When the being is the-state-of-the-art

Whosoever paints, writes, sings, dances, works in the field of science or mathematics may be a painter, writer, singer or dancer, a scientist or a mathematician but may not essentially be an artist.  On the other hand, one who doesn’t do any of the mentioned things may very well be an artist. Actually what it takes to be an artist is difficult to define. Occupation is not a determiner in this case.

Perhaps it is the attitude towards life with its tidbits, its good and bad, negatives and positives, its turn and twists, tears and joy, success and failures which distinguish an artist. Art concerns the entirety of life and also its breakups. To me, Jesus, Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna were artists followed by, say a rag-picker in a dilapidated slum who could not give any material help to his ailing neighbor but ran up to the church, temple or mosque and sat there the whole day and night praying for the sick who may have been a habitual critic of the rag-picker all his life. Isn’t the poor soul an artist?

Nothing, none is perfect in this world. It’s a misnomer. An artist is an artist for he never spends time in pursuit of perfection. Rather he only does his job but with total, truthful sincerity, absolute attention and employs his best common sense and peripheral knowledge he has acquired from life. Even if he doesn’t find the thing interesting yet he submits to the work like a hungry man submits himself to the job of eating whatever he is given to eat. The hunger for action, an action that is an add-on to the life and its continuation, is a profile of an artist.

An artist transcends himself and reaches a state of creativity in thoughts and practice, in approach and habit, in deliverance or even non-deliverance. Didn’t the rag-picker transcend? Apparently he may not have delivered anything perceptible to senses but what about the vibrations his prayer created? That is where he performed like an artist. Creating vibes for life is another profile of artist.

Someone is listening to Mozart or Michael Jackson, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi or Pandit Ravi Shankar or any other of their likes and for that moment has forgotten the world. Someone is witnessing, say a Husain or a Picasso and has forgotten to respond to the urgent call of nature. Someone is praying with tears rolling down his cheeks and never knows a snake has climbed up to his shoulder and gone down the other side. All these three are artists.

One who loses one’s own self even for a brief while to a work of art including a scientific or technological marvel is for that brief period of time an artist. He necessarily is the closet relation of the tribe of artists who have lost themselves in what they create and what were created by the predecessors. That is what is called enlivening the-state-of-art.