Art and Talent

There is a preconceived notion that art rests fundamentally on talent. That talent is a gift randomly bestowed onto a select few but not onto most.

The idea, as far as I can tell, is that you either possess this talent or you don't.

Think about that for a second.

You either have talent or you don't.

There's another way of looking at this notion.

Great art = genius

Good art = near genius

and so on, and so forth...

then you get to somewhere along this spectrum to the bottom.

Somewhere there is someone doing paint-by-numbers and calling it art. Maybe even trying to sell it! *gasp*

Do you look at yourself, your art, or the art world in general in this manner?

You either have talent or you don't?

Does that frighten you?

It should.

Tags: art, genius, good, great, talent

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Comment by Curt Schauer on October 1, 2010 at 1:06am: Someone art Harvard Business School passed with a C average and was the lowest in their class. The founder of FedEx received a failing grade on his business plan to create his business. The expert, educated and talented professor didn't see the genius in his plan. Bill Gates dropped out of college to start Microsoft. He didn't write the DOS code. He bought it from a talented software engineer and used it in the PC application. Talent is perceived by those around the individual. It doesn't necessarily mean the talent doesn't exist. I think it only means that those who have observed what a person can do may or may not appreciate it for what it is or could be...

I always wanted to be a professional baseball player. I wasn't talented enough to be one. But I loved and played amateur baseball for almost half my life. I was a baseball player. I may or may not be talented enough to be a professional artist. But I have the passion to pursue expression of myself through visual media and I'm developing as an artist. I think the level of talent only really matters if you desire to make a professional occupation out of the work you're doing...as compared to a vocation or a "calling" to do work in the arts.

Comment by Lainy Allison on April 26, 2010 at 6:22am: could you also think that maybe it is a case for being naturally gifted ot talent educated..