So here you are yet again with lifted foot. And on the bottom of your shoe you discover another report from the Modern Library. Entry # 66 from the Board's List is W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.
W. Somerset Maugham
I found several noteworthy passages, but will relay only one here, wherein Philip's friend refuses to critique his paintings, and offers this explanation:
"People ask for criticism, but they want only praise. Besides, what's the good of criticism? What does it matter if your picture is good or bad?
The only reason one paints is that one can't help it. It's a function like any of the other functions of the human body, only comparatively few have got it. One paints for oneself: otherwise one would commit suicide. Just think of it, you spend God knows how long trying to get something on canvas, putting the sweat of your soul into it, and what is the result? ....Criticism has nothing to do with the artist. It judges objectively, but the objective doesn't concern the artist.
The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees, and is impelled to express it and, he doesn't know why, he can only express his feeling in colours. It's like a musician; he'll read a line or two, and a certain combination of notes presents itself to him: he doesn't know why such and such words call forth in him such and such notes, they just do. And I'll tell you another reason why criticism is meaningless: a great painter forces the world to see nature as he sees it; but in the next generation another painter sees the world in another way, and then the public judges him not by himself but by his predecessor...We paint from within outwards - if we force our vision on the world it calls us great painters; if we don't it ignores us but we are the same. We don't attach any meaning to greatness or to smallness. What happens to our work afterwards is unimportant; we have got all we could out of it while we were doing it."
So there is the point. It matters not what you do, if it is the right thing for you. Seek the right path. You will find serenity and fulfillment, and therein, greatness.
