Art inspiration

Author Anatoli Gostev Back

Art always carries an instinctive character, starting with inspiration. Inspiration for creating a work of art can be considered as an attempt to understand the emotion towards an object or theme, whether fictional or real. When viewed through the prism of emotions, a subject is transformed into something tangible on canvas, speaking to the viewer in a universal language of feelings.
- Anatoli Gostev

Two paths of inspiration in painting.

The simplest and most superficial way is to see or imagine a plot and capture it.

There is another way... analyzing what has been seen, what has been stored in memory, and then determining the purpose of it all and whether it will be interesting to others. And finally, the most important question - can one live with it?

When I begin a painting, I do not know when it will end: in a month, a year, or perhaps never... You have to be able to suffer through the painting... And then the painting begins, and a brushstroke that you cannot immediately grasp causes so much anguish that you lose your mind. And you work, striving for results for weeks and months...

Painting - the most beautiful deception.

"Painting is the most beautiful deception," claimed Kees van Dongen. "If there were only one truth, you couldn't make a hundred paintings on the same theme," echoed Picasso.

Painting can be compared to jazz. A musician takes a simple melody and improvises on it, adding new notes and nuances. If done well, we are willing to listen to his interpretation infinitely, discovering new notes each time. Painting is like jazz.

Good jazz rests on a small number of melodies (in painting, these melodies are landscape, still life, portrait, and the life that surrounds us). Jazz is so incredibly beautiful because it allows us to freely shape a simple melody into something new and thus convey the entire spectrum of human feelings, just like a painting.