highly descriptive realism, where painting becomes photography, or a scene in a book
becomes a listing of facial expressions, tone of voice, the setting, and so on. Any potential
communication of feeling is "disrupted by the superfluity of details".

Effectfulness
Reliance on "strikingness", often involving contrasts of "horrible and tender, beautiful and ugly, loud and
soft, dark and light", descriptions of lust, "crescendo and complication", unexpected changes in rhythm,
tempo, etc. Tolstoy contends that works marked by such techniques "do not convey any feeling, but
only affect the nerves".

Diversion
Diversion is "an intellectual interest added to the work of art", such as the melding of documentary and
fiction, as well as the writing of novels, poetry, and music "in such a way that they must be puzzled
out". All such works do not correspond with Tolstoy's view of art as the infection of others with feelings
previously experienced, and his exhortation that art be "universal" in appeal.

Church Christianity and the Renaissance

Tolstoy approves of early Christian art for being inspired by love of Christ and man, as well as its
antagonism to pleasure-seeking. He prefers this to the art born of "Church Christianity", which
ostensibly evades the "essential theses of true Christianity" (that is, that all men are born of the Father,
are equals, and should strive towards mutual love). Art became pagan—worshipping religious figures—
and subservient to the dictates of the Church.

The corruption of art was deepened after the Crusades, as the abuse of papal power became more
obvious. The rich began to doubt, seeing contradictions between the actions of the Church and the
message of Christianity. But instead of turning back to the early Christian teachings, the upper classes
began to appreciate and commission art that was merely pleasing. This tendency was facilitated by
the Renaissance, with the aggrandisement of ancient Greek art, philosophy, and culture which, Tolstoy
alleges, is inclined to pleasure and beauty worship.

Aesthetic theory
Tolstoy perceives the roots of aesthetics in the Renaissance. Art for pleasure was validated in reference
to the philosophy of the Greeks and the elevation of “beauty” as a legitimate criterion with which to
separate good from bad art.

Tolstoy moves to discredit aesthetics by reviewing and reducing previous theories - including those
of Baumgarten, Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer - to two main “aesthetic definitions of beauty”.

The "objective" or "mystical" definition of beauty in which beauty is "something absolutely perfect
which exists outside us", whether it be associated with "idea, spirit, will, God"

The "subjective" definition of beauty, in which "beauty is a certain pleasure we experience, which does
not have personal advantage as its aim". This definition tends to be more inclusive, enabling things like
food and fabric to be called art

Tolstoy then argues that, despite their apparent divergence, there is little substantive difference
between the two strands. This is because both schools recognise beauty only by the pleasure it gives:
"both notions of beauty come down to a certain sort of pleasure that we receive, meaning that we
recognize as beauty that which pleases us without awakening our lust". Therefore, there is no objective
definition of art in aesthetics.

Tolstoy condemns the focus on beauty/pleasure at length, calling aesthetics a discipline:

according to which the difference between good art, conveying good feelings, and bad art, conveying
wicked feelings, was totally obliterated, and one of the lowest manifestations of art, art for mere
pleasure - against which all teachers of mankind have warned people - came to be regarded as the
highest art. And art became, not the important thing it was intended to be, but the empty amusement
of idle people.

Professionalism
Tolstoy sees the developing professionalism of art as hampering the creation of good works.

The professional artist can and must create to prosper, making for art that is insincere and most likely
partisan - made to suit the whims of fashion or patrons.

Art criticism is a symptom of the obscurity of art, for "an artist, if he is a true artist, has in his work
conveyed to others the feelings he has experienced: what is there to explain?". Criticism, moreover,
tends to contribute to the veneration of "authorities" such as Shakespeare and Dante. By constant
unfavourable comparison, the young artist is corralled into imitating the works of the greats, as all of
them are said to be true art. In short, new artists imitate the classics, setting their own feelings aside,
which, according to Tolstoy, is contrary to the point of art.

Art schools teach people how to imitate the method of the masters, but they cannot teach the sincerity
of emotion that is the propellant of great works. In Tolstoy's words, "no school can call up feelings in a
man, and still less can it teach a man what is the essence of art: the manifestation of feeling in his own
particular fashion".

Consequences
"The enormous waste of working people's labour", with individuals spending so much time
contemplating and creating bad art that they become "incapable of anything that is really necessary for
people"

The volume of art produced provides "the amusement which turns these people's eyes from the
meaninglessness of their lives and saves them from the boredom that oppresses them", it enables them
"to go on living without noticing the meaninglessness and cruelty of their life"

The confusion and perversion of values. It becomes normal to worship not great religious figures but
people who write incomprehensible poems

The worship of beauty legitimises the disregarding of morality as a criterion for evaluating cultural
products

Modern art "direct corrupts people" by infecting them with feelings of superstition, patriotism, and
sensuality
Criticism of famous artists
Throughout the book Tolstoy demonstrates a willingness to dismiss generally accepted masters, among
them Liszt, Richard Strauss, Nietzsche, and Oscar Wilde. He also labels his own works as "bad art",
excepting only the short stories "God Sees the Truth" and "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

He attempts to justify these conclusions by pointing to the ostensible chaos of previous aesthetic
analysis. Theories usually involve selecting popular works and constructing principles from these
examples. Volkelt, for instance, remarks that art cannot be judged on its moral content because
then Romeo and Juliet would not be good art. Such retrospective justification cannot, he stresses, be the
basis for theory, as people will tend to create subjective frameworks to justify their own tastes.

