Anna Wood

ARC 162

March 2024

Discussion 2

Why would an artist aspire to hermeticism when art is ultimately a culmination of shared beliefs, values, and stories?

The desire to create something beautiful draws heavily on the idea of discovering something original. This beckons the life long question of if anything is original and follows

with our human need for individuality, recognition, and legacy.  The pursuit of purism is an illusion in practice, though I believe the insight that “amateurs borrow, professionals steal

from the best”, holds true.  A professional, one with an indepth knowledge and experience within a field has no need for direct inspiration.  There is no precedent.  The

understandings have been so thoroughly extracted and enmeshed in their worldview that it becomes the lens in which they view the world rather than an observable object or

concept alone.  In this way a master can be a hermit in the sense that their conscious creation is not influenced by new material, nothing is novel.  Existing in a vacuum does not lead

to expertise, though absorbing art to maximum saturation is equally as whole as nothing is not.  I believe this idea is synonymous with Nietzsche's sentiment that “if you gaze long

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”