I have to admit that I consider myself a genius. Do you think I am a little bit cocky? I guess not. I don’t think objectively that I have some talents that other doesn’t have but every word and concept that we use, can be relative. I even don’t want to say that all of you can be a genius, because is obvious that you can be in your little things in everyday life. What I am referring to is the fact that I am a genius just because I know I am and now I will explain you better. The solution is going to the origin of that word, not just taking for granted the nowadays meaning, that obviously it changes with the passage of time. So if we look at this word from a semantic point of view, it is derived from the Latin word “gignere”, in English there isn’t a world that can really work for that, so it is necessary to put together two verbs to get something good but that looks like coming from bygone days: “to beget”. I have never noticed before but this verb really suits me!Talking about genius is important to understand that it is related with ideas. So without any affectations I believe that almost all ideas are second-hand, this is a matter of fact; people should stop deceiving themselves thinking to have been “the first one”. Consciously and unconsciously ideas are drawn from a million outside sources and used with pride but above all with the illusion that you are the only one who have just originated them. Yes, because at the end a real genius is somebody who had an idea that anybody else before has ever had. I guess also for this reason, because originality, by definition, requires breaking out of the common canon, geniuses are often subjected to ridicule and rejection before they come to be revered; actually they are completely understood only after their death.
So this is a complicate topic and a good question could be, are genius made or born? In any case I guess you must born in a certain way, with some talent in you, but of course you must work on it a lot to develop yourself and become a genius, so I can say is a mix of factors. What can make the difference is when a person is able to create really something of different from others. Because for example everybody can write but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Anyway I think that the criterion for judging talent or genius is ephemeral, speaking rationally in this world of graphs; first of all you must be less machines and more human to understand what I want to say. Don’t think also that can be so easy to be a genius, remember that skills imitate genius, because there is nothing else to imitate, so at least you can be a good interpret, this is more realistic. Genius gives birth, you deliver; often the originator of new language forms is called pretentious by jealous talents. After realizing this, I can say that geniuses can be reckless either sober; they can be totally different people but what unites them is the fact that a genius is a person who originates something never known before. For example nobody but Luciano Pacini could have written “Meaning of Life”; this example looks like too much pretentious? So let’s change it: nobody but Oscar Wilde could have written “The picture of Dorian Gray”. To understand my concept of genius lets talk about this novel. I guess it is easier if I do this example. If you read this book in a superficial way as many people do, special when they are obligated at school, I am sure you just don’t understand too much. School is important but more important are professors and too often they don’t know how to teach their poor students, so at the end nobody in their lives would read some books no more, even if it would be something of really important for them.So maybe you think this novel is about a guy that just want to transgress in a Londonof the Victorian Time. Is not just like that. Also because the various characters looks like during the time changing their rules and at certain point you can’t recognize who is the real protagonist, if is it is Dorian or Lord Wotton. The author makes here a sociological research arriving also to investigate the human psyche. This book is configured as an excellent example of literature and a true celebration of the cult of beauty.“In the literature there are no moral or immoral books, a book is well written or badly written, that's all”. This is a strong and deep concept. Because “Art for Art’s sake”. Is aesthetic but also spiritual concept, the good art is the target that people should reach. Oscar Wilde is not only a writer but an expert of art.
“The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium”. So the artist and his instruments are not perfect, but they can make a miracle and reach a perfect art.Now we are close to what I consider the real meaning of this book, that I think is more than the simple metaphor that the picture that Dorian hide in his house is only his conscience, like if this story is just the journey to the end of his and our consciousness. I think that the universal message is that everybody want a life as a masterpiece of art, and they do a lot of thing to reach this target. All the efforts of the people of the world are just to turn their life like if it is a great work of art. Because when you have an idea and you want to realize it you do exactly that, but the art despite its created by people, it is eternal and has a longer life than the artist.“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. This is the real meaning. In fact as I have always said: art is contemporary and people are old; actually at the end of the book is not Dorian that last but it is his portrait, this is reality.“The man” arrives to create something that is bigger than him, and that’s the art, because if you think about Leonardo, he paints things that could be more or less real, but in any case he just do it in a more seductive and noble way compared of what you can see in nature.So my final statement is that real genius thanks to their divine nature, can create something that is bigger than them…
Photo 1: "The Master" holds a posePhoto 2: Oscar Wilde holds a posePhoto 3: "The Lady with Ermine" by Leonardo da VinciVideo 1: "The Master" reveals the truth of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
