I've never been great at art. I've never really appreciated art as much as some people do. Sure, I go to art museums sometimes and visit Getty Center (there's a Van Gogh in there!) but I mostly just look at the painting for.....I'd say about 10 seconds before moving on. I like the ones with lots of colors and showing some sort of magnificent imagery, a glorious sunset deep in the mountains or an array of flowers blooming in a luxurious garden. I myself don't have many drawings other than the ones completed in 8th grade art class.
My girlfriend and I (Yay!) went to a paint class for one of our first dates and both drew a pumpkin pie. It seemed pretty simple, but it actually took 3 hours, and quite a bit of effort on my part. The oil blending to get the color just right, the fine strokes to make sure not to go over the lines, the blending of the paints on the drawing to make the different shades of orange (never knew how many color arrays there were between brown and orange!), there was a lot of nuance to drawing a simple pumpkin pie on a white plate. My gf had it down and got praised by the instructor. A couple of the other participants even commented that hers was "good enough to eat." I did not got that same praise. I think the main point that I got from the paint class, though, was the amount of sophistication it takes to get a painting exactly the way one wants it, and it takes a certain skill to recognize the fine nuances. So congrats to those master painters like Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. I still don't understand some modern and contemporary pieces, though, like sticks sticking out from the wall or a dot on a white piece of paper. That must be something deeper than my feeble brain can understand, at least.
I've often theorized on why I don't like art that much; one optimistic one I've had recently is that I appreciate other forms of art other than the visible ones like architecture or oil paintings; I like the way life and sports work, like dodgeball. I think dodgeball is the easier analogy because commentators and journalists often remark how certain players are masters of their crafts, or certain games are "masterpieces" that fully exemplify the way the game is played. Dodgeball is certainly like that for me, where I appreciate the timing of the game, how balls move and players' movements mirror each others, the symmetry of the two opposing sides facing each other over a straight middle line. Some players move as smoothly as I imagine a brush on an oil painting does, throwing with seeming effortless abandon and timing their movements precisely so as to avoid incoming balls. (I'm not one of those people, my dodgeball game's art form could best be described as a blunt object, maybe like a self-portrait of myself, nothing subtle about it at all).
I also appreciate the way the world works sometimes. I sometimes ponder how life works in mysterious ways, where something that happens in one corner of the world can affect the lives of others thousands of miles away. Or just in one's own life, how a single mistake in the past can prevent someone from making a much more momentous mistake later, or how helping someone at one time can lead to someone else helping oneself later. The world we live in itself is one big art form, where we have brains to conduct our bodies which in turn have hands and feet and other parts to allow us to be innovate and act on our ideas, and exchange conversations that are full of wit, humor, emotion, sometimes anger. Mostly I think the interaction itself is the art, and I should sit back and appreciate it just like a work of art. Maybe for more than 10 seconds next time.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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