Picasso on the Artist

The greatest artist of the past century, here’s Picasso dwelling on his tribe -

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place ; from the sky, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman, we don’t start measuring her limbs.

(Also he says something of immense resonance to the crisis in Salman Rushdie’s recent fiction -

Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility. )

Rock vs Pop

Bono settles it in one stroke -

Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it’s not OK, but you can change it. There’s a defiance in rock music that gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Most pop music doesn’t make you want to get out of bed, I’m sorry to say. It puts you to sleep.

India 60 – On Culture and Reaching the Splendid City

As we approach the 60th year of Indian Independence, I feel a surge of patriotic feeling within me. I think the patriotism we feel is of a calmer nature. There is an absence of hyper-nationalist feeling in general. It is a patriotism at peace with itself, without a need to invoke comparisons to feel national pride.

Which makes me think – are we finally comfortable with the idea of India? The economic revival in the last decade or so has injected a new confidence. We’re no longer besieged by a paranoia about Western hegemony, India’s become a place that’s comfortable with the juxtaposition of both East and West. This is not a surprise considering the plural nature of our societies. Gandhi’s observation about an ideal intermingling of cultures is particularly resonant. He remarked,

I want all the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my home as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

My feeling is, we’re closer to achieving this ideal than ever before.

Yet, any blanket statement on India is always a folly. As numerous statistics will tell you, we still have sub-Saharan living standards in vast swathes of this country. As numerous statistics do prove, basic amenities have not reached everyone. Problems of hunger and farmer suicides still persist. Clearly, we have a long way to go.

I was reading Pablo Neruda’s Nobel acceptance speech this morning in which he quotes the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud (who also inspired Jim Morrison).

In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.

Neruda reiterates this as a goal of humanity, that only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all mankind.

I think it wonderfully illustrates and reminds us of where we stand as a nation. The Splendid City is still far away. Are we prepared for the struggle that lies ahead of us? Will we ever enter the City, or will it descend into oblivion as an unattainable ideal?

The choice lies with us.

Ingmar Bergman on intellect

I can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said about Ingmar Bergman.

Found this brilliant quote though while digging through the newspapers today -

I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.

The genius filmmaker who explored the existentialist crisis in a Godless universe with films such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Fanny and Alexander left an indelible mark on the cinematic world.
Woody Allen called him ‘the greatest artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.’

The Tramp’s Travails

Recently watched Charlie Chaplin’s masterly 1931 film City Lights and got interested in the life of the man who at one time represented the most famous image on earth.

His political frankness, as opposed to correctness, fascinated me. He addressed an Arts for Russia Dinner in honour of the Russian soldiers incurring the wrath of the paranoid, Cold War administration in the United States. A man who believed that patriotism was the greatest insanity ever suffered by man, Chaplin never became an American citizen despite living there for thirty years.

In 1952, after he sailed to England for the premiere of Limelight (his only film with Buster Keaton), the US administration revoked his re-entry.

The genius adroitly replied:

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go
back if Jesus Christ was President.

Another astonishing fact I came across – In 1972, after Chaplin was given the Lifetime Oscar (for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century), he received the longest standing ovation in the history of the Academy Awards, lasting a full five minutes.