The girl with a pearl earring

Dedication

To my father, if it weren`t for him, the girl would have been without the earring
Chapter 1 “to be a painter”

I first met her when I was eight years old. It was a strange black and white drawing in some coloring, consisting only of contours. At that moment, I thought that it was a gypsy. Really: there was something like a turban on her head, seemingly quite heavy earing in her ear – isn`t she a gypsy. I took a brown pencil to do skin more swarthy, colored eyes dark green. But why there were so many lines and flourishes, I didn`t understand. I thought it was an ornament and did it red and yellow. Besides, I was embarrassed that the girl from the picture hadn`t brows. I armed myself with a black marker and drew two elegant arcs. And a signature in conclusion: “Masha, eight years old” – ready.
_ _ _

When it came to choosing a profession I without thinking twice chose a profession of an artist. Of course, because I have been drawing for as long as I can remember! Because I draw everywhere: at home, outdoors, in notebooks, on the walls… because I draw constantly, during all my life. I don`t remember any day when I even wouldn`t scratch any crooked eye on the notebook margins. I scribble these pictures like a printer. What doubts can be? The painter – and that`s it. ‘Additionally it`s wonderful when the favorite hobby becomes the favorite job, - I thought – I will work with inspiration, with passion, I will love my job.’ But when a favorite hobby becomes a favorite job it automatically completes be a hobby. It turns into job, into exactly the same job as a machinist, an accountant, a president, a miner. And it even doesn`t matter that there is a canvas in front of your nose and a brush in your hand – no. It is the same job as all the others, which you should fulfill with responsibility and feeling of duty. Despite the people in whose opinion a blue is not so blue and a circle has to be more square.  But all this also must harmonizes with the most important thing – with an inspiration. The painting painted without inspiration is not a painting at all. It is just a miserable little piece of paper dirtied by paints. If it even isn`t noticed by people, it is first of all seen by author. If it even was called a masterpiece of a high level. The author is the main and strictest critic of own creation.

However, criticism depends only on point of view. And fortunately or unfortunately these points are scattered  chaotically. For someone it is a genius painting, for other one the same thing is an absurd nonsense. And all these articles: “street-art – an art or a vandalism?” Shishkin or Repin would get a heart attack if they entered into a modern gallery. Not so long ago the word “painting” meant only sceneries and still-lives fulfilled to a tee from life. And everything else is a heresy, unreasonable waste of time, some weird stains and flourishes suitable only for a lighting the stove. Society is so preconceived.

In a word, it is better when a hobby remains a favorite hobby and don`t meet a tyranny of this cruel commercial world. It is better when you apply tidy strokes on your brainchild but don`t hunch over the painting, which must be due tomorrow, in sleepless night with cotton wool hands and feeling like you are forced to do your favorite thing.

But when I went to apply to art school, I didn`t think about it.

And when I came out from there with a diploma and beaten ideals about art, too.

Chapter 2 “about how the math teacher broke rule of all rules”

  From the seventh grade, math was divided into algebra and geometry. And here it is, we got a geometry home task. It was a rule in bold in a paragraph: if crosswise lying corners are equal, lines are parallel. And I just learnt it, because everyone knows it since childhood: when the rule is in bold it must be memorized and that`s all - it is rule of all rules in bold.

 But when I told this rule at the lesson, our math teacher said: “Prove it.”
How? What does it mean? Why do I have to prove it? This is the rule in bold, it must be memorized and nothing else. We have to memorize, understand and use it. Rule of all rules doesn`t demand proofs! There is only important and truly information in bold. It can`t be fake. Everyone knows it…

So the math teacher added a word of “theorem” to our vocabulary. And theorems demand proofs.
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But thank God there is no theorem in the art. There are only laws and tedious rules here. But they don`t demand proofs. We should only arm ourselves with brush and patience and do what our teacher says.

