You get people talking about art and it quickly becomes apparent that everyone has different ideas about what is good, what is beautiful, what is acceptable and what is total garbage.
On some level I like art because I am unable to draw a realistic picture of anything. I am no good at depth or scale and certainly incapable of reproducing anything in three dimensions. So when I see paintings like this one by Andrew Wyeth (American, b. 1917), I stare and stare at it because I cannot do that. I cannot draw hair or lips or a person. This is a painting and it looks like a photograph!
I also like art because I think you really gain an appreciation for people when you can see what they are thinking. Even if you read what they write, it doesn't have the same effect as letting you see what they see. This is probably the thing that excites me most when I go to a museum or look at a book of art: being able to see inside another person's mind, if only for a moment.Take this self-portrait by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828):
Now, you can read about Goya and believe me, you will find his life fascinating... but this is how he saw himself. If we were to run into him on the street, is this what we'd see? I don't know.Or how about this one by Marc Chagall (French/Russian/Jewish, 1887-1985). Why was he thinking about goats? (Goats show up in his art a lot.) Furthermore, this is called "I and the Village". Why?
So if you see this in a museum, you can't just look at it and walk away because it doesn't make sense. You want to stand there and figure it out, which is what makes it interesting. Why are the houses upside down? Why is that person in a tree? Are the goat and the man seeing eye-to-eye for a reason?Art is a lot like people: if you can figure them out immediately, and if they are totally predictable, they just aren't as interesting.
I digress.
Another reason I like art is because when a piece of art has a story behind it, and you can see the art and know the story simultaneously, it feels "real". Take Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
For one thing, this is a HUGE painting, 11 feet tall and 23 feet wide. This depicts the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the time of the Spanish Civil War. It is disturbing to look at; it certainly is not beautiful. But it is a realistic interpretation of war, the horrible aspects of war, and how even the animals can sense when something is up. One of the many great things about this painting is that you see the EFFECT, but not the CAUSE. And so you have to think: why are these people so upset? Furthermore, it is in black and white, which is hugely symbolic: casualties of war become little more than statistics... we tend not to see them as once-living beings.
Picasso took a lot of criticism for this painting, but by 1937 when it was done, he was pretty famous and achieved that great immunity that can only come with success and celebrity: everyone knows who you are so you can do what you want. This painting was commissioned by the Spanish government to decorate a pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris. There's a story which I've read in a lot of places that goes something like this: Picasso had small prints of Guernica made to show people, and he purposely showed the pictures to members of the military who of course asked him, "Did you do this?" and he would reply, "No, YOU did."
And then there is some art that you just like because of personal preference. I have long loved everything Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) painted, because there is something clean and fantastic and childlike about it:
This is probably his most famous painting, American Gothic. This is one of those pictures that gets parodied a lot. I'm sure you've seen it or a representation of it.
I saw this when I was a child and loved it... you all know that story about how George Washington chopped down the cherry tree and lied to his father. Well, a man named Parson Weems invented that story. I love that George's face looks pretty much the same as he does on quarters, but his body is the size of a fourth-grader's, and the storm clouds seem to make the situation even more tense. The man pulling back the curtain is Parson Weems.
The greatest thing about this painting is that it hangs in the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. I had no idea it was there and when I saw it in person, after "knowing" it for years... I didn't know what to do except cry. Which is another great thing about art. It elicits such emotion! It is great that someone noticed this and started putting benches in museums. Some art just makes you have to sit DOWN.
Art forces you to notice things like the storm clouds in that picture. And then when you notice storm clouds in a picture, you open your eyes a little wider when you're out in the world. You start to see art everywhere. It is everywhere, often when you aren't looking for it. When you see a piece of art that you love, you just want to eat, sleep and breathe it... you want to see everything the artist has ever done, you want to buy books of it, you want to hang it on your wall. And then you realize you can never see it all... there are too many beautiful things on Earth and you are not immortal. It's kind of depressing... but then you look at the art again and it just transports you....
Especially with music: listen to something like, I don't know... Beethoven's 9th Symphony, particularly the 4th movement although the whole thing is great. Beethoven was totally deaf when he wrote it. Now listen to it again knowing that the person who wrote it never got to hear it except in his head.
I'll end the diatribe now. Art is all over the place, people. Spend some time finding it.
