GoodWolf: Awesome thought on art by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
I found this on mimaamakim, a site on Judaism and art out of NY. Wrote a piece for them in their first issue. Anyways, thought this quote from a letter by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to a Depressed Artist, was wild.
"As you are surely aware, the primary talent of an artist is his ability to step away from the externalities of the thing and, disregarding its outer form, gaze into its innerness and perceive its essence, and to be able to convey this in his painting. Thus the object is revealed as it has never before been seen, since its inner content was obscured by secondary things. The artist exposes the essence of the thing he portrays, causing the one who looks at the painting to perceive it in another, truer light, and to realize that his prior perception was deficient.
And this is one of the foundations of man’s service of his Creator....
Our mission in life—based on the simple faith that “there is none else beside Him”—is that we should approach everything in life from this perspective. That we should each strive to reveal, as much as possible, the divine essence in every thing, and minimize, to the extent that we are able, its concealment by the externalities of creation...
A person might experience difficulties, trials and challenges in separating the good from the bad. But these are but the means by which to achieve the purpose of life—that his soul should elevate itself through its positive deeds in this world... So one must never allow the difficulties in overcoming one’s trials, or even the fact that one might occasionally fail and stumble, to overwhelm the joy that one must feel as a child of G-d..."
This text was a freely-translated excerpt from a letter by the Rebbe dated 24 Adar II, 5711 (March 8, 1951)
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