By: Scott Nisley
Pictured: The Birth of Venus by William Adolphe Bouguereau
There’s a reason we look art. It has the power to move us. It has the power to open minds, they might truly see. It allows us the chance to see the natural beauty of this world and the majestic visions we only witness in our dreams. I truly believe that the biggest folly and disservice we can make to art, is to analyze it to death. If you read into art too heavily, you’ll kill it. The same way you kill a poem by overanalyzing the poet’s use of rhythm and meter. One must let art flow over them in order that they may appreciate it. That they might relate it to their own lives. If one studies a painting, scratches their head, and tries to figure out what it means, than they miss the point. Even Renoir said that if you have to get up and explain a piece of art, than it ceases to be art. We aren’t moved by the artist’s technical skill. We aren’t touched by the composition, or the artist’s use of scientific perspective. Now these aren’t bad things by nature. After all, they are relevant to the ones employing the techniques into their own works. But that feeling–the emotional connection we grasp within a painting, has nothing to do with that. What makes a grown man tear up at the sight of Michelangelo’s Pieta, or Bouguereau’s The Birth of Venus, isn’t something that can be explained away through research or analysis. It’s the stuff of intangibility, the eternal mystery no one can ever put into words. It’s like trying to explain the magic of love. It can’t be done. One has to feel it for themselves. And the only way to do that is to let go. To forget about thinking, and learn to feel again.
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