Man feels himself younger and younger,
the more he enters into the world of
imagination. He knows now that it was
only the intellect which made him
stiff and aged in his soul expression.
--RUDOLF MEYER
THE CREATIVE IMAGINATIONAt night when we are alone in our bedrooms, sharp images often emerge from the darkness. Before our mind's eye the events of the day mysteriously appear. The faces of people we have seen, their conversations and mannerisms, the streets of a city or the fields of the countryside suddenly reveal themselves. Mostly, we look passively at these familiar pictures, but among them appear strange visions, unknown to us. Scenes, moods, events, and people with which we have no connection intermingle with our everyday mental images and branch out in all directions. The new images seem to develop and transform themselves independent of our control or wishes. And when this occurs, we are drawn into another realm.
We may discover ourselves pursuing some mysterious phantom, solving nonexistent problems, or traveling in a foreign country, speaking with strangers, seeing the fantastic arising from nowhere, often beckoning, sometimes repelling. We watch things happen; we "spy" on whole situations that grow from nothing. As the curious images become stronger and stronger, they lead us sometimes into laughter or tears, into joy or sorrow. The whole range of our feelings finally is aroused.
Glimpses of this unfamiliar terrain lead us to believe that our images have a certain existence oftheir own--that they come from another world. This is even apparent when we train ourselves to perform conscious work upon our creative imagination. Artists in every field affirm that such images surround them not only after the day is over, when solitude and night come, but also during the day, when the sun shines, in the noisy city or in a small room--everywhere. Artists live with their images. They and their images belong to each other, depend upon each other, and yet the images have an independent existence of their own.
The great German director Max Reinhardt confessed, "I am always surrounded by images." Charles Dickens wrote in his journal, "I have been sitting here in my study all morning, waiting for Oliver Twist who has not yet arrived!" Goethe declared that inspiring images must appear before us as God's children and call to us, "We are here!" Raphael saw an image moving within his room that later became the Sistine Madonna on his canvas. Michelangelo complained despairingly that images pursued him and forced him to sculpt in all sorts of materials, even solid rock.
How can we question the beliefs of these master artists and writers that their imaginative life came to them from outside themselves? And would they not scorn the narrow conception of creativity that relies solely upon personal memories and efforts? They would undoubtedly feel that today we deny our communication with the objective world of imagination, in direct contrast to their free excursions into it. The creative impulse of the masters was an expansion toward the world beyond them, while ours is often a contraction within ourselves.
The old masters of European and Asian culture might even shout to us, "Look at your creations. They are not confined to reproductions of our petty, personal lives, desires, and limited surroundings. Unlike the artists of today, we forgot our individual selves in order to be conscious and active servants of otherworldly images. Truly, we did not want to be slaves to these unguided visions. But in our work, we incorporated them like an unexpected blessing. Why are you then creating so many specimens of ugliness, disease, and chaotic contortions? Is it not simply because you are too concerned with yourselves alone and not your art?"
The conviction that there is an objective world in which our images lead their independent life widens our horizon and strengthens our creative will. Developing and assuming new conceptions concerning the creative process in art is the way for the artist to grow and to understand his or her talent. One of these new conceptions is the objective existence of the world of the artist's creative images. What is the reward of artists brave enough to acknowledge the objectivity of the world of the imagination? They free themselves from the constant pressure of their too personal, too intellectual interference with the creative process, the greater part of which is intensely personal and takes place in the sphere that lies beyond the intellect.
TO WAIT ACTIVELY
Great artists of the past and the present, in acknowledging the innate laws governing the imagination, also accept the necessity of waiting patiently until the image has matured to its highest expressiveness. Leonardo da Vinci waited years before he could envision the head of Christ in his "Last Supper," and Goethe tells us that he bore the idea for one of his works with him for forty years before it was ripe for expression. Such a protracted period of time is, of course, impractical for the artist of today, yet in principle, it is an admonition to modern actors who, in their haste, have lost touch with their imagination and consequently with the ripeness of its images.
CREATIVE "GAZE"
Let us not suppose that this necessity to wait, to pause inwardly before the image, is a passive state. On the contrary, the truly awakened imagination is in constant, fiery activity.
What did the great masters of the past do while observing the ripening of their images? They collaborated with them through their fiery "gaze," their creative, urging attention. They saw what they wanted to see, and in this lay the power of their "gaze," but they also enjoyed the independent activity of their images, which transformed themselves under their questioning look, acquiring new qualities, feelings, desires, manifesting novel situations, symbolizing new ideas, revealing fresh rhythms. Thus they worked consciously hand in hand with their images. (We shall discuss the proper way to question your images in Chapter 6.) On The Technique Of Acting. Copyright © by Michael Chekhov. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
