From Eden to Eternity: The Artist & The Muse
From Eden to Eternity: The Artist & The Muse
By Meeral Umar
What is an artist without his art? To contemplate, one may relate this question to a wider theological one—what is God without His worshippers? A cage without a bird, an existence without acknowledgment, a burn without a brand. In short, a primordial darkness, a vacuum sealed with a lifetime of unexpressed torment and emotion, of having so much to say without a medium to speak through.
Perhaps I shall go as far as to proclaim this: even when the artist raves—through his preferred art form—about his undoing, his beloved, his muse, I strongly hold the muse to be the artist’s mouthpiece. According to Hellenic traditions, Pythia (the oracle of Delphi) would deliver her prophecies in a trance-like state, as she was said to be possessed at that moment by Apollo; she would become no more than a vessel for the sun god to spit out his predictions. The relationship between the artist and the muse is something, at least, similar to this: an unspoken bargain, a breathless dance, an amalgamation of the metaphysical.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the artist, Basil Hallward, is helpless against his inspiration, Dorian, who seems to haunt every stroke of his paintbrush, seems to reside in his mind like an invasive parasite. Subconsciously, Basil lets Dorian become his master, the poison he hungrily licks at. He knows how bad Dorian is for him, how he destroys his own sense of being and purpose, yet Basil cannot help but dream about him. A creative influence is paralyzing—a creative influence in the form of a human being is corrupting. So, perhaps, one would deem the muse to be the dominating force in this cursed but intoxicating imbalance of power, a stimulus for the sweetest sin—because to let a person completely unravel you in such, isn’t that blasphemy?
On the other end of the spectrum, Dorian too, lets a man paint the seams of his lifestyle with bejeweled notions of hedonism, charming philosophies, and a wilderness of potential temporary thrills. The relationship between Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian is a peculiar one, for the latter definitively becomes the former’s blank canvas. Dorian becomes the living embodiment of the wretched blueprints that Henry constructs in the scape of his brains—so Henry is the builder, the feeder, the weaver, the artist. Yet, in a paradox to the earlier relationship discussed, Lord Henry is the puppeteer here, and Dorian is no more than his passion project, a rosy-cheeked marionette. So, the artist dictates here, he projects, he molds his sculpture into what he wants it to be.
But who wins? Influence, after all, is not limited to the arts—was Eve not indeed Adam’s muse? Or is it the other way around—was she the artist, yet the art of another? It seems both the artist and muse are creators and creations in their own right. The lines, therefore, are hazy, merging, twining to become one hideous monument.
As Lord Henry says: All influence is immoral…Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.
