Art Over Time

Which is better, and artist’s earlier work or their later stuff?

On the one hand, in most cases, when a musician is starting out, they are going for glory, pouring everything into it and hoping people like it.

After a few years of success, they have the time and money to do what they want. Sting goes off an records an album of forgotten English folk tunes. Eric Clapton revisits the blues that inspired him. Stevie Wonder, um…

I’d have to say that artists are better when they are starting out.

Picture the scene

Givenchy (year)

Monet: Hey Pierre. Come on through, I’m in the garden.

Pierre (Monet’s agent): So, what are you working on?

Monet: Oh, you know, outdoor things. Heavy brush strokes, interpretations in vivid colours, contrasts, textures. Same old.

Pierre: You know… That Westminster painting you did killed in London. The English are starting to get this stuff.

Monet: yeah, but I’ve got time now. I want to work on what I want to do. I want to express myself. I want to explore the boundaries of painting. I want to explore those.

Pierre: Ponds.

Monet: Lillies, Pierre. Lillies.

Pierre: Claude, baby. Landscapes. There’s a foreign market. No one lives on lilies, man. Not even the English.

Monet: My work with lilies has not yet finished.

Pierre: Look,

Monet: I’m just doing my thing, OK. You come in here with your big city ideas and your suits and speak of market forces. It’s about soul, Pierre and yet you’re all “Show me the Monet!!!” Now I know how Vincent felt.

Pierre (quietly): Never sold one pain-

Monet: I know he never sold a painting, but that’s not the point! He had his sunflowers, I have my lilies.

A Paul Macartney. As an aside, do you have any idea how unbelievably shit John Lennon would be if he were still alive?