John Ruskin
I’ve been reading some John Ruskin quotes. They’re great. I’m trying to get my head around this one though. I feel it has particular pertinence to me:
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The Eagle’s Nest (1872)
In all base schools of art, the craftsman is dependent for his bread on originality; that is to say, on finding in himself some fragment of isolated faculty, by which his work may be distinct from that of other men. We are ready enough to take delight in our little doings, without any such stimulus; — what must be the effect of the popular applause which continually suggests that the little thing we can separately do is as excellent as it is singular; and what the effect of the bribe, held out to us through the whole of life, to produce — it being also in our peril not to produce — something different from the work of our neighbors?
Lecture II, section 32
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Hmm. Any ideas?
i think being creative means almost by definition standing out from the common lot .. one can be ordinary a lot of the time and not too different from everyone else. However, if a person is creative, s/he gets by during the day musing on this and that employing the faculty of creativity just simply in the normal course of events and the normal course of the day. It is when one relies on one’s creativity for bringing in the bread ($$$) that the creator has to be singular and excellent at the same time to meet the creator’s own standards ..
something like that??
Kiff, shot man. Ya, that makes a bit more sense now. I thought he may have been saying ‘don’t be bribed by the bucks’.