Thursday, July 30, 2009

Crystallized Moments

It's funny, art is.. the way it captures a moment and freezes it in time. A photo still, a written word, a melody crystalizes a moment and suddenly this pure energy is given edges where context and meaning can grip and hold the moment.

If you've ever taken a photograph that was...just...perfect..., you know what I mean. Or if you've ever said the exact phrase that solved a problem eloquently and succinctly, the type of phrase you stop to taste and savor, you have had a touch of art. And these things happened, forgotten if not recorded. If the timing was off, a passing car's squealing tires would mar a symphony, and the child's bee-like attention would blur the photo.

There is a reason why there are masterpieces in the world. There is a reason Edvard Munch's The Scream is terrifying and laughable at once. Salvador Dali's devotion and dedication to his wife Gala are intricately wedged between bowls of rotten fruit and stilted tigers. Painting require attention and time, unlke a photo, which is immediate. But it's not the process of painting that garners the genius, and sometimes it's not even the painting itself. Sometimes its the story around the painting. Grant Wood's American Gothic was a flop when it was first display. It won 300 dollars in a contest, but then became sort of a laughing stock of mid-America. Almost eighty years later it is the pivotal litmus test of Midwestern American Art, the comparison.

As I reread my earlier blog articles, I am somewhat confounded as to why I may have said this or that, whether what I said is actually true, or only slivenly true. Not that I would lie. I have no reason to lie. But I might be neglecting important elements to the story or portraying only a singular perspective. There is always more that one can put onto a story or essay. Despite the photo's indication, the child doesn't always sit so still.

No comments: