Masterpiece is unique: Law of diminishing returns in action

There possibly could not be a second Mona Lisa, an encore of the “Fountain Head” or another “Sound of Music”. Masterpiece, with respect to an artist, is unique.

A writer, dancer, filmmaker, painter, architect or any other artist has a specific spirit to her work of art that pervades in all her creations. This spirit is often generated from her learnings through the years and her unique assimilation based on her interpretations and comprehension of the available stimuli. This synthesis of the acquired knowledge is what gives a visage to all her creations. What makes this process different for each is that which stimuli are caught and assimilated and which are ignored is based completely on the interests and propensities of the artist- making this person specific.

So there lies in her creations a strong essence, defined in the artist’s mind, and transferred to the art form. The first time this essence is eloquently expressed in an art form is when it is the most captivating and new to the audience because they witness an expression which has been nurtured and enhanced all these years by the artist and is different because it is an outcome of the artist’s years of understanding.

As she churns out one work after another, all seem to be distant cousins of that first work of art that defined the core of the artist. Her major thought seem to lie in every future work of art, sometimes loud sometime deliberately hidden to give the creation a new spirit. And most of the times, the reiterations do not even give similar feeling of enlightenment that the audience would have experienced on witnessing her first work. The loyalists still stick and like an addict searching for the same high as he felt on his first puff, frantically search for novelty fighting back the law of diminishing returns with each new creation.

Some artists are not irked by being “branded”, they develop their own set of loyalists and remain happy with their practice of ‘assembly line production’ of art, but a mature artist grows by breaking out of the comfort of basking in the glory of the first creation till the land is reaped fallow. A true artist embarks on a new journey of knowledge, stacking her old knowledge on the farthest corner of the top shelf, and metamorphosing into a completely new artist. The learning curve might be steeper this time because of the experience, but the gestation period of knowledge seeking, comprehension, assimilation and synthesis strong enough to make it the essence in her future creations would certainly be very long.

The arid patch in the absence of new creations, as the artist takes a sabbatical for re-birth, might also be too difficult for most resulting in a fall-back to the old way of expression. But a true artist would overcome these difficulties and temptations to be born anew and operate at a higher orbit - they owe it to the audience and themselves.