The Qualities Of The Painter In Leadership

To create means to transform perceived reality into an expression of the spirit, through which the distinctive essence of creative thought is revealed.

A fragment from the book “The life of an artist” written by Maurice Rheims, particularly caught my attention on this quiet September evening. It is about the qualities a painter needed to become extraordinary in the field of art. But just as well, these qualities can serve as a model for leaders everywhere who aspire to the condition of “exceptionalism”, especially if we consider the eye full of infinite meanings that the converging lens of the self-image sees as defining future guidelines in defining the quality of the act of creation.

“In reality, there are few who have the qualities required of exceptionalism, attributed to artists. It is true that what degrades painting, making it descend to the lowliness of the most despicable jobs, is the great number of painters who have neither wit nor talent and sometimes even no common sense.

The origin of this great evil springs from the admission to painting schools of all kinds of children, without choice, without being examined and without being supervised for a time to be able to ascertain whether they were destined for this beautiful art by the necessary nature and talent, or sooner by a reckless inclination, or by the avarice of their parents, who push them towards painting as a profession that they think is perhaps a bit more profitable than others.

Is your vocation authentic enough to spring from a calling that cannot be imposed, but only discovered?

To be worthy of the name painter you must have the following qualities:

- Healthy mind.

- Docile nature, to take advantage of teachings and to accept without arrogance the advice of enlightened people.

- Noble heart, to prioritize glory and fame, but not riches.

- The sense of the sublime, to create quickly, to emit beautiful ideas and to treat subjects in a superior way that shows finesse, delicacy and work of value.

- Passion for reaching at least some degree of perfection, without getting bored with the studies that painting requires.

- Health, to withstand the spiritual effort that study requires.

- Youth, because painting requires a lot of experience and practice.

- Beauty, because pictures are always painted in the form of pictures, and because nature likes to produce what resembles itself.

- A good material condition, to have time to study and work in peace, without being disturbed by the horrifying and terrible image of poverty.

- Work, because theory does not make money without practice.

- Love for one’s art. We never suffer in the work we love, and if we do happen to suffer, we revel in that suffering.

- To be under the guidance of a learned master, because everything depends on the beginnings and because usually, we adopt the master’s way of working and form our taste after his.”

Can you conceive reality as a bridge between your being and an alternative identity, at the moment when you project yourself into a work of images that you experience as an authentic alter ego?

The awareness of these qualities, through an identification of the Self with its reflection (Alter-Ego) can be received as a lesson about the things that the eye catches at the sight of things or situations meant to generate certain results. Here I refer to the value of a comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of mirroring in the status of the artist willing to create “art for art’s sake”. I am referring to the artist’s ambition to give body to a thought, to imagine its anatomy until it becomes an object of admiration and a means of expressing feelings.

Of course, the reflective plane is chosen arbitrarily, because the specific Alter-Ego of the artist travels on the idea of reformulating or redefining an experience that the common man does not explicitly aim to ever have modified.

At the same time, this comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of mirroring in the status of the artist (of being present outside oneself, thus being in the alternative reality of a world transposed in brightly colored images) can usually be found not through facts or creative attitudes towards problems of life, but through the inclination of sight to capture those images associated with the idea of soul. In this way, I highlighted the quality called “the heart of art” which ignites with love for the whole creation, attaching itself to those who know how to see in the things around them more than a beautiful packaging, but a perfection in what concerns the representation of the symbolic form.

Announcing, however, a new vision with the means of expression of art, for an Alter-Ego initiated in the mysteries of painting, is a kind of intermediate instance between “seeing” and “remaining blind”. Because regardless of what exactly shapes the mind, if the soul does not have a language full of meanings, if it does not shelter under the wings of the durable that feeling of the inner world, delicate, protective, steadfast, capable of perfectly and completely rendering the humane, then neither self-consciousness will be able to manifest through the inner power to transform the surrounding reality.

Do you seek the balance between the essence of content and visual form, especially when you try to relate the represented reality to the truth of an authentic artistic act?

So, among the qualities of a knowledgeable person can be distinguished the ability to experiment, to observe the manifestations of the interference between the consciousness of the meaning of art (as an intellectual activity) and the outside world, so that the reality he represents is similar to the exposition of an artistic act.

Here I am referring to the habit of directly observing certain phenomena, the close connections between them, in favor of a possible parallel drawn between the perception from the outside (of other people) and the individual assumption of the effort to obtain a new and unique reality, able to excite. And if this reality oriented towards naturalness, towards objective clarity, causes the determined being to be set in motion, then we will notice that the most important experience a leader needs is to be aware of his unique individuality.

Is identity defined by consistency with one’s own purpose, founded on a conscious decision made before the full assessment of its consequences?

And only through a complex of circumstances, through some special qualities, from the totality of observations offered by the visual experience of an ordinary reality, the leader will be able to perfect his imagination, according to the chosen angle of view. For example, having a broader perspective on events, in the aspect of a correlation between the visual representation of a design and relating to a creative experience, is not the same as having a clearer perspective on each individual thing (as the main object of subjective appreciation).

Let me put it another way. The reality you represent is the result of observing the image you relate to. And the guarantee of a quality artistic act can often be gained by achieving some degree of perfection in terms of rendering reality in an affective-rational form towards an inspired theme (for example, a rural landscape that conveys the peasant atmosphere and folk spirit).

Can you finalize your creation by bringing to the forefront new representations of various themes, through your transposition into another plane of reality, within a different setting and time?

You need to know one more important thing. “The Differentiating Whole” aims at the comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of awareness of the distinguished Ego as a form of expression, not just as a spirit. For the beauty of art finds its expression both in its content and in its form. It is about an Ego observed by the attentive eye of an artist who knows how to highlight new representations of various themes with the help of its transposition into another plane of reality, in another setting, in another time and space.

The elements of the “Differentiating Whole” are some constructive stages of artistic creation. Among them are: the elementary act of transposing the image of an object in plan, according to the chosen viewing angle; the mental completion of an image that remained occult; the ability to capture and portray a theme from imagination alone; the reproduction of the image that you consider defining for the sensation of Deja Vu; awareness of otherness in a work of art; etc…

Another thing. The guarantee of a quality artistic act is given by the thinking behind the creative process that makes the things you design functional and durable, not just beautiful. At the same time, the guarantee of a quality artistic act, making it express simple feelings in an impulsive or naturalistic sense, can be constituted by the reality observed by the attentive eye of the artist – a reality that exists in the form of symbols-images which, if understood and thus discharged of their sacred potential, they will allow the expansion of consciousness.

Leadership is the vibration of the mind that shapes the idea into experience and places it within an image bearing your unmistakable imprint.

The Qualities Of The Painter In Leadership are necessary to bring to reality the idea that a consciousness that seeks to interpret itself metaphorically is the miracle of a creation that can at any time engage in explaining the connection between what remains unchanged in time and what arises as an enrichment of the concrete experience transposed into a surrealist vision.

The qualities of a painter always make room for honor at all levels of leadership.