Irish poet Seamus Heaney in a 1992 poem tells the story of a drive to the ocean, where he found two contrasting and breathtaking scenes. Then, leaving aside religious language, he speaks metaphorically of an awakening of the inner life. Postscript And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along … Read more
Positive psychology has produced a lot of research on an aspect of courage that I connect with artistic living, since it shines in sports, is visible in in the fine arts, and it does not necessarily have moral connotations. This quality is an essential part of that superb attitude in life that is called grit, … Read more
Like jazz, life is a performing art. The liberated performance essential to artistic living is not about being on stage in front of critics; in particular, we do not fashion ourselves into objects for others’ pleasure. Thanks to the order established by the design phase of artistic living, liberated performance is not impulsive. And the … Read more
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” [Sun Tzu, The Art of War, quoted by John Jantsch in Duct Tape Marketing]. I know a person whose ideas on a particular topic I would like to change. I have realized recently how we all have unconscious … Read more
I use the term “aestheticism” to label a tendency of some arts people and philosophers: they despair of any sturdy results in the realms of truth and goodness, and so they look to beauty as the value out of which to build culture. There are many varieties of aestheticism, some of which show a … Read more
C.P.E. Bach and others accompany Frederick the Great “Harmony” is often mentioned as an ideal and sometimes dismissed as outdated and naive. I think Bach understands what makes harmony a mature and worthy aesthetic value for our age. What do you think? The intellectual character of Bach’s music is something that listeners immediately sense. Consider … Read more
Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and Naina Yeltsin after his performance in an opera There is abundant evidence that Bach’s dominant motivation as a composer was religious. In his Bible he wrote, “With devotional music, God is always present in his grace.” In his religious music, he might write abbreviations for “Jesus, help” or “To God alone … Read more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1658-1750) came from an unusually musical family. His grandfather was a town musician, and he had three sons, each of whom was a musician; and each of them, in turn, had three sons, each of whom was a musician. If there was ever a clan which prepared a person genetically and … Read more
The art class of Adelia Armstrong Lutz Artistic living completes the experience of walking in beauty. The universe presents us with an avalanche of inner and outer beauty, and artistic living is our opportunity to give back, to cooperate in bringing forth a more beautiful world. Artistic living includes enjoying the high quality … Read more