I learnt a lot at the art school. Actually, I studied in the best art school of our city, therefore I couldn`t left it and said: “I have already known all it,” or  “I won`t need it.” The general result is formed from everything. The seemingly little things even have a great meaning. Maybe I`ll really never need rules of construction of linear perspective, but exactly it will make me achieve that, what I will eventually achieve. 

All knowledge, which I got at the art school, I`d divide in basic and not basic.  The first is the law of composition, anatomy, perspective and a lot more, what you can find in the large heavy book with a proud name: “academic drawing”. And we practiced it on plein airs and with countless painting of autumn leaves, glass vases, apples, pumpkins, drapery and kettles.

Not basic knowledge is that, what isn`t included in drawing basics, painting or portrait, but what is necessary to be an artist by profession to the full. Math isn`t only about relationships between numbers and geometry objects, too.
First of all, it is a skill of working with the customer. People are social, no matter how talented you are.

Secondly, we got an understanding that the art is a science, too. Science with its own laws, rules in bold and great scientists.

And finally that, what teachers repeated to us constantly and tirelessly, for a long time and solemnly loud. What I still consider too pompous – artists don`t draw! They write! I might get bombard with still lives, because what right do I have to call myself an artist and “draw” my pictures? Definitely, the greats Shishkin, Leonardo da Vinchi, Grabar`, Repin, Vasnetsov and many others were writing their distinguished works of art. But I have never wanted to draw like them.

Nevertheless, when I went out of the art school with a diploma in the pocket after four years of my hard studying , I could draw any picture even the “Mona Lisa” or “The morning in the pine forest ”. To be an artist by profession you need a lot of things: from expensive materials to this weird and abstract “talent”. And I have all of this. The diploma proves it. All that remains is to create a few masterpieces and make history. And then my works will be exhibited in The Russian Museum or even in Louvre or in Prado.

When I came home I first of all took canvas and paints. Because of studying at the art school I have no free time for pictures for my soul. Inside me everything was boiling with impatience. Inspiration was overflowing. Give me paints, graphic instruments or even children`s markers quickly. But there isn`t what I want  to draw in my head. I was inspired by the idea of drawing, but not by the idea of a picture.

Having taken brushes, acrylic and canvas I decided to let he work take its course. Come what may. An art hasn`t strict rules. It is free from speeding fines and housing taxes! But when the second apple still life went out from under my hand, I realized that it was definitely not my day for creating an art masterpiece. I closed the paints and took a rest. But this story returned on the next day, and the next day… and many next days after. Whenever I take up drawing all that comes out is this accursed academic drawing. And comes very well, our teacher would praise. But there isn`t any life in this pictures. It is the stage plot for postcards. The plot, which repeated in art schools from year to year, from century to century. There`s no my concept in this apples, birches and Apollos …

A week later the thing, which I was afraid of like a fire, became clear – I couldn`t draw anymore!.. But how? Is it possible? I have never known this problem before. It is a rule of all rules, isn`t it? That I love drawing, I always do it perfectly, because I have a talent…

In these four years in the art school I was trained so fine, that I became a real circus poodle, which draws only what it was taught and only what is right.

“You aren`t a Rembrandt, you aren`t even a Harry Donovan.”

Chapter 3 “ An enigma of black square”

The drawing became a hard burden for me. Well, apple still lives were gorgeous, according to all the rules and laws, there was nothing to complain. But it is not what I wanted. It is not for what a went to the art school. It is not about me. I`m definitely not about apple still lives!

Once, my father said on one of his lectures: “Art is a way of communication, have you something to say?” Oh, I definitely have something to say. But it has to appear in the complaint book, but not on the canvas. I want to say people exactly not about apples and birches.

Besides the art process has to bring pleasure and the end result has to be liked by author. But how can I got pleasure of miserable pictures, which was drawn by many generations?

Well, maybe my opinion is too preconceived to this basics of basics, to this pattern still lives and sceneries. Maybe the fate itself predicted to me drawing apples and birches in the steppe, but it is not my fault.

