Is every performer an artiste?

Artistes are sensitive and diverse creatures. They are highly creative, deep thinking and intellectually sharp beings who constantly evolve. They bring imaginative ideas to the fore and explore them at will, while giving external minds the permission to be privy to this very personal art experience.

There are many words which we freely use today, sometimes interchangeably. However, in application, they have vastly diverse meanings. Let us look at the words art and craft. In modern understanding, to put it in simple terms, anything with individual creativity is deemed art while the result of collective production is classified as craft. Art is a concept driven subject that requires varied levels of understanding, constantly driven by abstraction and aesthetic imagination. Craft on the other hand, is technique driven, with methods and processes in place. Craft is also driven by physical objects, whereas art is driven by intangible abstractness that is open to interpretation. Thought many strongly believe that there is art in everything we do and art is anything that ‘moves’ you, the term ‘art’ remains to be one that is constantly evolving.

To describe a performance, we use words such as artistic, artistry and sometimes refer to the performer as an artiste too. A person who is naturally gifted with aesthetic understanding and creative skill, even with something as simple as colours and patterns, might be considered artistic. Similarly, a display of admirable skill or ability while performing a practised and predetermined action can be termed as artistry. A performer is someone who is skilled at a particular art form, with a solid grounding and understanding of the art itself, in order to perform it with ease and entertain a gathering of people. An artiste, on the other hand, is a trained performer who introspects and delves deep into the art form to find aesthetic meaning and explores the contours of the art itself, thereby revisiting the existing values and eventually creating an individual expression that give the art form tangible identity.

When does a performer also become an artiste? A performer might be highly artistic and his craft of presentation can be smartly polished. But the content of the art itself is packaged to address the requirements of the audience, who is given priority. An artiste, on the other hand, is someone who uses this experience of being a performer, along with their individual talent and imagination to seriously indulge the aesthetic core of an art, thereby creating an intellectual stimulation, that incidentally transforms the by-stander to a different plane, where only the art is in complete focus.

Art, by itself, is a broad classification that includes performing art, fine art, visual art and others. Let us narrow down to a specific form of art like music, where the art is also meant to be presented as an ‘artistic performance’. Does every performing musician then qualify as an artiste? A performing musician might be highly artistic, while exhibiting great technical mastery, precision and grace in his concerts. But as long as the thought process of the musician was directed towards the success of a concert and satisfying the pressures of a proscenium, the value of the presented art remains a limited quantifiable entity that is then forcefully transferred to arouse very specific reactions and emotions from the audience, based on their familiarity. There are times when ‘artistic performances’ are coupled with subconscious moments of art being explored by the musician, which is when we see glimpses of the true artiste within. We have ample proof of many musicians who sang extraordinary music through many years, but the amount of change or metamorphosis that their art went through was very minimal. On the other hand, we also have musicians who have constantly evolved and grown with the art through the years, who transcend the necessities of a performance, and evolve to become an artiste. These are the artistes that truly leave a mark behind in history as path breakers and game changers. Not because they wanted such labels, but because their path of exploration with the art led them through a journey that they joyfully embarked on.

An artiste is not someone who is happy with just learning, practising, performing and teaching. She is one who sees value in reading about the past, learning about the history of the art, interpreting its past aesthetic, and most importantly, enjoying the process of unraveling the mysteries of the art itself, through serious thinking and honest questioning. An artiste is always on a journey, where neither goals nor destinations exist. Artistic awakening and musical receptiveness is not possible without complete surrender to the spirit of art. And to achieve this, while being true and honest to the art itself, is to be an artiste. Originally written as part of my column titled ‘Unheard Melodies’ for Bangalore based Performing Art Magazine – Saamagaana, The First Melody