How to Plan Your “Artistic Life”
By Zhu Jianjun, Shenzhen Art Museum
As a member of the art museum, I often wonder what art truly is. While academic answers are easy to find in books, I recently found myself reflecting on a different concept: what’s the meaning of an artistic life. I noted down a thought on my phone: as long as the base color of our life is bright, we are living an artistic life. On October 24, during the meeting to welcome 14 new employees, I shared my definition of an artistic life: a bright base, vivid coloring, and a radiant finish. Using painting terms, I want to describe an ideal and energetic state of life for us all to strive toward.
I believe an artistic life isn’t just for those in the art industry. Instead, it refers to a life that is carefully designed and beautifully painted like a masterpiece. It emphasizes active creation, the pursuit of beauty, and spiritual enlightenment. The terms bright base, vivid coloring, and radiant finish represent the three stages of life: the foundation, the process, and the result.
1. A Bright Base: The Foundation and Tone of Life
In painting, the base color is the first layer on the canvas. It sets the tone and affects every color added later.
A bright base color refers to a person’s inner and foundational character and vision. It is a positive, healthy, and warm original color of life. Specifically, it should include: first, a sound personality and right values, such as kindness, honesty, optimism, and resilience. These are the cornerstones of one’s morality and spirit. Second, an open mind and attitude: being able to embrace and accept different ideas, being full of curiosity and kindness toward the world, not narrow or dark. Third, healthy self-awareness: having a stable core, being confident but not arrogant, and having respect and love for oneself. Fourth, the love for life: fundamentally agreeing that life is beautiful; even when facing difficulties, the underlying belief is still positive.
A bright base color means that this person’s life stands in the light from the very beginning. It ensures that even if dark colors are painted on the life scroll, or even when experiencing setbacks, the light from within can still shine through. This prevents the work from sinking and always keeps hope and warmth.
2. Vivid coloring: the process and experience of life
Coloring is the stage of adding colors. It is the most rich and creative stage in the painting process. Artists use various colors to describe specific images and stories.
Vivid coloring represents the rich varieties of life experiences and the high-spirited manifestation of vitality. It is about how a person lives actively and passionately. We should have full emotional experiences, dare to love and hate, deeply feel joy, sadness, love, and sympathy, and let emotions flow naturally. We should have all kinds of life experiences, dare to try, continue learning, expand the boundaries of our careers, and develop diverse hobbies so that life is not a monotonous straight line. We should have a unique personal style, not follow the crowd, and have our own thoughts, tastes, and ways of doing things to live authentically. We should have creative work and life: not accepting passively, but actively creating value, beauty, and meaning.
I believe, vivid coloring makes life an attractive picture rather than a blank piece of paper. It represents the wonder of the process and means this person has truly lived instead of just existed.
3. A radiant finish: the result and realm of life
Finish refers to the final color effect and texture after a work is completed, especially the vitality and glow that shine from the inside out.
The meaning of a radiant finish should be a mature state of harmony, clarity, and influence reached at the end of life. It is not an external floating light but a glow naturally emitted after inner cultivation and the accumulation of years. We should have the clarity of wisdom, be clear and optimistic after experiencing the world, and be able to see the essence and handle heavy tasks with grace. We should have the charm of personality, a gentle and firm attraction that makes people feel comfortable and respected. We should have the thickness and accumulation of life, turning a lifetime of experience, knowledge, and emotion into a calm manner. We should have the realization and inheritance of value, not only realizing our potential but also letting our spirit, works, or career light up and warm others, creating social value beyond the individual.
Thus, the radiant finish of life is the ultimate reflection of life value. It means the book of life is complete and it is also a masterpiece—it shines by itself and can become a light on the path of others.
Summary: Three Bright Elements of an artistic life
A bright base color is the prerequisite: without it, life easily goes the wrong way; if the base color is dark, even the most vivid coloring looks unclean.
Vivid coloring is the process: without it, life is ordinary and plain; even if the base color is bright, it is just a boring color card.
A radiant finish is the destination: without it, life has a process but no sublimation, experience but no crystallization, and cannot reach a higher realm.
I think an artistic life is a perfect process of using a bright heart as the base, painting with rich actions, and finally achieving self-fulfillment. This is both an ideal of life and an art of living for everyone to practice.
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