Once we remember that creative arts are basically crafts, we realize how midwitted the modern obsession with avoiding cliches really is. Whatever craft a neophyte takes up, be it carving or karate, his initial works will tend towards mechanical reproductions of his exemplars. But when he has mastered the art and learned its rules, he will be able to take the liberty of bending or breaking them to express originality. The Chinese idiom 得意忘形 (get the idea and forget the form) is used today to describe the state of "getting carried away with yourself", but seems to have originally expressed this idea of leaving the models behind when you have grasped the essence of an art.
The obsessive avoidance or subversion of cliches is a kind of trickery, which consists in loudly and flagrantly "forgetting the form" so as to present the appearance of having "got the idea". Of course this may well begin with true masters who have earned the prerogative to break the models, but once their example in turn hardens into a model it prevents anyone after them from actually learning the art to a high standard. Hence the sorry state of those who endlessly try to throw cliches out of doors, and yet end up with them flying back in through the window, because the cliche represents their true artistic level. Admittedly, thanks to the technology that allows the work of a few masters to be copied and distributed to everyone, the merely competent artist may feel forced into such trickery by the loss of his natural place in society.
For sure, and I think that finding or choosing a worthy artist to imitate or mechanically reproduce is absolutely necessary to learning the craft ... That's a fascinating idiom; I'll have to think on it more!
Once we remember that creative arts are basically crafts, we realize how midwitted the modern obsession with avoiding cliches really is. Whatever craft a neophyte takes up, be it carving or karate, his initial works will tend towards mechanical reproductions of his exemplars. But when he has mastered the art and learned its rules, he will be able to take the liberty of bending or breaking them to express originality. The Chinese idiom 得意忘形 (get the idea and forget the form) is used today to describe the state of "getting carried away with yourself", but seems to have originally expressed this idea of leaving the models behind when you have grasped the essence of an art.
The obsessive avoidance or subversion of cliches is a kind of trickery, which consists in loudly and flagrantly "forgetting the form" so as to present the appearance of having "got the idea". Of course this may well begin with true masters who have earned the prerogative to break the models, but once their example in turn hardens into a model it prevents anyone after them from actually learning the art to a high standard. Hence the sorry state of those who endlessly try to throw cliches out of doors, and yet end up with them flying back in through the window, because the cliche represents their true artistic level. Admittedly, thanks to the technology that allows the work of a few masters to be copied and distributed to everyone, the merely competent artist may feel forced into such trickery by the loss of his natural place in society.
For sure, and I think that finding or choosing a worthy artist to imitate or mechanically reproduce is absolutely necessary to learning the craft ... That's a fascinating idiom; I'll have to think on it more!