Reception
Jahn notes the "often confusing use of categorisation" and the lack of definition of the key concept of
emotion. Bayley writes that "the effectiveness of What is Art? lies not so much in its positive assertions
as in its rejection of much that was taken for granted in the aesthetic theories of the time". Noyes
criticises Tolstoy's dismissal of beauty, but states that, "despite its shortcomings", What is Art? "may be
pronounced the most stimulating critical work of our time". Simmons mentions the "occasional brilliant
passages" along with the "repetition, awkward language, and loose terminology". Aylmer Maude,
translator of many of Tolstoy's writings, calls it "probably the most masterly of all Tolstoy's works", citing
the difficulty of the subject matter and its clarity.

By 1897, Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828–November 20, 1910) was already a literary legend of

worldwide acclaim and a man deeply invested in his ultimate quest to unravel the most important
wisdom on life. But he shocked the world when he published What Is Art? (public library; public domain)
that year — an iconoclastic , which gave us Tolstoy’s addition to history’s finest definitions of art and
which pulled into question the creative merits of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and even his very own Anna
Karenina. Underneath his then-radical and controversial reflections, however, lies a rich meditation on
the immutable, eternal question of what art — especially “good art” — actually is, and how to tell it
from its impostors and opposites.

Tolstoy puts forth a sentiment Susan Sontag would come to echo decades later in asserting that “art is a
form of consciousness,” and frames the essential role of art as a vehicle of communication and empathy:

In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure
and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way we cannot fail to observe
that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man.

Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who
produced, or is producing, the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently,
receive the same artistic impression.

The activity of art is based on the fact that a man, receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another
man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who
expressed it. … And it is upon this capacity of man to receive another man’s expression of feeling and
experience those feelings himself, that the activity of art is based.

This core quality of art Tolstoy calls its “infectiousness,” and upon the artist’s ability to “infect” others
depends the very recognition of something as art:

If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has felt, it is art.

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means
of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others
may experience the same feeling — this is the activity of art.

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs,
hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings
and also experience them.

Tolstoy defies the academy’s intellectualizations of art:

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is
not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is
not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and,
above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same
feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

More than a bridge from person to person, he argues, art is a bridge across eras, cultures, and lifetimes
— a kind of immortality:

As, thanks to man’s capacity to express thoughts by words, every man may know all that has been done
for him in the realms of thought by all humanity before his day, and can in the present, thanks to this
capacity to understand the thoughts of others, become a sharer in their activity and can himself hand on
to his contemporaries and descendants the thoughts he has assimilated from others, as well as those
which have arisen within himself; so, thanks to man’s capacity to be infected with the feelings of others
by means of art, all that is being lived through by his contemporaries is accessible to him, as well as the
feelings experienced by men thousands of years ago, and he has also the possibility of transmitting his
own feelings to others.

If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived by the men who preceded them and to
pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts… And if men lacked this other
capacity of being infected by art, people might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more
separated from, and more hostile to, one another.

Lamenting the growing perversion of the art world, which has warped our ability to tell good art from
bad, Tolstoy insists that the only way to distinguish true art from its counterfeit is by this very notion of
infectiousness:
If a man, without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint on reading, hearing, or seeing
another man’s work, experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other
people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking that condition is a work of art. And
however poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is not a work of art if it does not
evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all other feelings) of joy and of spiritual union with another (the
author) and with others (those who are also infected by it).

The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the
artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else’s — as if what it expresses were
just what he had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the
receiver, the separation between himself and the artist — not that alone, but also between himself and
all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and
isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art.

Infectiousness, however, is not a mere binary quality. Tolstoy argues that, much as in Samuel Delany’s
distinction between good writing vs. talented writing, the degree of infectiousness is what separates
good art from excellent art. He offers three conditions that determine the degree of infectiousness:

The stronger the infection, the better is the art as art, speaking now apart from its subject matter, i.e.,
not considering the quality of the feelings it transmits. And the degree of the infectiousness of art
depends on three conditions:

 On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmitted;

 on the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is transmitted;
 on the sincerity of the artist, i.e., on the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself feels
the emotion he transmits.

The more individual the feeling transmitted the more strongly does it act on the receiver; the more
individual the state of soul into which he is transferred, the more pleasure does the receiver obtain, and
therefore the more readily and strongly does he join in it.

The clearness of expression assists infection because the receiver, who mingles in consciousness with
the author, is the better satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it seems to him,
he has long known and felt, and for which he has only now found expression.

