This morning in English, we were talking about The Tempest and how Caliban loved the island, and never wanted to leave. Dr. Smith asked us if we had ever experienced art that made us want to stay there forever. Many nodded in acknowledgment that yes, they had indeed felt that way before. After turning the last page of a beautiful novel, there is a certain sorrow that it doesn't last forever. As the cover is shut, the reader has to turn back to reality, to the everyday minutes far from the novel. Caliban can't stay on the island, he can't live forever in the place that he finds to be the most beautiful. He has to return to Milan, to leave the island behind.As someone who wants to be an artist, who wants to touch people with beauty, this brought many questions to mind. As an artist, should one desire and attempt to make their audience want to stay forever in the beauty of their work? Should one of the main goals of art be to bring the viewer to a place of intense beauty, one that they don't ever want to leave? I don't think I want my art to do that, I don't believe it should stop there. Perhaps an artist should seek to capture and display this beauty that brings the audience to a place they have never experienced, to a place that they wish they could stay forever; but instead of allowing them to remain, it must strongly push them back to reality. The art should show them beauty, allow them to stay and enjoy it for a period of time, but then direct them back to the everyday. It should equip them to better live every minute; it should propel them to see reality more beautifully, and to share that beauty with others.
We have discussed so often in English how characters, and how we as human beings, view reality; how we see the everyday. I want to find the everyday to be so beautiful-and because of the cross, it IS stunning-that I seek to stay in it, not before it or after it, but right there, in a beauty that holds me to each minute. I don't know how to yet, but I want to learn how to do that not just with my art, but also with my life.
2 comments:
Shannon, if you find out how to always love the moment you're in, let me know. I've been trying to figure it out for at least two years. I've only been successful for short stretches of time.
Art can bring the viewer to a place on intense beauty, leaving them wanting to go to that place and actually see it for themselves. Art is a picture of a reality. The cross is also an image of reality, the realty, driving us to Christ.
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