Where does the impetus to create art come from?

A question on my mind:

Where does our initial impetus to create art come from?

For example a lot of older Freudian philosophers assume that the urge to create art is sexual; creating art as procreation (of your own children). This might be plausible, but there must be more to it.

I cannot speak for others, but let me try to best describe where I think I get my personal impetus to create art from:

1. Witnessing beauty or a pose

I was with Cindy last night and saw her just sitting on a chair on her laptop with her arms folded around her body. I wanted to capture that gesture which I found beautiful and elegant. I did a quick sketch on my iPad with zen brush 2 app, trying to highlight her two arms and legs:

Then adding the “O” for her head, and trying to sketch her other leg:

Then trying to simplify the image, getting rid of her other leg:

I felt satisfied with the final image, so I stopped making iterations to the image.

Below you can see the evolution of images:

The process of iteration reminds me of Picasso’s bulls:

Note the process of deconstruction:

First theory:

Impetus of art creation as understanding the physical world. Trying to break it down and apart. To make the world comprehensible via art.

Also, the iterative process of art: constantly adding parts, removing parts, etc.

Thus art creation is both a constructive and destructive process.

Thus the second theory:

Art creation as the joy of constructing or deconstructing things.

Sculpture as construction through deconstruction (you subtract from the marble in order to shape or design the stone into a sculpture).

Poet: utilizing economy of words to express the maximum impact through the fewest words? (the genius of Homer in Iliad and Odyssey, and genius of zen haiku poets). How to impact more with less.

2. The joy of calligraphy

For myself making calligraphy is insanely fun, with little to no stakes.

I find making calligraphs as soothing, relaxing, and fun. Like constructing a visual puzzle. I start from a random point on the canvas, and I’m not sure where my finger will end up. The pattern of the trace is totally random.

Third theory:

Art creation as just playing. No utilitarian value.

For example I look at my calligraphs and I like them! They got good strokes, good form and I just like to look at them. But I cannot do anything “practical” or “useful” with them. I cannot use my calligraph to buy food or coffee, etc.

And what gives me the impetus to calligraph? Sometimes it is witnessing the gestures of Cindy (I like to calligraph her and the human form). Sometimes I’m just a bit bored and I make calligraphs to pass the time.

Fourth theory:

“Boredom” is just pent up energy that needs to be outpressed and expressed. Thus the impetus to create artwork as us having great amount of SUPERFLUOUS energy and life! We are so hyper and overly abundant, our excess energy gets channeled into our artwork!

Then begs the question: how do we gain an excess amount of abundant energy, and have this overflowing pot of life glorification?

3. Art creation is (mostly) physical

Consider with any form of art creation, you must be physical. You must move your hand, your legs, your body, your fingers, your eyes, etc.

Therefore my idea: in order to become stronger artists, we must also become physically stronger. This means walking a lot, standing a lot, crouching a lot, lifting weights and also spending ample time sleeping and reinvigorating ourselves.

4. First prioritize our body

I am FAR more creatively productive in all my art forms when I’ve slept well, I’m well fed on meat, and when I’ve been physically active.

When my body is physically strong, I feel “happy”. When was I happiest? When I was living in Vietnam and most physically active: walking a lot everyday, talking a lot, learning a foreign language, thinking a lot, drinking a lot of coffee, intermittent fasting, disconnected from internet, not thinking about money, and writing and photographing a lot.

Some thoughts:

If your personal goal is artistic productivity, sleep 8-12 hours a night, lift weights, walk a lot, drink a lot of coffee, and create from your superabundance and hyper abundant energy.