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| | | (1) Posted by Neal Turner [Thursday, Mar 9, 2017 17:27]; edited by Neal Turner [17-03-09] | (Don't) show me the money
Very early in my composing career I was astonished to see one of my efforts take 3rd Prize in a chess magazine.
After some time had passed I wrote to the editor asking: Where's my prize?
He replied explaining that '3rd Prize' was just a designation specifying the problem's place in the award and that there wasn't any prize for the composer.
This episode helped me to understand that the rewards of our art are not material, but come from the pleasure of the composing process and the appreciation shown by the solvers.
Later I went even further and concluded that ours is the purest of the arts exactly because there's little or no money involved.
Compare it with the current Art Market which is completely distorted/corrupted by money, where everything comes down to one question: How much is it worth? A question that would sound ridiculous applied to a chess problem.
The above goes to explain why I'm concerned about the trend to offer larger and larger cash prizes in composing tourneys, the latest having two sections each with a prize fund of 1000€.
A thousand euros! That's serious money - the question is: Do we really want to get serious in this way?
With real money at stake, at some stage a scandal will erupt - it's inevitable.
How will our little community recover from that?
Some time ago I came across a German proverb which (not knowing the original context) I thought would make an excellent motto for problemists: Das ist eine brotlose Kunst!
| | | (2) Posted by shankar ram [Thursday, Mar 9, 2017 18:49] |
Right!
Maybe also...
Man shall not live by bread alone?
| | | (3) Posted by Sergiy Didukh [Monday, Mar 13, 2017 22:54] |
Wrong!
The art is worth nothing if it is not paid.
Russian proverb.
Prove that you love art more than money! Organize a chess problem tourney with 1000 EUR prize fund.
| | | (4) Posted by Vitaly Medintsev [Tuesday, Mar 14, 2017 06:36] |
Sergiy, can you provide a source?
This "earthiness" cannot be a Russian proverb...
| | | (5) Posted by Roland Ott [Tuesday, Mar 14, 2017 08:36] |
This is the German proverb on the topic:
Die Kunst ist nichts Wahres ohne Aussicht auf Bares.
I don't know the source, but my guess is that it exists in almost every language.
| | | (6) Posted by seetharaman kalyan [Tuesday, Mar 14, 2017 09:24]; edited by seetharaman kalyan [17-03-14] |
@Sergiy "Prove that you love art more than money! Organize a chess problem tourney with 1000 EUR prize fund"
That was a nice one !!
| | | (7) Posted by Vitaly Medintsev [Tuesday, Mar 14, 2017 09:35]; edited by Vitaly Medintsev [17-03-14] |
@ Roland and averyone else
I meant the sentence "The art is worth nothing if it is not paid" which Sergiy consider a Russian proverb.
If it is a Russian proverb, there must be a wrong Russian who gave birth to this thought because Russian soul rebels against such a profanation of art.
| | | (8) Posted by Hauke Reddmann [Wednesday, Mar 15, 2017 23:16] |
Money changes everything. (Cyndi Lauper proverb.)
| | | (9) Posted by Sarah Hornecker [Thursday, Mar 16, 2017 09:26]; edited by Sarah Hornecker [17-03-16] |
Of course, is the artist not damned to starve? Of course, not today anymore, but his art is breadless, it is underappreciated. The artist reaps his soul, but for him it might feel more like he rapes his soul. Another work, an expression of the free spirit, and no payment, no appreciation. Insanity sets in, a Van Gogh or Picasso are good examples. Or you make it like Dalí, art that impresses people. But in reality, is there money? Not until long after death.
What would you pay for the original publication of the Saavedra study, for an original of those four columns? What would you pay for the Bondarenko archives? The price rises over time, but for the worse of us, we have few uniquities. If you have a paper book, maybe it can survive the times, maybe your art can survive the times while you die - as happened to Kaminer. But where is that booklet now? What would be the price for it? I want it to be scanned, to be made available to everyone, and of course its contents are there in the book of Kofman, but it would be interesting to compare.
Maybe only the historian will give a prize to art. Let us die from starvation, and in a hundred years we are famous.
Is that art?
Of course, a famous artist must be so great that his work can earn him a life?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/pearls-before-breakfast-can-one-of-the-nations-great-musicians-cut-through-the-fog-of-a-dc-rush-hour-lets-find-out/2014/09/23/8a6d46da-4331-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html
Maybe if you put a price on it. If you want 125 dollars, you will have a full room, sold out, to present your art.
But woe upon you if you present it for free. Be the best musician in the world, and you won't make much of a dime.
The harsh truth is, people don't have time to appreciate art. When they do, they are willing to pay. So write a book with your compositions, comment on them in a good-spirited way, give something worthwhile to people, and they pay you. Look at my book, I give it away not because I think nobody would pay - in fact, a reasonable price would always be paid - but because I don't believe in capitalism, in money. What is money? An agreement that some printed linen has a certain value. An agreement that some artificial number that some institute keeps for you can be exchanged for real goods. Money is a fraud. Look at the German history, and you see how that fraud led to the death of 55 million people. They brought carts with their money to buy a single bread. And amid the inflation a man rose who - in hindsight - most likely never believed in anything he wrote. This was not about a master race, about conquering the world, about Aryan purity. Look at his deeds, look at his friends. The only purpose of Hitler was to murder, to kill everyone, be it friend or foe. He ordered the complete destruction of Germany, and dreamt of the murder of all Germans, when he realized he loses the war. Why? There was only evil. And yet, he also started as an artist, and - I saw his pictures - not a bad one. Would we have had a great artist named Hiedler instead of a great murderer named Hitler if he would have been allowed there at the academy? And if so, would history have changed much?
It is unnecessary to think about it, unfulfilling, but also a good base for fiction, for writing about alternate history. Of course this needs an artist of letters, an Ernest Vincent Wright of our time, to make it outstanding from all the other similar novels.
As another great artist once wrote, there is a time for everything, a season for every purpose. Maybe the time comes to shine for many artists, but also those who once were artists descended into their madness completely, they not only reaped or raped, bur roped their souls, or rented them to the devil. Fame forever, but different than expected.
But to understand what is art, we must understand life itself, the meaning of it. Can we appreciate a Buddy Holly, a Kurt Cobain, who died young? Can we appreciate Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who worked together too few times? Can we appreciate just a single move by some Spanish reverend who just happens to be in Glasgow at the right time?
Is in that case the payment of art not much more valuable than money could ever be? Haven't we then server a greater good, to make the world a better place, and if only bit by bit? To give access to what has not been before? Haven't we achieved immortality by name, even if we wither? And is then not the payment given to us in another currency, far more real than money, yet far less visible?
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