Christopher Benson

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character Polonius offers the following life advice to his son Laertes: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” This is also a particularly wise warning to the aspiring young artist. “Style” in a work of art—while often a deliberate creation of its maker—is also, on a deeper level, an imprint of his or her inherently true personality, as well as of the true character of the time and place in which that work was made.

Every artist struggles with this problem. We see great art and want to emulate it. But try as we might to paint, photograph, sculpt, film, write, or compose in this way or that (and as students we do try to make works that resemble those of some master whom we admire), we can never quite expel the signatures of our own identity and place. It is not necessary then to try so hard to look contemporary, because if we are being honest, that part will take care of itself. The process of maturing as an artist is not one of manufacturing a voice, but of boiling off the influences that shaped and taught us as students and distilling the more personally original instrument of our adult practice. That kind of truthfulness ranks high among the defining characteristics of the greatest works of the past that continue to move us today.

Essay