Art. What a wide and expansive topic that is. Art can mean a LOT of different things to a lot of different people. But essentially, it is an expression. A human expression of our human imaginations.
And that expression, that “ARTiculation,” can take many different forms.
Just the other day I was thinking about Scrapbooking. Does anyone Scrapbook any more? It used to be wildly popular, and I just don’t see the aisles and aisles of “supplies” anymore for this form of Art.
I guess Art comes and goes in that way. Different phases and fads, rise up or disappear.
And now that I mention disappear, Art has a way of doing that too.
Art Heists are a very big thing. They happen, that’s for sure. The first recorded heist was way back in 1473. There is a painting called “The Last Judgement” by Dutch Painter Hans Memling. It was on a ship on its way to Florence, Italy, and a bunch of Polish Pirates nabbed it. Arrrrr Matey. They took it back to Gdansk, Poland. And the triptych still hangs there today. I am not sure who owned it, to begin with, but I would think they might want it back. Dang Polish Pirates.
There have been some good Art Heists since. In 1911, the Mona Lisa went missing from the Louvre. A guy named Vincenzo Perrugio, worked there, at the Louvre. He hid in a cupboard overnight, and then took the painting out of the frame. From there, he simply walked out with the thing, and no one noticed. He had a hard time finding someone to fence that Mona Lisa. After a few days, he contacted an Art Dealer named Alfred Geri, in Florence. Art Dealer Alfred ratted him out to authorities. Perrugio went to jail.
So many more have occurred. Like “The Scream” being stolen in 1994. It was held hostage, but the gallery in Oslo wouldn’t give in, and pay the one million dollars. Some British Detectives went undercover and posed as buyers. They got it back, and they got the thieves too.
I could go on about the amazing world of Art and Artists. There is just so much. From Leonardo Da Vinci to Vincent Van Gogh. From Michelangelo to Rembrandt. So many people have created magnificent imaginations of the mind.
Some argue that art cannot be defined. It can mean so much, to so many. And so different in each way. It encompasses a diverse range of our human activities. Art can be music, or it can be literature, or film. And of course, we have things like sculpture and paintings.
But it knocks on our doors, of emotion, and intellect, and spirit.
Art.
That is the thing about Art. We see it. But, it sees us. It sees us.
It doesn’t make any difference to Art whether we are short, or blond, or left-handed. It does care that we are a nurse, an auto mechanic, a cafeteria worker at a school, or an aerodynamic physicist. Art doesn’t look at us that way.
Any one of us, who are here and blessed enough to have a hand, can pick up a pencil and put line to paper. We can create. And the thing about our creations is that they are our own. That is what we do, when our mind decides to move our hand in any direction, when we draw that line. That is our incredible and unique power. We are the only one who can express, as we do, and create, as we do.
Art knows no boundaries or limits. It is all-accepting and all-inclusive. It does not see us for our labels. But it sees who we are. It sees what we can do. And it waits, joyfully, patiently, for us to come and explore our amazing talent of being us.
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“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
― Pablo Picasso
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“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
― Albert Einstein, The World as I See It
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“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
― Edgar Degas
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