"The best art divides the audience."

 

Tim Denning

@Tim_Denning

5h • 16 tweets • 5 min read •  Read on X

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1839633876399915070.html

This is Rick Rubin.

He's a music producer who's worked with Jay-Z, Kanye & Lady Gaga.

He doesn't know anything about music & made $300M. His badass philosophy for creativity is why artists come to him.

Here's the philosophy:

1. “I have no technical ability. And I know nothing about music.” - Rick Rubin

• Being an expert is overrated
• Creative people are great at the intangible
• Theory/education often drowns out the art

Being creative doesn't mean being productive or talented. 

2. "The best art divides the audience."

• Take off your safety pants
• Let people disagree with you
• The haters help your work go viral

If everyone agrees with you, what you've created is sh*t. 

3. "Everything we do is art.

It doesn't matter if it’s picking out clothes, or working on a song, or making dinner. It’s all about how it feels and how it resonates."

• We're all creative even if we don't think we are
• Art is making people feel something 

4. “Get the full idea down as quickly as possible. When you see the whole thing, you see opportunities for connections.”

The first draft needs to happen.

Move your ego out of the way.

Let it flow out of you.

Finished work beats a folder full of drafts that make you an amateur.

5. “Go on with a blind belief something good will happen until proven impossible.”

• Much of creativity is just confidence

• If you believe it's good others will. Convince yourself first.

• Creativity is subjective. Hit publish & let the world decide. 

6. “Perfection is achieved not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.”

• For true creativity to exist you must remove all the filler no killer stuff in the way

• Rarely is there not enough. Often there's too much.

Masterpieces are simple & have fewer layers.

7. “Creativity is not a rare ability.

It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us”

• We're born creative

• Corporations & society beat the creativity out of us

Make creativity a habit to get it back 

8. “Impatience is an argument with reality”

The creative journey leads nowhere if you're looking for overnight success

• Slow down
• Put in the work
• Daily flow states
• Chase obsession 

9. "There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across"

• Morons make things complicated

• Creative people talk simple because that's how movements are built

If it sounds smart it's bullsh*t or it comes from a McKinsey consultant. 

10. "Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience"

• What you think you know is a distraction

• True creativity is humility. It's knowing you know nothing

• Creativity doesn't follow a plan/strategy. It's chaos, madness & insanity all in one.

11. "You can't control people's interpretation. And why would you want to?"

• No one knows if your creative output is good
• Stop trying to be a fortune-teller

The best reactions to your work are unexpected. 

12. "Some mistakes are actually subconscious problem solving."

Creativity is full of mistakes.

That's why perfect people are uncreative.

True art is full of flaws & the flaws make the art better not worse. 

13. "Sometimes the mistakes are what makes something great.

Humanity breathes in the mistakes."

• Humans are imperfect, so imperfect art feels more human & that's why it resonates more

Go write something full of typos. 

14. "Do not think about what you want to be remembered for

Instead, focus on what you want to create"

Creating a legacy is stupid

Why focus on what your life will be like when you're dead?

What's fulfilling is creative work done today. What happens to that work when you're dead is none of your business. 

All forms of creativity start with writing.

Get the ideas out of your brain and onto the internet. Watch it transform your life.

My free email course will help you get started:

Start Writing on Social Media - Xhttps://timdenning.com/startonsocial-x

Sistine chapel

 

Culture Critic

@Culture_Crit

1h • 18 tweets • 8 min read •  Read on X

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Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is history's greatest artwork — but what does it actually mean?

Well, these are no ordinary Bible scenes.

And there's one key detail that everyone ignored for centuries… (thread) 🧵

Man's greatest painting was made not by a painter, but a sculptor. Michelangelo was primarily a sculptor in 1508, when the Pope twisted his arm into adorning the chapel ceiling.

He had never completed a fresco before...

That is evident in the 343 figures that look like they were "sculpted" onto the ceiling — muscular, powerful forms that borrowed from classical sculpture.

So what did he actually paint up there?

In short, there are 9 scenes from Genesis across the center: the story of man's creation, and his fall from grace...

Including, of course, the Creation of Adam — perhaps the most famous image in history.

The moment God gives the gift of life to the first man: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

But there's so much more than meets the eye.

For one thing, God reaches through what appears to be the prefrontal cortex of an anatomically correct brain...

And there's a brain stem concealed in God's neck.

Michelangelo, an expert in anatomy, was creating a sort of treatise of the human body — celebrating the wonder of man's origin story.

And it's not only a celebration of the body, but the soul — imparted to Adam as if by an electric charge through his finger.

Why isn't Adam's finger fully outstretched like God's is? Because to find God, we need only reach towards him as vigorously as he reaches towards us.

Then, surrounding the panels are all these nude figures called the Ignudi.

They seem to frame each scene, but nobody really knows why. Perhaps they're simply reflecting Michelangelo's love of classical nude sculpture...

Around the outside are Old Testament prophets who predicted Christ's coming, like Isaiah and Zechariah.

They're painted right into the architecture — except the ceiling is smooth. It was made 3D by architectural elements entirely painted on.

Then there are figures not from the Bible: the Sibyls. They're oracles from other ancient traditions who also foretold Christ's coming — from Persia to Libya.

Anticipation of the saviour came from all across the ancient world...

But many have pointed out that the ceiling of the most holy space in Christendom doesn't actually contain any Christian (New Testament) theology.

Why is that?

Well, there's one more clue.

In Michelangelo's Garden of Eden, Eve isn't reaching for an apple — it's a fig...

In medieval Christian tradition, the Forbidden Fruit (not specified in the Bible) was always an apple.

But Michelangelo's interpretation suggests he was familiar with the old Jewish tradition of a fig tree...

Why choose this? He was painting a path from the Hebrew Bible and the classical world right up to the Catholic Church.

Other cultures weren't at odds with Christianity, but awaiting it — and it was time to unite them all...

Jesus isn't present on the ceiling, but everything leads up to him.

From the millennia of prophecies that predicted him, to his Jewish ancestral family painted around the outside, to the need for salvation in the first place.

The ceiling is an almighty bridge connecting the Old Testament with the New — and the chosen people of Israel with their successors in the Catholic Church.

Decades later, Michelangelo would return to complete the story above the altar: The Last Judgment...

I go deeper on topics like this in my FREE newsletter — you do NOT want to miss tomorrow's email!

66,000+ people read it: art, history and culture 👇

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Color in nature

 

Wolf of X

@tradingMaxiSL

Colors are the smiles of nature: A thread on breathtaking masterpieces painted by nature's hand 1. Electric sunset, powdery white beaches and turquoise ocean of Turks & Caicos islands.

9:26 AM · Jul 31, 2024

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127.8K

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