port them, unable to originate fresh material, it is not surprising that they started quoting each other. Playful manipulation of known forms and styles became the most important stuff of their discourses. In time, independence, strength, and artistic integrity gave way to detachment, irony, and quick eloquence. Personality took precedence over soul. Today these affectations are so prevalent, so taken for granted, that few artists realize they actually still have a choice. In fact the very breadth of the new paradigm guarantees a wide variety of artistic determinants. We do not therefore have to accept discourses as the only influences that make their mark on one's creative output. From the moment of birth onward, live encounters affect us as well. Even though their vital impact cannot be accessed without the symbolic ordering of language, it remains that the resulting formation (our continuing transformation as human beings) is metamorphic in nature and thus largely unpredictable, personal if you will. Hence there is no reason why one's creative reach should not concentrate, as before, on the more intimate strata that also bespeak one's direct experience in the world. In other words, one should not despair because one's cultural makeup is not unique and the chosen artistic treatment only one set among a variety of available arrangements. Think of it: Ingmar Bergman was certainly not the only little boy in his days to build a puppet playhouse. The difference between him and the rest of his generation is that he was able to turn that experience into memorable material while others were not. And today we respond emotionally to these scenes in his films not because he does them better than anyone else but because they feel genuine. Yes, his take is but one possible illustration of a child's lively imagination, but the reason it plays so well is that Bergman managed to remain faithful to the special set of emotions and circumstances connected with that moment of his life. Although one cannot deny the pull of intertextuality, it does not have exclusivity in the fount of art.
XVII
Too often unfortunately, artists have evolved into agile players who seize, manipulate, and reframe ideas, texts, and images already in circulation. Style ceases to be the outgrowth of a sensibility honed in a specific human context and sharpened by time. It becomes a choice within a gallery of many. A software program can give your image the Van Gogh look
