Progress vs. Perfection: Death Match.

Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)

Today I'd like to share some French art wisdom from Eugène Delacroix, which I encountered, hilariously, on a Yogi teabag:

"The artist who aims at perfection in everything attains it in nothing."

And this guy looks like he knows. Check out that stance, the gaze fixed on some distant invisible object, the hand on the breast. Actually, I like to think he is about to pull out a pistol for a surprise duel with his nemesis, Ingrès...

But I digress. The point of invoking Delacroix today is to point out that anyone who does art (or anything creative) knows that perfection is the enemy of progress. Now, when I say knows I mean intellectually knows. Like you know the alphabet or that George Washington had wooden teeth.

Ok. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm interested in is the kind of knowing that bypasses mere logic and stabs to the still-beating heart of realization. As in: you know, you understand, and that understanding grounds your experience of reality, like gravity.

In art, I find myself going way over the edge of perfectionism all the time. I want everything to be awesome! To the point of denying the process, all the wrongness that has to be sloshed through to get it that way. It's like the Think Method in the Music Man...such poetic bullshit.

To subvert the Think Method, I have decided to assiduously post my art projects on my blog for awhile. I'd like to invite you, internet vigilantes, to follow along if you are so inclined. I will be in my studio, kept company by the ghost of Delacroix, death knells of the Minuet in G in the background.

P.S. It might interest you to know that some artists follow an artistic lineage, like a family tree. I technically belong to the artistic lineage of Delacroix, as in: I was taught be artists who were taught by artists who were taught by Delacroix. Except I don't really care about that.