There are some, and I count myself among them, who listen to music, see a painting or photograph, read a poem, and feel their world transformed by art's beauty and power. This transformation is not just for the moment of their experience, but more lasting. These are art lovers, but they are relatively few.
It is more usual for people to experience art in the same way as they might a meal. It might be tasty during its consumption, but its significance is relatively short, and its power to change a person's mood or make them act is limited.
Golden Bread, from the picture book What Do You Love?
Art for most people is perhaps perceived of as little more than a distraction, an entertainment, a pastime. For others art is a means of social currency. A way to prove their standing and taste in society, and for yet others, art is simply a transactional tool and economic investment.
Like every art lover I experience the arts as far more, and I believe this is the case even for those who care not to admit it. Art in all its forms is how humans reach beyond their world to another. Another person, another creature, another nature.
Art is physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Art is the articulation and expression of being human.
Art is the means to leave aside myself and inhabit the mind and feeling of another without their being beside me. It is perhaps how you feel with a book that captures your imagination, your heart, your intellect and spirit. It is the statue from thousands of years ago you hold in your hand that connects you through time with its touch and form. This is the experience of art and it leads to change our inner world, and how we act upon and in the world...
Art is vital and not simply a pastime, but a great and noble project. Art is the stage where we explore and share our ideas about the world, and persuade others of our experience and vision of how it has been, is, and can be. Without art, we would have no place to go, no vision of the future, for our hopes and dreams would never be described in light, word, or sound that moves us to feel and act beyond the small ambition of ourselves.
When I see a painting or photograph, hear music, or read words, when I smile for a moment, shed a tear, feel, and think, I try to remember to wait one moment more to find far more below its surface, and within.
Art matters because its experience moves the person experiencing it beyond themselves and makes them more...
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