Technological progress works wonders. When the first photo camera appeared in the beginning of the nineteenth century, principles and views on the art have been shaken quite. And when everyone  got  cameras with a small picture gallery and a possibility of traveling around the world and trying outlandish things the old disciplines were broken at all. Since the school bench we have known all Newton`s and Archimedes`s laws, that the Earth is a geoid and spinning around the Sun, in what year Rome fell and how the south African elephant looks like, how our circulatory system works. We, children of modernity and innovations, are difficult to be surprised by something. Who of us didn`t see sunflowers and apples, poplars and pines? Therefore the impressionism became popular in the art. It is an expression of artist`s feelings, but not an exact picture of the environment. But the time was going on, the electric lamps were invented, and the post-impressionism came into the art. And then the expressionism, avant-gardism, cubism, surrealism, art deco, abstractionism, pop art… The great artists were changing like gloves and new and new directions of Art river were entering fashion. Fast and purposefully our sailboat followed the rout “Rock paintings – Impressionism - Future”. And what we have to expect from this future is unknown, if already today the small blot on the huge canvas is considered the great work of art and sells for millions of dollars. Many people say that such pictures are bad and poor quality. It is even difficult to say “picture” about them. “I can throw the brush on the canvas too and then sell it on some auction and get rich.” But in fact, the truth lies much deeper.

So what is “work of art”? What makes it bad or good? What can be called a “masterpiece”?

Answer is simple: the art isn`t permanent. It constantly changes, someone constantly changes it. It hasn`t math rules or physical laws, hasn`t a common sample. It went much further. Its vocation is evoking feelings and emotions. If we are all people, our eyes work similarly, but we all see totally different things.

Artist is a wonderful human and a wonderful job. To be an artist is a possibility to see more, than see our eyes, more the universe shows us. It is a possibility to create new and leave little marks on history, doing this world a few better and more beautiful. It is a possibility to tell without words…

But I lost all possibilities and the word of “artist” too. The evil witch deceived me. I wanted to learn basics in the art school, but only served my time to lose my voice in exchange for a diploma. Certainly, basic knowledge is necessary. No matter how genial idea is, if you can`t bring it to life. But revolution has long come into art. Modern people need to be surprised, they need a sensation. But this is not taught in any educational institution.

I became a real artist, artist by profession, which can draw everything and whenever. But I stopped being an artist by nature. I stopped  seeing and feeling. The inspiration stopped coming to me. But am I an artist at all, if I haven`t my own view?

I don`t need your accursed diploma, which can be bought, if I myself am worth nothing!
_ _ _

In a faraway kingdom in a faraway state the most difficult problem of expression artists feeling on a canvas appeared. Knights-impressionists were hard working to get the desired – simplicity in shapes and colors. And when it seemed that nothing can be done, he came, sage with the “Black square”. Knights-impressionists and many other residents of faraway kingdom instantly recognized him as a genius.

Let now every pupil says that he can do the same, the Malevich`s “Black square” has no equal. The phrase out of the context has completely another meaning. You have to be in the right place in the right time.

 Chapter 4 “In pursuit of inspiration”

Long time ago, when our Earth stood on three elephants, and Sun, Wind and Water were managed by patron Gods but not by laws of nature, somewhere on the heavens or even in the Paradise the glorious bird – Phoenix – lived.
 
During long time Phoenix was travelling around the world in eternal flight. When he felt that his life forces were ending he flew into Phoenicia – the country named after him. There he was making a nest of incense resins and wood where he started his rebirth. At first, he burnt to the ground in the sun`s rays and then a new bird, no less beautiful and amazing rebirthed from the ash.

