Endless Twists
&
Inky Walls
Endless twists & inky walls
The pen entraps and enthralls
Baited with meaning, each word's a snare.
Always searching - never there -
With footsteps slow we stumble on
Long after the feeling's gone ...
No Applause for Nietzche - Although He Did Get The Clap.
For a social misfit, a misogynist who died crazed by syphilis, Nietzche came up with a surprisingly compelling explanation for the creative process. In the course of trying to formulate a "definition" of Tragedy, he drew on the ancient Greek Pantheon, concluding that "tragedy" exists on the knife edge that separates the respective spheres of influence of Apollo (god of light, reason, intellect and plastic art) and Dionysis (god of drunken revelry, debauchery and, as one might expect, an avid dancer, horn player and theatregoer).
The translation of the abstract Idea by the artist into the concrete Execution is illustrated by the Nietzchean dichotomy - the intangible Dionysian darkness - a chaos of raw ideas, energy, passion, primal urges and divine inspiration is illuminated by the shining light of Apollonian reason. This enables we humans to capture the essence in the form of "plastic" i.e. tangible, art. Of course, something is always lost in the translation ... the modern sense of "plastic" gains fresh relevance. Incidentally, could this be why spontaneous music and dance are the most emotional expressions of artistic talent - in that they follow as closely as is humanly possible the "original" Idea?
As you can see, it's very easy to lose oneself the minute one tries to make sense of stuff - so I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions about how successfully I've captured feelings, ideas or experiences (or, hopefully, all three) in the following.
