Art as saviour

In previous posts I have written about the importance of connections between people via the identification of shared experiences and the rewards from successful endeavour. Appreciation of art can do all this. 

Before Ruby died 19 months ago I would get frustrated at art that tried too hard to force me to think. I would rapidly dismiss anything I considered wasteful of my time- novels were abandoned half read, paintings glanced at, photographs were either pretty or interesting or, if neither, a waste of ink- and didn't appreciate the artistic skill in creating an aesthetic inquiry. But I think I understand this now. 

I now appreciate how art can connect me to others and can gently force an unconscious empathy. I understand how it feels to have a blank canvas and be forced into considering what I am to make of it. I have had to work, sometimes exhaustively, at creating a future picture of my own, setting a scene within which I may find solace and calm. I have had to shape my own landscape- hills that roll just so, rivers that flow slow and deep, variations of boulder, shingle and trail paths- as an artist creates theirs. It is unimportant whether they and I have had similar experiences that have shaped our creations, the point is that they have consciously designed and brought into existence a previously non-thing. They will have had to reflect on their weaknesses, jealousies, desire, rage and all other beautiful and ugly qualities that make them who they are and how this will impede and instruct their landscape. 

Art that is worthwhile forces considerations and it arouses my curiosity rather than quenches it. Good art, as the maxim goes, poses more questions than answers and there are great rewards from the exertion involved in deeper analysis.

I have been moved to tears more than ever before by the poetry I have read and the art I have seen over the last year and a half. Instead of dismissing some art as superfluous and trite, as I have done in the past, art and aesthetics have been a saviour. 

Recent aesthetic appreciation:

War poetry. 

The availability of plentiful aluminium to craft bicycle frames. 

An intuitive and very pretty computer operating system running on an equally pretty laptop makes it a joy to touch and look at. 

A metal corner of a shelf. It took thousands of years to learn how to efficiently extract, smelt and craft that stainless steel into a perfect right-angled corner piece, a shape and material unlike anything seen in nature. 

My mass-produced, bent wood Ikea armchair. It is perfectly utilitarian, millions have been produced and it cost pennies.

Rothko. 

Hiking boots and weatherproof jacket. 

Staedtler pencils. 

Bell whisks. 

Philip Glass piano etudes. 

Drain covers. 

Plywood.

People writing Rubys name in Xmas cards. 

The International Space Station.