Life is Beautiful

title: the Name of possibly the most heart wrenching movie of all time.

I came to the park to forget about my worries. I talked to a friend about a potential suitor. As usual, he's rather interested but I don't think he's what I'm looking for.

"Go for it", says my friend. But my mind in the passenger seat keeps stomping the invisible break.

Realizing that worrying was what I came to forget, and that this suitor had me worried, I wandered to the swings and talked of other things.

My friend went to dinner and I sat alone, enjoying the wind and the sky. As I swung on that swing, the wind pushed me high, and for just a little while I knew I could fly.

The Shorthand of Emotion

Leo Tolstoy said that music is the shorthand of emotion.

I'd agree, and I'd elaborate on his brilliant philosophy with another bold statement:
Art is the embodiment of feeling.

All art, each different kind, is another part of emotion, another part of the whole. Emotion is a being that can be seen, heard and known through art. Poetry and writing are her character, paintings show her face, sculptures reveal her body, and music is her voice. Mankind is her soul.

Meet the spirit that separates man from beast.

Try to think about it for a moment. Do you know any artists? Any kind? I don't just mean painters, the general artists, I also mean the singers and the writers and the actors. They are artists too.

What do they do that makes their art so delightful? Can you tell me? You might not be able to, if you aren't the artist. I'm not saying that the artist is special and you aren't. I'm saying that only the artist knows what they were feeling, what they were thinking when they did it.

The paintings, the music, the words, they are all feelings.

Of course there is the occasional artist that feels nothing. They just do it to get attention, to please the crowds. These are what Poltok, the author of "My Name is Asher Lev", called "art whores".

(I highly recommend that book for any artist or lover of art, or anyone that just wants inspiration- it's truly fantastic)

Now I'm not leaving the poor bastard children of these art whores out in the cold. They are often adopted and given feeling by the patrons that buy them and the public that adores them. They too end up embodying art.

What can you do with this sweet bite of knowledge?

Feel. Feel because it is beautiful. You can write it, you can draw it, paint it, sing it or sculpt it, or you can keep it in your heart and cherish it. Just feel.



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http://www.almostdailyexploits.com/
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David wasn't REALLY naked when he killed Goliath. (or WAS he?)

Ah, human nudity.

What else can rival such popularity? It's everywhere. In simple, tasteless work (porn), in the realm of fine art, and back through the ages. Even portrayals of well-known biblical figures such as David and Adam and eve are flaunting their original outfits without shame.

"Dear Lord WHY!?", you ask.

I mean, sure. Porn. That makes sense. Man has desired to look upon naked women since before he even began scratching heroic images of himself killing prehistoric beasts on cave walls. That's a no-brainer.

But art?

It's about beauty. The grace and power and subtleties and vulnerabilities of the human body, the versatility and unique thoughts and desires that lend their aids to romanticizing the human image.

It's about what matters most. Not clothes. Not material possessions. When it all ends, and everyone and everything is gone, what will still matter to you? People. The people we love, the ones we hate. Those who destroy and also create. There was nothing else before we had each other, before we made our memories. Nothing else important, anyway. It's relationships with other people that matter most.

Obviously we can't paint or sculpt relationships and raw feelings. It's all in the body language. The body. The human body.

What do you suppose Michelangelo was doing when he sculpted the naked young David? It certainly wasn't porn. It wasn't to show off how ridiculously muscular he was (although a decent body helps, and no one wants to look at a horrifically deformed bod anyway). I think maybe it was showing his courage.

A friend of mine once observed that perhaps Michelangelo's intent was to show how great David's God was, and also David's faith in his God. He was naked and helpless, weak, and hadn't even armor to protect him, but his faith was enough to help him kill a giant.

I think it's feeling. What do you use to best express your feelings? Before you write it down, before you shout it out, your body language says it loud and clear. The expression on your face, your stance, where you stand, your posture, your ticks and nervous habits. There it is, all worn there on your... er... lack of a sleeve.

Don't you feel it, the confidence that David exudes? Regardless of his weak stature, he stands at ease. His face is calm. He is not afraid. There is something powerful in him. His God, perhaps? Maybe just an unusual courage?

Michelangelo didn't need to say anything. He didn't need to write out his intent so that we could read it and know what he meant. It's plain and simple for all to see.

A lazy afternoon

I found myself observing the rather famous painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Never before have I been impressed by it. I had always found it boring. Oh, look! A park! My, you never see paintings of those! So rare and original! Pffft. Not hardly.

Of course, that was then and this is now. As I looked at it, the teacher's voice blended into a mumbling background noise pointing out the use of shape and line and vanishing points. I saw a shadow I hadn't seen before that put everything into a new perspective. I imagined someday making a movie, and in that movie having a scene that copied the positions of people and water and trees in this painting. There was beauty and interest there that I can't put into words. Suddenly this simple, over-publicized painting was as fantastic as it must have always been. If only I'd seen it sooner.

I sat in a room full of people that seem to be from every walk of life, to a very ridiculous scale. Really it was truly amazing to see the large variety of people that take the early morning classes at a community college.

We have true to the 'T' starving artists, lazy college students that need a fine art credit (how such a species manages to get to school so early is truly a mystery to me), a druggie or two, a hippie (different from a druggie- he's a druggie with class!), a pretty Belgian transfer student, about three to five attractive guys from all different genres of macho male (ya know, gear-head, jock, rich kid, musician, et cetera) that all took turns hitting on transfer babe, Belgian transfer babe's posse composed of the remaining top 5% most attractive women in the class, a couple of those who love art and like to think of themselves as art buffs but really couldn't do anything artistic well enough to save their own lives, one handsome and inspired Mormon, and me.

Out of all of us, which ones looked up at the famous painting on the overhead and were truly impressed with what they saw? I always wonder, when I see a piece I'm not impressed with. Who likes this? And why? Are they seeing something that I can't see? Are they better artists than me and that's why they see it?

Or do they just look at it long enough to finally see its genius?