Tuesday, November 29, 2011

True Art

I wonder what it is that people define as “art”? Beyond that what is the specific quality that defines a particular work as “great” and what makes the individual who painted it a “great” artist? I suspect that “it” is much the same “it” that defines a “great” philosopher.

Which is to say nothing that anyone can put their finger on. Nothing that can actually be defined. Nothing that two random people with differing points of view, differing life experiences, differing tastes would agree upon. And most importantly nothing that you and I do not possess.

Yet I sit here wanting what they have that I don’t. Some deep, dark, mysterious, unexplained, unexplored depth of soul that apparently they possess that I never will. That quality that permits them to put down on canvas what I never can. To see in nebulous shapes and colors what I cannot.

This last statement I make in all seriousness and completely in jest.

Seriously because I do oftentimes wish that I had what they had and in jest because when reality intrudes upon those same thoughts I realize that in the end “art”, in whatever form it presents itself comes wholly as an expression of the individual, even if that expression is capable only of barely scratching the surface of the heart and mind. Even if that expression is capable of nothing more than a few brushstrokes of varying color because those few brushstrokes indicate where a person is in their heart and mind at that moment.