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When you hear "art," what comes to mind?
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Is it white gallery walls adorned with pictures of nameless women or distant landscapes? Is it theater or performance art? Or perhaps a goosebumps-inducing concert? Or maybe it's a troubled artist laboring away at an incomprehensible masterpiece.
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Whatever it is, chances are you see a divide between your daily life and art.
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Art is in a lofty plane of its own, high above the earthly activities of mortals - unreachable and enigmatic. It can become even more intimidating if you're not versed in its history and significance.
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I'd like to propose that we don't hold such a rigid attitude towards art, but learn to befriend it in all its forms.
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Nearly everything can be a subject of art. From street graffiti to a show of fireworks.
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Let us discard of preconceived notions of how art is supposed to look like, or who can make it. Or even who can tell us what is or isn't art. It's way more important that we enter a dialogue with it and let it teach us its language.
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And we don't have to be mere observers. Creating art is a pillar of humanity, having been around for tens of thousands of years. If you don't consider yourself particularly creative or art-inclined, perhaps all you need is a change of perspective.
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Art can be reflected in how you cook, in how you write a message to a loved one, in how you arrange a bouquet of flowers, in how you pair your clothes, even in the way you interact with others. It is a fluid activity that can take many forms, and the end result doesn't necessarily have to be tangible or "hang-able" on a wall.
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To leave you with a practical tip, my favorite way to infuse art in my life is to keep it in a browser tab (we have so many open anyway). It could be a painting or a piece of music, or anything that inspires me. This way, the in-between moments amid tasks can be filled with a dose of art. I've been practicing this for a few months now and it's truly enriched my life. You can't always go to a museum or a gallery, but you can bring it to you.
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| Right now, I have this Matisse painting, Luxe, Calme et Volupté from 1904. |
|  | Timeless Content| Jason Farago | 8 minute read |
| | This interactive article analyzes the bizarre yet captivating allure of Parmigianino's painting Madonna with the elongated neck, shown below. |
|  | | If you find this painting weird or forced, you're probably not the only one. The Madonna is distorted, unbalanced and even grotesquely elongated. But beneath the initial reaction lay subtle details and hidden beauty that can reveal more profound aspects of the artist's vision. This is not your usual high-brow art critic analysis. You're allowed a little irreverence. |
| Picture of the Week | | Painter at Work (1875) by Paul Cézanne |
|  | Quote I'm reflecting on | | If you frequent museums, you’ll notice that people often spend that much time reading the label, only glancing at the artwork, or they photograph the artwork and its label, or take a selfie next to it. Many artworks are as complex as movies and novels and took as long to create. Yet too often we spend very little time looking at a piece and absorbing and contemplating its complexities. This might be because we believe that an artwork—like a snapshot—captures a moment frozen in time, and therefore takes only a moment of time to comprehend. We forget that rumination is one of the keys to the experience. (The Art of Looking, Lance Esplund)
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| Questions for you to ponder| What's something you already do that can be approach as an art? |
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