Perhaps the most difficult thing about building a character is getting a glimpse, beforehand, of the inner consistency that will have to be manifested in action. Often, this glimpse only comes when the character starts to move. Even so, practice shows that it is neither a simple nor a safe task when one intends to represent a convincing model, since to do so is to conceive unity through contradictions. In this sense, the work is similar to that of a biographer, although most of the time the latter can rely on concrete material to get started.
Category: Notes
When One Knows One’s Own Weaknesses…
When one knows one’s own weaknesses, it is sometimes impressive to look back and see how much could have been done in spite of them. It is impressive to realize that what seemed like little, very little on a daily scale, adds up and grows in value over time. But there is certainly something more. And those who have only experienced it once can understand the astonished artist who, after years of work, looks at them and concludes: “It cannot have been just me who did it”.
There Is a Difference Between the Student…
There is a difference between the student who seeks to solve problems and the one who seeks to expand his arsenal of impressions. The former benefits greatly from being the latter for many years; the latter, on the other hand, will naturally tend to become the former as soon as he feels the discomfort of remaining passive in the face of the contradictions that emerge from his impressions. In any case, the former can never completely stop acting like the latter, because it will always benefit him to increase the body of information in which he can look for answers. His eagerness is certainly fraught with additional importance and responsibility, but the fact is that, depending on the answers, it is useless to seek them without first having gone through a long and patient preparation.
All Artistic Motivations Are Fleeting…
All artistic motivations are fleeting, except those that stem from the true recognition of the value of experience and the nobility of striving to represent it in a work that will remain when time consumes them. To be an artist, in short, is to have art as something that justifies a lifetime’s effort. This, it is true, usually only happens to those who, deeply affected, strip away their vanity to recognize in someone else the model of what they want to be: in a burst of humility, they turn gratitude into motivation.