Posted on 09/02/2016 7:23:20 AM PDT by Salvation
I can neither draw nor paint and have always marveled at how some can take an empty canvas and bring it to life with form, color, depth, and shadow. Little by little, from the painter’s brush and soul, a picture emerges. So, too, with sculpting: with each blow of the sculptor’s tools, a block of marble becomes the form of a human being.
Some years ago, there was a show on PBS called “The Joy of Painting,” featuring Bob Ross. Over the course of half an hour, Mr. Ross would paint a picture, describing what he was doing as he went. And though I watched that show almost every week for a number of years, observing what he did and listening to him describe his techniques, I never ceased to be amazed by the mystery on display. How did he do it? Yes, he explained his methods, but there was some deeper mystery at work: a power of the soul, a gift. He claimed that we all have it, but I am more inclined to think some have it as a special gift.
Michelangelo once said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” He also said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
But how does he see it? How does he set it free? Indeed, another great mystery and faculty of the human soul of some.
As with music, the arts of painting and sculpting seem to be unique capacities of the human soul. Animals neither draw nor sculpt; they do not even appreciate art. It is a special gift to the human person to be captivated by beauty; it is also a gift that beauty, once seen and experienced, can emerge from the soul in expressive praise. There are special glories and a unique gifts given only to the human person, mysterious gifts to be sure. It is all caught up in our desire for what is good, true, and beautiful; it is caught up in our soul’s ultimate longing for God.
Perhaps Michelangelo should have the last word: “Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.”
Here’s a video of “performance painter” David Garibaldi at work; watch for the surprise ending:
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Watch the video!
Fang’s aunt is an old, old art teacher. She once boasted
that she had never seen a student she couldn’t teach to
paint. - I attended one of her classes and did a pastel
drawing of some buildings (flat buildings, not 3D).
She had to revise her declaration. I was the one non-artsy
fartsy member of that family she couldn’t teach to paint, or
draw. :o(
If art is intended to elevate us and open a line to God, what does the repulsive ant-art being produced today do? It’s only a celebration of ugliness, chaos, and ineptitude. From music that is little more than doggerel set to simplistic jungle rhythms, to sculpture that is cluttered collections of detritus, to paintings that are more janitorial than inspirational, art has been reduced to pedestrian mediocrity incapable of elevating anything but the artist’s bank balance.
I can draw and paint and I have since early childhood. What I have always wanted to do is to sing. I have no music able ability at all. When my son was 18 months old I was rocking him and singing, he put his hand over my mouth and said....sssshhhhh!
I can’t dance either.
It takes care of itself. We don’t need to worry that one day people would get conditioned to liking ugly art. Just like if someone in city governments decided to feed us cardboard, he only outcome would be growing revulsion at the cardboard food and at the left wing feeding us the junk.
The people producing the ugly stuff don’t believe in God and have intentionally shut Him out. Their “art” reflects that separation.
But I still love art.
Well said!
Husband’s aunt (the artist) was enough to put me off much
that passes for art. She was a very spoiled and indulged
person. WE were required to cater to her. She was a sort of
devious individual. - She undercut my husband with his
mother until I think she poisoned the well. She once offered
him his choice of things from her attic (covered in crud).
He chose what he could use in his dorm room & scrubbed the
things until they shone. Then, the aunt threw a fit; accused
him of “stealing her stuff” (a big FAT lie). Truth was, she
saw the junk cleaned up and then like a child, decided to
be an Indian giver. Wrote his mother a long accusing letter.
- Years later, his dying uncle gave him some books &
magazines that were in a jeep. After my husband had loaded
the things, their bratty son loaded on him & forced him to
“put them back”. (I could have warned him this would
happen.) Since then, my husband has steered totally clear
of them (close to 20 yrs. now). The aunt is still living
at 96 or 97.
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