Gratitude is acceptance.
As artists, as people, we are offered gifts daily, but, like a cup of tea, they only become ours when we accept them.
This may be why I believe so strongly in painting what we see without "changing it for the sake of originality". The thunderstorm, the feral cat, the soaring eagle become ours when we accept them as such.
How lovely it would be to have all the pretty young girls as "my" friends. Wanting, they say, never gets. The question is, how do you make it yours?
Just as with the cup of tea, it is saying "thank you" that makes it yours. Say thank you for the thunder, for the eagle, for the wonder of youth, and it is yours. As artist, say thank you for this morning, for this light, for this note of colour, and it is yours. Rejecting it cuts us off from the great whole of nature. The simple absence of gratitude makes it not ours. Thing is, we can only accept as is; the bad with the good, the sadness with the joy.
"Can't I leave out that earring," my students ask, "or the light switch?" My answer is always the same. "You can leave out anything, but you are putting yourself in the position of censor, of a critic, and by doing so you are rejecting the gift of light. Blur it, flare it, lose it in shadow, or celebrate it, but don't cut it." If I want to paint a real life situation, I go to it, to the riding school, or to the ballet studio, or to the cabaret club, or to Venice, and I paint it (or more often, draw it) as it is, grateful for its perfection and its beauty. If I want to paint an angel in heaven, I visualise it in imagination, and then paint that vision with the same acceptance as when I paint a still life from nature. "If anybody can see angels," Ruskin says, "let him paint them."
Primitive people are said to be scared of having their image created, and they may be right. Painting is, when it is done with gratitude, acceptance of something, and by loving, a bond is formed. What I love with gratitude, is mine.
Whatever you like is yours. Just say thanks you for the fact that it exists... and what better way to show our gratitude than to celebrate it in art?
Ode on a grecian urn.
1.
THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
2.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20
3.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30
4.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore, 35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. 40
5.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50
John Keats
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