If nature, as Ralph Waldo Emerson righteously proclaimed, is elemental and comprised of a commodity; beauty; language; and discipline. Then ART, it follows, is nature refined and emblematic of; and, by the MIND of man.
____________________________________________________________________________ Photograph (personal collection): Louvre Museum (Paris, France) Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman (circa 1483-1486) Fresco painting by Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. ___________________________________________________________________________
Whether accentuating the beauty and fragility of the natural world; or creating the imaginable by words, design or construction – Art, elevates our collective consciousness above the social order.
It resides within us. It lives, by extension through our INHERENT NEED TO CREATE: idiosyncratic expressions painted on canvas; a captured image through a camera lens; an evocative, sensual sculpture; moving musical compositions or thought provoking literature; an interpretive dance; an inspired commemorative street mural. It lives in the simplicity of shaping an earth-encrusted clay pot, or ripened wine or indigenous inspired cuisine, or through a benevolent calling to watercolor flowers on the cheeks of a smiling child.
LIVING IN CREATION shields us from society’s intrusiveness. It emboldens us with self-respect and a sense of worth. It offers us safe passage through perilous environs – high or low. The CREATIVE PROCESS frees us from the mundane and the ordinary. It grapples with the non-rational, beauty, grief, mortality, and love. It hosts alternative realities and reason; it provokes us - to act; and most importantly, it gifts us humanity, truth, and higher consciousness.
Art is our raison d'être; it’s our state of grace. It’s our refuge and escape from the bombardment of cultural orthodoxy. It provides safe harbor and CONNECTION to all who seek it. It revives our senses, strength, inspiration, and imagination.
And best of all - we need only to look inside ourselves, to discover it.
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I’m an author, blogger and serial entrepreneur. I write about culture, politics, business, art, money, and all things philosophical. __________________________________________________________________
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