To Be an Artist

I'm continuing a line of rereading that was touched off by Karen Armstrong's book, The Bible:  A Biography (a treasure trove of Armstrong will be in the next post after this one) and am reading another of Chaim Potok's books, My Name is Asher Lev.  Asher is a young Ladover Hasid, burdened and gifted with incredible ability as an artist and painter.  The major theme of the book is reconciling his two worlds, that of his religious life (powerfully influenced by his father's view of sketching and painting as foolishness) and his all-consuming life as an artist.  At one point, he reads Robert Henri's book, The Art Spirit and I found the following quote thought-provoking:

You can do anything you want to do.  What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing:  wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.

A few pages on, in My Name is Asher Lev, I read the following:

"It will be five years," Jacob Kahn said to her.  "Millions of people can draw.  Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way."

"Or a laugh," she said.  "Picasso laughs, too."

"Or a laugh," he said.