life is not serious

Allow ourselves the idea that life is not serious because somehow you feel if you aren’t engaged in something serious you’re a loafer you’re not contributing to the social welfare and so in this way the artist has a peculiar role in this society very very interesting because the artist is a very deceptive fellow he appears to be the supreme luxury the irrelevant fellow if you can afford an artist you can afford to buy paintings if you have surplus money that’s a luxury so you can support an artist and we call it fine arts the completely useless person who makes paintings which are sort of big labels or posters that you stick on your utilitarian walls to decorate them but on the other hand the artist is the man who shows you the future long before everybody else sees it the artist is the eye-opener just because the artist is distinct in role from the preacher and the philosopher so the role of the artist is very fascinating because he appears to be the clown the jester the absolutely unimportant and irrelevant person and yet it’s actually through the artist that we learn how to live not through the preacher not through the philosopher not through the professor it is the artist who teaches us whether he does it visually with painting or on sculpture actually over the above all in music.