This week, for me, has been a sad realization that my artistic taste is seemingly old, archaic, or out of date. And I thought, as an Enneagram Four, that I gravitated to beauty.
My husband and I have been enjoying Bob Ross as of late. His TV program "The Joy of Painting" was on PBS and CBC from 1983 to 1994. Now, we watch him on Youtube. His videos have achieved millions of views each.
Both Hubby and I find his talent and skill amazing. He can turn a blank canvas into a thing of amazing beauty. We are both nature lovers. Watching Ross paint a scenic picture while explaining brush strokes and paint colours. brings us right into those moments. It is like an orchestral performance of Mozart on canvas.
All it takes is a google search to find that there are people that walk by a blank canvas and either call it art, or stop and look at it to see how it makes them feel. A blank canvas! There are art galleries that have paid thousands of dollars for paintings that are that or almost that... blank canvases.
I am not going to get on my soap box and say that blank canvases are not art, when some want to believe that they are. I was told today, that art isn't always about what is seen, but what is felt.
I guess my personal taste in art is exactly that... personal. Maybe some things don't make sense to me, but do I really need to define what someone else finds as meaningful? What if a blank canvas moves another person to tears. How can I stand beside them and say that there is nothing to cry about? I probably won't cry with them, but I don't think I would feel good now about getting in the way of their emotional response. I learned that lesson today. But if I was going to open up an art gallery, and an artist came to me wanting to display their blank canvas... I would look at them and say something like this...
"I'm sorry. Maybe there is a place where you can display your canvas, but as for me, in my gallery... just give me Bob Ross."
