Bon Journal

A muse to amuse or to inspire

The maestro said that a composer must suffer and be curious. He suffers from the works of centuries of dead composers and the new compositions that appear every day. How can he keep up?

Above all, he must be curious about making new sounds.

But these two things alone aren't sufficient to compose, I say.

A composer, like a poet, a painter, a writer, or any artist who creates something out of nothing, needs a muse.

A muse is someone who inspires the creator, someone who ignites the fire in his imagination and fuels his creativity.

All the training and experience in the world will not make a great composer. It's the muse who can add a sparkle to his being and remind him of his raison d'etre.

In the movie "The Girl with a Pearl Earring," Vermeer goes to great lengths to get his muse to model for him. Until he met her, he had lost his motivation to paint. Everything had become boring. But seeing her and interacting with her caused the painter to be reborn again.

Because a muse is so essential to the composer, his treatment of the muse may seem intimate to others and thereby arouse their jealousy or envy. The relationship between the composer and his muse can be intellectually passionate and emotionally involving. It's not uncommon for the composer to fall in love with his muse and treat her like a god.

Vermeer's mother-in-law knows the importance of his muse. She is also aware of the danger, the potential threat to Vermeer's marriage. Yet, she assists in allowing Vermeer to paint his muse in secret, away from his jealous wife.

A muse does not amuse but rather inspires and encourages the artist.

19 March 2004 Friday

muse:
A guiding spirit. A source of inspiration.
[Source: http://www.dictionary.com]

Lives of muses: 9 women and the artists they inspired - book review

The brains behind writer's block "Hypergraphia (unstoppable drive to write (or produce in other media) stems from an internal drive, from a love of the work, not from external influences like money, fame, or spirituality," Alice Flaherty insists. "That's true of bad as well as good writing."