Finding inspiration
Recently I visited NYC for the first time. I found inspiration upon inspiration. I came across famous art works from the likes of Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse and many more.
Little do I know about art and artists. Yet, what I perceived and felt was immense. This time, I noticed far more detail. Or maybe I noticed detail for the first time. Patterns. Intricate layers. Perfection. Imperfection. Perfection within imperfection.
Each told a story. Each felt alive. Every stroke, magical. Sequenced in mysterious ways. The canvas swayed and danced. Colours sweeping across. Shadows playing with light.
I could feel the joy, the suffering. I could sense hope. Their longing. Their love and sorrow. Their pain and passion. Truth spoken, yet unspoken.
I wondered what it was like for them.
Their language was art. Used to express. To share. To lose self. To find self. To create. To blur lines of reality. To escape. To capture all the beauty that surrounds. Timeless. Limitless. Transient, yet eternal.
Humanity evolves through language, and art is one such form. Our sense-perceptions, thoughts and feelings are influenced by the world around us, altered by what’s within us. Our processing, shaped by experiences, gives individuality to our expression, forming our truth.
Van Gogh… I had this sudden urge to draw what he drew, to experience it. It gave me immense appreciation of how difficult this is, and how masterful he was. His work embodies the nature of ‘work’. To practise, to patiently study, to learn new techniques, to create systems, to seek mastery, to doubt self, to remain grounded and humble, to believe, to immerse in nature, to persist, to capture the movement of the world around us, to set higher personal limits, to speak in colour, to love our surrounds, to follow the heart’s desire, to pause, to take it in, to feel, to contemplate, to be true to self.
Through art we can gain perspective of how our imitation of reality is so insignificant compared to our Creator’s creation.
Inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait with a straw hat.
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Comments
Saif , you are fortunate in having the ability to appreciate the work of those great masters so introspectively . It is a gift we do not all have.
Wendy had that inclination . She graduated at the Bradford College of Art , now part of Bradford University , and worked as a dress designer until the birth of our first child.
My daughter in law requested Wendy”s sketches and has had several of them framed which now adorn a wall in their house.