Is the love of artists immortal in their works?
Since the dawn of time, the theme of love, both romantic and platonic, has been present in art. We have themes focused on family, friends, or lovers. Artists have often included elements of love in their works to consciously bring out their emotions and unconsciously give them immortality. Looking at musicians, poets, writers, painters and other artists, they have a lot in common – precisely in terms of the aforementioned love. I am sure that many of you have come across love prose, a song about a broken heart, or a painting immortalising a lover. This theme has been recurring in art for years and has never lost its power to move people's hearts.
Art is a bit like an emotional memory, except that it leaves behind tangible evidence in the form of a work. But how is it that so many of them revolve around the theme of love? Love is a fundamental human emotion – one that is not fully understood. We feel it on many levels and in many forms. We define love differently for a childhood pet, a parent, a friend or our first love. The very fact that love can be felt on different levels means that each of our romantic loves is felt differently. No two are the same. The same applies to platonic love – often towards friends. It is interesting that the structure of love between two people takes different paths, depending on what it is built on. I am not referring to a hierarchy here, but merely noting that platonic love for one friend may be quite different from that for another. It is also worth paying attention and asking yourself, what indicates that I love a given person? Platonic or romantic. There are no completely wrong or right answers to this question — after all, it is a very personal matter — but it gives us room for reflection and for noticing the beauty and structure of the entire relationship with another person.
In creative works, we encounter a wave of songs about broken hearts and unhappy love. However, it should be noted that not all of them are the same – and even if we compare two similar songs, we will notice that we do not necessarily have to like both of them. Much depends here on the artist's expression and the listener's self-reflection - where they find an outlet for their emotions and connections with the words or melody. As individuals, we resonate with different things on different levels – some may identify with the heartbreak of rock songs, others will lean towards jazz, and still others towards pop. Nevertheless, for many of us, it is not about genres at all. Because these are just labels, a family of sounds named to make it easier for us to define something.
The same can be observed in the case of poems, books, or works of art. Regardless of the label – the genre we find ourselves in – if something resonates with us, it resonates on a deep level. Artists give vent to their emotions by creating something tangible, something that will remain on earth long after their death, regardless of whether it has gained immense popularity or not. In this way, we create immortality. Because just because someone doesn't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. How many artists of all kinds have been forgotten over the years, their works filled with the pain of love? Longing for a child, a mother, perhaps a distant childhood friend. There are so many works undiscovered by us, and yet we continue to ask the question, ‘Is the love of artists immortal in their works?’
It is. Because it is the most authentic image of themselves. The love they felt was with them their whole lives – everyone they loved remained in their hearts until the end – consciously or unconsciously. Poems and books could be examples of how beautifully, by putting things into words, we can make someone our ‘forever’. This beauty is not limited to sadness or joyful moments. It can be dressed in brutal truth, and expression allows artists to somehow shed their emotional baggage. Because artists feel a lot, they feel deeply, and it is thanks to this gift, which often seems like a curse, that we create immortality in the world in our mortal bodies. The love of artists, regardless of whom and at what level, may leave their hearts, but it is immortal in their works.
This is a pattern that has been repeated and passed down for many years in the artistic world, and looking back over the years, it continues to maintain its position. In the world of art, the more difficult emotions associated with love prevail, but we can also find more positive ones, leaving behind a feeling of nostalgia or pleasant warmth in the heart.
From self-reflection, I can admit that when I return to some poems filled with this beautiful feeling, whether towards others or even towards myself, I perceive them differently - sometimes differently than I did originally. Although I have given immortality to people who are important to me, the emotions I feel after reading my poetry change over the years. Some of them are tinged with regret and sadness, some with anger, and some with greater gratitude and a warm smile on my face. People change with each passing week, month and year. Their art, even though it was created in specific emotions, begins to evolve on its own through the amount of reflections gathered.
It is a beautiful phenomenon, beautiful in its nature. Over the years, not only we, but also our audience, may resonate differently with our work, which was once so important to us. It was a bomb of emotions and feelings that we could not fully cope with on a physical and mental level. Whether these emotions are positive or negative, expression has become the key to beauty, to commemoration, to creating a tangible memory.
