The similarities between Shaolin and art school are really striking, particularly because in order to learn martial arts at the temple, San Te had to go through difficult trials and tribulations to make himself great. Similarly, art school is exactly the same. You get challenged to improve your artistry by going through different classes with different teachers. It's almost exactly how San Te's training was set up; he went through different chambers, learned different skill sets, and learned from different masters. I suppose that in this way artists are akin to monks. We're both reverent toward our respective religions (monks to Buddha, and artists to our art.) Not only that, but artists also spend a lot of time practicing, whether it's sketching or contour drawings or whatever so that they could stretch their skills. The monks in training at the Shaolin temple did frequent exercises as well. They ran on barrels, carried water while trying not to stab themselves, fought by candlelight, and so on.
After the abbot said, “It's peaceful in this temple but outside is turbulent”, it reminded me of that Art in America lecture we went to. I remember how they talked about the job marketplace for artists fresh out of art school, and how art school doesn't really help you to prepare for the business aspect. When you're in art school, you only really worry about getting through all of your work. There's structure, and it's all about how much effort and skill you put into things. Teachers lay down rules. Students abide by them (and sometimes, exceed them.) But after art school, it's not quite so nice. Rather, it's whether or not you can even find a job that matters a bit more. And if the job market doesn't concern you, then you're left to your own devices. An open field, without project restrictions from another person, is far more turbulent.
In art, what I think it means to challenge the master is to take whatever you've learned and then to take it completely beyond what the master could dream of. By this I mean that if the master taught you how to draw, then to challenge the master is to somehow turn the drawing into something unheard of, perhaps something completely different from a drawing. I also think that the master is not always necessarily your actual art teacher, but also yourself. All the doubts, the insecurities, and the mental mindsets that might hinder you are a type of master. They rule your conscious, and they inhibit you in your art. To break through that is to challenge the master.
The 36th Chamber in the movie was an interesting concept when adhered to art school. In the film, it is a suggestion from San Te for the monks to reach out beyond the safe confines of the temple. In art school, it's how we work—art is a method of communication by its nature. Martial arts, on the other hand, are physical discipline (although in a way, beating someone's head in is a loud way to communicate...) The whole of art school is a 36th Chamber, then; just as San Te leaves the temple to help the masses, we take our art to spread our ideas.
I think after I get out of art school, my art will have definitely improved beyond where it started. I think it's very likely that it won't look like it does now, and I will probably be on a path that's really different. Either that, or I'll be closer to where I want to be but I'll have taken a better road there. I'm not really sure where I'll be, as long as I've progressed far.
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