The ability to admire fine art is habitually dismissed as simply a way to defeat boredom or while away the hours of the day. Outside of those who have specifically followed a career in the arts, becoming masters of the brush, palette, and folding easel, we generally only get to follow our passion when we can get away from the nine to five.
You might be hard-pressed, however, to find anyone who would go so far as to fully compare the arts to other diversions. Some of us play poker, and some of us go horseback riding, kayaking, or simply like to knit. But few things have the ability to help us reflect on the human condition as much as outstanding artwork can.
The ability to fully grasp a great work is a learned response. Most folks have to get themselves accustomed to the delicacies that exist in a painting before they can truly let go and enjoy. To the individual who cannot relate, merely the sight of someone who takes pleasure in the arts gazing into a painting for an extended period of time may be downright laughable. They have trouble empathizing with the art lover, unable to relate to what she may be going through. A typhoon of mixed feelings may be swelling up inside her even as she seems so peaceful and still.
The painter and the preacher aren't really that different in that they both have their own point of view which they have a feverish desire to impart to their fellow man. One works with their discount easels and wrought iron easels, the other with the Good Book and the power of their voice. A finished painting is the artist's way of speaking to us. As he or she has no way of knowing whether it may be the first or the last conversation, each great artist tries to make every painting another masterpiece.
Exceptional artwork can share with us any thought out there from a spiritual declaration to a moralistic judgment, to an endorsement of which political party is the most just. Paintings can call forth profound emotional reactions. This can give us a deep insight into the artist's chosen topic in a way that is impossible to duplicate via other mediums.
In viewing an artist's work, we often find that they are guiding us on the journey of self discovery, offering a means by which we can ponder where our own place is in the annals of time. Most of us would never consider this were it not for a piece of fine art to spur us forward. Artists work for the greater good of us all by enabling such insights. That more grownup way of analyzing our lives helps to turn us into wiser versions of ourselves.
Extended contemplation as a result of fine art does often make one reexamine ways of thinking that have been present for years. For instance, after a day spent browsing artwork, it wouldn't be unheard of for a mom to be moved to take more time out to devote to her child because life is too short. A person of faith will quite possibly get something else entirely out of the contemplation of art, maybe having to do with his or her relationship with God.
Even someone who invests his time in more earthly pursuits may be forced to reevaluate the importance of everything that he does. Parts of ourselves that we may not know exist sometimes come to the surface during quiet moments with great paintings. If it helps us to be the very best people we can be, then isn't our time spent with the artistic masters well spent?
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