Compared to the legend of Van Gogh as a tortured artist, Fontana was a very exceptional case. Her father was an art master who trained her from childhood in the basics of drawing. She grew to become one of the most commercially successful face painters of the Italian Renaissance, and she was beloved by the nobility of Bologna. She was also considered the first professional Italian artist.
Her business was in great demand, and when she got married, her father offered to pay her future income from painting instead of a dowry, and Fontana entered into the first income-sharing agreement in history (an agreement that stipulates that an individual receives a sum of money in exchange for a percentage of their future profits).
Lavinia lived a stable and happy life, balancing her life as a wife and mother with her distinguished career, painting for kings while caring for her 11 children. However, Fontana's story is rarely mentioned in the annals of history, as everyone hears the story of Van Gogh, and perhaps the reason is his great tragedy and the accident of cutting his ear with a razor.
The legend of the tortured artist is a suitable argument that gives many of us an excuse to avoid creativity, as long as, according to the example of Van Koch, man will pay the price of his creativity with much grief and suffering.
So, it is not surprising that many people want an easy and safer life, as no one wants to suffer what happened to Van Gogh. Therefore, self-harm is what interests the public most, even if it does not reduce all forms of creativity.
We do not find many people talking about creativity as a way to achieve happiness by persevering in providing the best performance, and this is what Lavinia Fontana did in her life; she chose to be a professional in her profession as a painter.
Craftsmanship is quality performance achieved thanks to creativity, passion, perseverance, and attention to detail. It is the skill that you will hone, develop, and practice throughout your entire career.
George Leonard describes in his book Mastery the relentless pursuit of continuous improvement and human nature. Leonard says: "Man has a natural willingness to learn and to continue learning from cradle to grave, and this is what makes the human race distinct from other species of living beings on planet Earth.
The secret of mastery
The secret to mastery, Leonardo suggests, is for a person to feel that there is a reward to be gained from the learning process. There are no shortcuts. Seeking to perform tasks most shortly makes you forget the primary goal, and the worst thing is that when you feel satisfied with the current level in any field, you practically stay where you are without any chance of improvement, and this situation may continue for years.
The intense desire for improvement is the basis of mastery. With repetition and optimal investment of your tools, you will be able to embark on a sustainable and effective path of creativity. In this context, Leonard says in his book: "The best way to describe your total creativity is to say that it is infinite in all practical purposes."
The choice is yours to spend all of your creative energy at once in your pursuit of greatness or to invest your energy wisely to continue creating throughout your life. So, think of the two greatest pop songwriters of the 1960s: Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney.
For Wilson, the harmony of his music and the complex composition of his songs came at the expense of his mental health, which had deteriorated greatly and caused him much suffering. He is the troubled genius of pop music, and for most of us, there is a stage of creativity that Wilson reached and then stopped offering anything new.
As for McCartney, although he lost his mother at an early age, he grew up happy and did not suffer this traditional model of the tragedy associated with being a genius, including fellow Beatles John Lennon, and Paul left the band when the tension in the band reached a high point.
McCartney did not raise any problems when he left the band, and moved peacefully with his family to their farm in Scotland. He returned to writing songs and playing musical instruments, and produced his solo album "McCartney" in 1970. McCartney represents craftsmanship. He devoted himself to the profession of writing songs without any painful past to turn to in order to excel in his profession.
As a former jazz star and singer, McCartney understood music styles and genres driven by insecurities and a desire to be approved. He channeled his friendly rivalry with Lennon into a lifelong devotion to crafting the perfect pop song, and he still does more today. So, McCartney achieved true genius.
Creativity nowadays is within everyone's reach. As there are training, means, and communities of shared interests all on the Internet, we can all live a creative life if we want to, but what is offered in social media pushes us to achieve more. In the negative sense, we all want to reach maximum levels and burn the stages quickly, so slow and gradual improvement no longer interests us, but we cannot deny that it works.
So, the next time you're working on your creative side, stop chasing fame and focus on mastery itself, as you can do your best and enjoy it, too. Remember, genius is not a temporary process. Rather, it is an inspiration that we reach when we are fully immersed in our work.
In conclusion
“We may not know how long our careers will last and how far our abilities can go, and until you do, the great reward is not in the result, but in the pleasure we feel in our tireless pursuit,” Leonard says in Mastery.
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