Richard Wollheim

"Learning appears as a way of staying young, perhaps of staying alive, and also as a way of growing up, perhaps facing death."

— Richard Wollheim

British Author, Philosopher

1923 - 2003

Commentary
Life-long learning is a powerful habit to develop. Learning something new keeps us in touch with our youth and helps us to stay active and alive. What have you learned in the last week? The past month?  Who has taught you something new about yourself or your art?

We experience the world through our senses — hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling. And what we experience teaches us much if we are paying attention and alert to the possibilities. Did you smell the wind today? Did you hear the approaching storm? Do you taste the rain on your face?

From the time we are born until we die, our purpose is to learn, to grow, and to change. Most learning does not occur in school and we don't stop learning once we graduate. Cultivate a learning attitude. Unfortunately, many people do not learn from their mistakes. They are not willing to change and grow. To be a great artist or writer, you must be constantly learning about the world in which we inhabit.

And when we face death, it will teach us much that we have forgotten. Do not be afraid of death. Understand that it is a gift. It is a door through which we pass, a gate that leads to another world.

Biography

Wollheim was the son of actress and a theatrical agent.  He participated as a soldier in World War II and for a short time was a prisoner of war.  After the war, he studied philosophy, politics and economics.  He taught at the University College in London, Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, the University of California at Berkeley as well as other universities.

Wollheim married Anne Powell in 1950 and had twin sons.  He married his second wife, Mary Day Lanier, in 1967 and she gave birth to a daughter.

Richard Wollheim is known for his philosophical work on mind and emotions as related to the visual arts.  He was president of the British Society of Aesthetics from 1992 until 2003

Wollheim wrote and published 14 books including a biography of Freud (1971), a novel entitled, A Family Romance (1969) and several philosophical books including Painting as Art, Art and Its Objects, The Thread of Life, On the Emotions, The Mind and Its Depths and The Germs: A Memoir of Childhood. 

Pablo Picasso

"What I want is that my picture should evoke nothing but emotion."

— Pablo Picasso

Spanish Artist

1881 - 1973

Commentary

Does your creative work evoke the emotions of your audience?  Does the work touch people's hearts?  Or is it an exercise in intellectual games?  The best creative work, the work that will last, touches people deeply and evokes emotions.  Think of the music the you like or the paintings that you enjoy.  They touch some part of you very deeply.

Are you in touch with your emotions?  Or do you hide your emotions from yourself and others?  When was the last time you had a deep emotional cry?  Do you believe that it is okay to cry?  Movies, more than novels or poetry, tend to touch me very deeply and often make me cry.  I have recently been watching the first season of the TV show, Touch, starring Kiefer Sutherland.  Every episode has filled my eyes with tears.  I have been emotionally touched.

What creative works have touched you deeply?  Have made you cry?  Or laugh?  Or scream?  Or frightened you?  Think of those thriller movies that some people love to watch.  Years ago when I attempted to read Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, it made me sick to my stomach and I could not finish it.  

Creative Practice

This week ask yourself if your creative work touches the hearts of other people.  Does your creative work evoke the emotions of others?  Then create a new work from the heart.  Create something that evokes the emotions others.

Poems That Touched Me

This past week I identified ten poems that have touched my heart over the years.  If all my books were taken away and I only could keep ten poems, these would be the ten that I would keep.  All ten poems can be found on the web.  I have linked the titles to copies of the poems.  If you have not read them, you should.

1.  The Waking by Theodore Roethke  

2.  The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

3.  Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

4.  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Elliot

5.  anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings

6.  Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

7.  Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

8.  Underwear by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

9.  What I Learned From My Mother by Julia Kasdorf

10.  Watering the Horse by Robert Bly

What poems have touched your heart?  What paintings have evoked emotions in you?  What novels have left you sad?  Glad? Or mad?

Artist Background

One of the greatest artist of any century, Pablo Picasso was born in Spain but lived most of his life in France.  As an artist, he was constantly reinventing himself.  Known for founding the Cubist movement, he was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer.

Video

Here is one person's listing of the top twenty paintings by Picasso.  Not all would make my list, but the top 2 would.

John Cage

"The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience."

— John Cage

American Composer, Author and Artist

1912 - 1992

The act of creation is an emotional act.  We write because we need to express our emotions.  We paint because we need to express how we feel.  We sing because our hearts are crying.  And we connect with our audience because they too feel what we feel.  Novelists and poets fail when their work become too cerebral, too much about ideas.  Novelists are at their best when they tell a story that connects with emotions of their audiences.

Nikki Giovanni

"Writers don't write from experience, though many are hesitant to admit that they don't.  I want to be clear about this.  If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems.  Writers write from empathy."

— Nikki Giovanni

American Poet

1943 - 

Writers don't experience everything they write about.  They have to be able to walk in the shoes of others, to be able to see through the eyes of others.  If writers could only write about what they have experienced, we would not have fantasy, science fiction or romance novels.  Male writers could not write about the experiences of females; nor could female writers write about the experiences of males.  Writers would not be able to write about people from other cultures.

All creative leaders need empathy.  They need to be able to understand where other people are coming from.  They need to be able to experience the world through the eyes of others.  No one is an island.

Here is an interview with Nikki Giovanni.

Dean Koontz

"If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that's more than just entertainment — which is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people."

— Dean Koontz

American Novelist

1945 -

All art is about touching people.  Have you ever been moved by a painting?  Or cried at the end of a movie?  Or spend hours lost in a fictional world created by a writer?  In the end, the reason we create is to communicate our feelings to others — to connect emotionally with other people.  Does your art move you to tears?  Then it will probably touch others as well.

Here is an interview with Dean Koontz.