Art has a way a speaking to us. Depending on the “us” and depending on the “art” this could mean a wide array of things.
The thing that art does, most noticeably, is to touch a place within us that we never knew was there. It is usually accompanied by a gasp of breath, or a tingle at the base of your brain, or perhaps, an uncontrollable desire to tap a foot.
The art that touches our souls is unique unto us. For one person, it may be a certain stanza from Queen’s “The Bohemian Rhapsody.” Another person might be swept away by Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” One of us may watch the Bolshoi Ballet without breathing, and still someone else might curl up in the corner with a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and be taken far, far, away.
The effect of art on a human is large. There have been numerous studies on this topic. The research has shown that art enhances our brain function. It has a direct impact on brain wave patterns. It moves our emotions. These finding show that art raises our serotonin levels. And god only knows we need our serotonin.
More than that, Art is a form of communication. Not only from artist, to the rest of the world, but it also changes our outlook and the way we experience the world. Art, from any given place and time in history, is a treasure trove of a society’s “collective” memory. It can tell us a lot about what it was like to exist in any culture, in any era.
I could write for a long time, on the things that art does. But at the heart of it, art is a connection. A connection between, and among people.
Millions of people go every year to visit the “Mona Lisa” who resides at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, France. They make the long pilgrimage just to get a glimpse of that smile, which measures less than three inches across the 21 inch canvas. Oh, but such a mystical smile which says something to them, something they are unsure of. Leonardo knew, and Mona Lisa knew. And now, in this modern time, they too want to know. No matter how many times they see her, they can feel it. A spoken language from so long ago. And yet.
She was the one who got me thinking of all of this. On August 21, 1911, she was stolen from the Louvre, in the very early morning of things. Three men slipped out of a storage closet, went over to Mona Lisa, and lifted 200 pounds of painting, frame and glass case off the wall. They stripped it all away, covered her wooden canvas with a blanket and ran to the train station. Those guys boarded a train right out of the city and the Mona Lisa was gone. Just like that.
It took two years to get her back. One of the guys was trying to sell the old girl, and the art dealer sort of noticed. She was returned on this date, December 11, in 1913.
But it makes me wonder what “she” went through for those two years, no longer in a controlled environment, with thousands of people staring at her in adornment. Was she jammed behind some stove in a kitchen somewhere, or wrapped in burlap at the back of someone’s closet?
I don’t know, but I think she probably wanted to be back at the museum, where she could be known, felt, enjoyed, adored.
Art has a way of doing that. It lives all on its own. It is the song that needs to be sung, the dance that must leap and bound, the painting that has to speak, and the book that longs to tell its entire tale.
The art that touches us today, is probably touching others too. And there is joy in that. The kind that warms your soul, and lets us all know it is there.
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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 enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
― Thomas Merton , No Man Is an Island
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“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”
― Bob Ross
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