 And Phoenix went to a new journey of 500 years. 
_ _ _

People of art creates masterpieces only thanks to inspiration. Definitely the good artist by profession has to be able to draw without it, but all masterpieces are born into the world only at the call of the heart.  So my head killed by sorrow had generated the plan: I need to get an inspiration in some way. But how? It can`t be bought at the market as food, it can`t be won in lottery, it is not got from underground with oil and it isn’t cooked in the kitchen or in the glassblowing workshops. It doesn`t  grow on the trees and even doesn`t exist in material form. It is feeling of enlightenment, when eternal engine becomes clear to you, which sometimes come to you for a cup of tea and inspires you create masterpieces and make discoveries.

However you can get inspired artificially, by visiting a museum or other beautiful place, for example. That`s what I did. I wrote a list of places I had to visit within a week. Maybe in one of them my fractious inspiration will wake up. But neither the evening walk around the center of the city, nor the exhibition of modern art, nor beautiful fountains in the park, nor motivating film in the cinema, nor even a countryside trip couldn`t wake it up. My inspiration was still sleeping brazenly and didn`t even think about soon waking up.

In the moments when the artist is left by his inspiration, all  world seems grey and senseless. Days become longer, but go slowly. And then you start thinking about  why you live, where and why this stupid and perishable world is running, why the people appeared on the Earth and how they, so naive and unprotected, are still alive, why Antarctic melts, how soon the alien`s invasion  will happen, what  your role in this countless cycle of life and death is,  if you don`t create anymore?...

Now this feeling is called an “artblock”. And there is even a lot of ways to struggle it. The main is: work, work and work! Take it and do it! Say no to laziness! But am I lazy? Is it possible to do anything without confidence that at least something will work out?

Melancholics claim that the best way is to sit and wait for the weather to change. All what yours will find you, it is only a matter of time. But if you wait for Monday every week, it won`t come at all. The life will pass, but the cherished Monday will stay in untouchable future.

The fashion has an effective advice on this case: to return to the source.  After a little thinking, I decided that it was what I needed. There were no questions, it used to be great to draw, we with my inspiration lived in perfect harmony. Maybe after deep analysis I would understand what I miss?

In my first  free evening I got all my paintings of beforestudying era and began looking at them. But they didn`t fit common parameters, they defied logical analysis. They were all absolutely different. They were united only by author and same paints.

They say, to give fair criticism to your own work you should look at it as if it is not your work. Now all my paintings were circling in front of me as a kaleidoscope, and I really didn`t believe that once they had been created by me. They seemed the height of perfection for me. They had the most important – the idea, despite their non-academism. We are all people. We can`t always act perfectly. When there aren’t mistakes, there isn`t life. Therefore, all these Renaissance pictures are so bored.

The longer I looked at my old paintings, the more I understood that I wouldn’t be able to draw the same way anymore, that my imagination was dying and the talent with it. That I will have to become a second Shishkin or Repin because I can`t be the same Masha Zueva anymore. Divine providence and eternal engine became only legends and unrealizable dreams for me. And when I was one step away to throw all the painting, masterpieces, not masterpieces and other art rave into the burning cauldron, I came across the old-old painting. Lettering on it says, that I was eight when I drew it, or rather – colored. It was clipping from some coloring which shows the “Girl with a pearl earring” which was wrong colored by little me, who hadn`t known before that it was a great Jan Vermeer`s masterpiece created back in 1600 or so…

And here it is! For some reason, only the “Girl with a pearl earring” found her place in my head. I finally after such a long time felt this sweet taste of creating expectation. Blood went to my brain, arms and legs. All colors from Itten`s Circle returned into my life, and the inspiration boiled the kettle.
Brushes knocked on a can of water more beautiful than some symphony orchestras, paints lay down the canvas as paradise birds and smells better than bouquets of exquisite flowers and the palette was bloomed by shades and semitones.
The reflexes and perspectives again appeared in my life. I created again, created and got pleasure from it.

But as soon as I moved away from the canvas, disappointment crept up on me. Well… Right, I have already seen the similar picture. It was drawn by Jan Vermeer. Back in 1600 or so… And it is called “The girl with a pearl earring”…
I didn`t create, I only copied.