But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by the degree of sincerity in the artist. As
soon as the spectator, hearer, or reader feels that the artist is infected by his own production, and
writes, sings, or plays for himself, and not merely to act on others, this mental condition of the artist
infects the receiver; and contrariwise, as soon as the spectator, reader, or hearer feels that the author is
not writing, singing, or playing for his own satisfaction — does not himself feel what he wishes to
express — but is doing it for him, the receiver, a resistance immediately springs up, and the most
individual and the newest feelings and the cleverest technique not only fail to produce any infection but
actually repel.
I have mentioned three conditions of contagiousness in art, but they may be all summed up into one,
the last, sincerity, i.e., that the artist should be impelled by an inner need to express his feeling. That
condition includes the first; for if the artist is sincere he will express the feeling as he experienced it. And
as each man is different from everyone else, his feeling will be individual for everyone else; and the
more individual it is — the more the artist has drawn it from the depths of his nature — the more
sympathetic and sincere will it be. And this same sincerity will impel the artist to find a clear expression
of the feeling which he wishes to transmit.

Therefore this third condition — sincerity — is the most important of the three. It is always complied
with in peasant art, and this explains why such art always acts so powerfully; but it is a condition almost
entirely absent from our upper-class art, which is continually produced by artists actuated by personal
aims of covetousness or vanity.

Such are the three conditions which divide art from its counterfeits, and which also decide the quality of
every work of art apart from its subject matter.

The presence in various degrees of these three conditions — individuality, clearness, and sincerity —
decides the merit of a work of art as art, apart from subject matter. All works of art take rank of merit
according to the degree in which they fulfill the first, the second, and the third of these conditions. In
one the individuality of the feeling transmitted may predominate; in another, clearness of expression; in
a third, sincerity; while a fourth may have sincerity and individuality but be deficient in clearness; a fifth,
individuality and clearness but less sincerity; and so forth, in all possible degrees and combinations.

Thus is art divided from that which is not art, and thus is the quality of art as art decided, independently
of its subject matter, i.e., apart from whether the feelings it transmits are good or bad.

Contemporary Definitions of Art

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/art/ose/art_in_focus/2005/docs/Chap04.pdf

My definition of art

I agree with Tolstoy on Infectiousness

The Creative Habit

Creativity as a Habit: Exploring the Ideas of Twyla Tharp

https://hbr.org/2008/04/creativity-step-by-step

http://launchyourgenius.com/2014/08/11/twyla-tharp-1/

Creativity Requires Hard Work: Exploring the Ideas of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/24/tchaikovsky-on-work-ethic-vs-inspiration/
Creative Intelligence: Exploring the Ideas of Bruce Nussbaum

https://www.zdnet.com/article/qa-bruce-nussbaum-author-creative-intelligence/

Your Creative Autobiography

Personal Aesthetics, Health, and Identity

Explore the Meaning of the Term Aesthetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics

Aesthetics and Health

Self-Assessment: Health
Aesthetics and Identity: Discussions with Musicians Bill Banfield, Victor Wooten, and
Nona Hendryx

Lesson 4 Artistry and Planning

Motivation and Planning
Practicing: How Do You Structure It and Fit It In
Academic Planning
Career Planning
Lesson 5 Success and Role Models
Explore the Meaning of Success
Gain Advice from Others about Success
Learning from Others: Role Model Henry Diltz
Lesson 6 Artist Statements: Your Statement of Purpose
Artist Statement: What Is It and Why Is It Important?
Victor Wooten: Portrait of an Artist
Communicating with the Audience
Bobby McFerrin’s Audience Art
How to Write an Artist Statement
Lesson 7 Interdisciplinary Art: The Relationship Between Music and
Other Art Forms
Interdisciplinary Art
Music and Technology: Model Artist—Stephen Webber
Music and Film/Television: Model Artist—Lucio Godoy
Art, Technology and Words: Creating New Forms: Model Artist—Lori Landay
Lesson 8 Sustaining Yourself as an Artist
Music Business: Do It Ourselves
Musician’s Health
Body Awareness and Exercise
Using Feedback: Evaluating Yourself and Others: Accepting Criticism
Audience Analysis
Lesson 9 Artists and Community
The Social Role of the Artist throughout History
Relationship between Art and the Urban World: The Personal and Artistic Journey of
Artist Model Otis Sallid
Relationship between Art and the Everyday: The Personal and Artistic Journey of
Artist Model Greg Jaris
Transforming Herself and Society through Music: The Personal and Artistic Journey
of Model Artist Nona Hendryx
Lesson 10 Career Exploration and the Future of Music and the Music
Industry
Characteristics of the Music Industry Today
Predicting Future Changes
Future Business Models
Explore Career Resources
Lesson 11 Artists and Truth
Exploring What Is Meant by the “Truth” in Art
Exploring the Personal and Artistic Journey of Model Artist: Janis Ian
Other Artists Who Show the World Truth
Lesson 12 Putting It All Together: The Final Electronic Portfolio
You Online
Presenting Yourself Professionally Online and In Person
Establishing Voice Online and In Person
Creating an Effective Press Kit
The Electronic Portfolio
Revising and Finalizing Your Academic and Career Plan
Revising and Finalizing Your Artist Statement