According to Osho, a painting can be totally satisfying only moment-to-moment while creating it; once finished it can never satisfy completely. Life is pure longing—each brushstroke can be orgasmically fulfilling, but completion brings a beautiful sadness that seeds the next creation. The true artist dissolves in the act; the technician chases results. Total, final satisfaction would end the creative impulse—virtually a death.
Love the painting while you’re doing it; when it’s done, a little sadness is natural and helps you begin the next one.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Is it ever possible to paint a totally satisfying painting?
Rabindranath again has to be remembered. He wrote six thousand songs -- seems to be the greatest poet the world has ever known -- and each song is a beauty. But when he was dying he was crying, he was saying to God, "The song that I wanted to sing, I have not sung yet." An old friend was by the side of the bed, and the old friend said, "What are you saying? Have you gone mad? You have sung six thousand songs. In Europe, Shelley is thought to be one of the greatest poets. He has sung only two thousand songs. You have defeated him three times. You should be happy and contented!" Rabindranath opened his tear-filled eyes and he said, "I am not. Yes, six thousand songs I have sung, but you don't know the inner story. The inner story is, I wanted to sing only one…
Beloved Osho, in this phase of your work, are you giving the final touch to the painting of your whole life, for the transformation of the new human being?
My work is not like a painter's work. It is not that I can complete the painting; it is one long painting. And I will be giving touches to the painting even when I am breathing my last -- still, the painting will be incomplete. In life, only mad people ask for perfection. The perfectionist is another name for someone who is getting ready to become mad. I was a guest in a maharaja's palace, and the maharaja was showing me around -- it was a beautiful palace. At a certain place he stopped and he said, "Do you see?" There was a wall, incomplete. I said, "Why have you left it incomplete?" He said, "The palace was made by my grandfather, and this is the tradition in our family that nothing should be made perfect. Some imperfection should be left so that the coming generation remembers that life does…
One day you spoke to us about perfection and creativity. What is the relationship between artistic creativity and perfection? Is not creativity in music, painting and poetry an attempt to reach perfection in visible and audible form? Is the artist simply creating a more refined ego as the so-called saints you often talk about?
The real artist certainly thinks of totality -- how to be total? -- but never thinks of perfection. And the beauty is: those who are total, they are perfect. And those who think of perfection are never perfect, never total. Rather, on the contrary: the more they think of perfection, the more neurotic they become. They have ideals. They are always comparing, and they are always falling short! If you have an ideal that unless this ideal is fulfilled, you will not think yourself perfect, how can you be total in your act? If you think, for example, that you have to be a dancer like Nijinsky, then how can you be total in your dance? You are constantly looking, watching yourself, trying to improve, afraid to commit any fault... you are divided. A part of you is dancing, another part of you is there -- judgemental, standing by the…
[A sannyasin who is an artist, was leaving for a few months to organise some exhibitions for his work. Osho said that his meditation was going well, but into his work he should also try to bring a meditative dimension.... ] ... just paint with the idea that if somebody looks at the painting, he feels awe, reverence, silence. The basic idea should be what happens to the person who is looking at the painting. If he becomes a little meditative just watching it, then you have created a beautiful thing in the world, something very creative. A painting can do many things. A painting can create sexuality in people. That's why so much pornography has appeal. It can give a sexual fantasy. When a painting can give sexual fantasies, then why cannot painting give meditative ecstasy? It can.
Art is meditation. Any activity becomes meditation if you are lost in it. So don't just remain a technician. If you are just a technician then painting will never become meditation. You have to be crazily into it, madly into it, completely lost, not knowing where you are going, not knowing what you are doing, not knowing who you are. This state of not-knowing will bring meditation. Let it happen. The painting should not be painted but only allowed to happen. And I don't mean that you just remain lazy -- no; then it will never happen. It has to ride on you. You have to be very very active and yet not doing it. That is the whole knack, that is the whole crux of it: you have to be active and yet not a doer. You allow your activity to be possessed by something that is beyond you.