Maybe you don`t know, but artists are afraid of plagiarism. There is no more terrible than knowing that you redrawing, but don`t drawing by yourself. That you steal, but don`t create. If you can’t do something by yourself, you are not a painter. Painters don`t take, painters give, surprise, inspire and are inspired to inspire others again. They do mistakes and correct them, study, improve  themselves and desire to achieve something. Create wonders by ordinary human hands. Not a painter that painter, who hasn`t own view and goals. And not a painter that painter, who can`t erase own line.

So, I`ll try again.

Chapter 5 “How masterpieces appear”

“Everyone can cook…



Masterpiece is something unique. Masterpiece is something on a top of improving. Masterpiece is something that got a public recognition.

You should be genius to create a masterpiece. No every mortal can create something, which will be called this proud word “ma-ster-piece”, by even the most skeptic critic. However these masterpieces are a dime a dozen and we learnt about over a thousand of them at the art school. But how many of them are remained out of brackets! How many of them are in galleries taking into account that the exhibits constantly change! And all these are masterpieces, masterpieces, masterpieces! Who creates them? And in such amount! And the main: how? There must be a hereditary secret which is passed down from generation to generation in the tightly closed room and in the quietest whisper. Unlikely all these great people created their no less great pictures to the touch. But maybe it is what we call “uniqueness”…

Masterpiece is ideal. Every line on it is in its place. And masterpiece can`t become old. Masterpieces will remain masterpieces even trough thousands of years.
Yes, maybe it seems unreal to create something ideal and immortal. But neither Leonardo da Vinchi, no Salvador Dali, nor anybody else couldn`t know that now, after centuries, such boys and girls as me will learn their pictures in art schools. That millions of historians, our contemporaries, will find mysteries in their paintings and explore them literally  by molecules. That there will be museums in their houses and flats, and that we will admire  their pictures, which we call “masterpieces”. They all, the greats scientists of art, just created. Maybe Malevich had no hope for his “Sportsmen” and Van Gog`s “Sunflowers” were kept in a dusty desk drawer in canvas fabric. Masterpieces were not created to be in galleries, they were created only because once somebody wanted to create them.

And yet to create a masterpiece you have to have a lot of bravery. You have to somehow complete the work and don`t leave it at the beginning. You have to take instruments and fight with the white sheet. You don’t have to be afraid to name your brainchild a “masterpiece”, for now only your own, little but true masterpiece. But all these are only first steps in creating  a piece of art. Then you have to let your painting go on a long voyage so that  it can be seen by people and they decide whether it worth their admiration. And for this, of course, it has to have something unique, which makes it different from other paintings which were similarly let in the voyage in looking for the recognition. Because masterpiece is idea, news, sensation.

Therefore masterpieces can`t be copied or stolen. That`s the sense: to create something new, something your own, something which will surprise people. You can`t just copy “The girl with pearl earring”. The picture like this will never be a masterpiece, even my own little masterpiece. The art like this isn`t  art at all. There isn`t art in empty copy. But masterpiece may be a homage or a collage.
So I decided to draw my own “Girl with pearl earring” as a  tribute and gratitude to the great Jan Vermeer`s painting, which returned my inspiration back to me.
_ _ _

Eventually it turned out a few swarthy girl, as if she was a gypsy. The background was decorated by comics flourishes, and the whole picture as a whole looked like an illustration from a fashion magazine. The only similar thing was: that they were both girls with a pearl earring and were dressed alike.
Of course it is not top of my skills, it is far from the sensation, but it is my masterpiece, my way to say “thanks” for the newfound inspiration. And if I have it now, I definitely will create something else, newer, more amazing  and better.
To create a masterpiece you should just start.


…but only fearless achieve the greatness”
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And we
Create by our hands
Fabrics, weightless and thin
The beauty is tangible…