To Paint With All The Colors Of The Wind

Sing With All The Voices of The Mountain etc etc

I’ve talked before about how looking at things in a different way is a good creative exercise for writers, and today I’d like to talk about something that’s looked at quite often: art.

Art is subjective. While a cliché it’s one I happen to believe is true.

Art is also an avenue for pretentious bullshit and that is also something I think is true.

Let’s get this out of the way: I think contemporary art is trash. I just don’t see a single stripe on an otherwise blank canvas or a banana taped to a wall as evocative or emotionally stirring. I can hear some of you out there gasping that “art doesn’t have to make you evoke an emotion!” To which I say “then what is the point?” If you aren’t creating to tell a story, to make someone feel something, then what the fuck, bro? Creation for creation’s sake is good for a kid with legos, but I’m not gonna pay $1.2 million for little Timmy’s brick version of the human centipede.

Now, as I’ve said, art is subjective. What you’ve just read are my own personal views on the matter and I’m sure that what to me are meaningless squiggles have someone creaming their designer jeans in delight. 

And that’s fine.

For them.

Messy, mind you, but fine. I myself am not a fan.

Now, I’m no art history major, and I can’t tell you the difference between an acrylic or oil painting, but I know enough to know what I like. So, rather than fight, let’s just all agree it takes all kinds, art is subjective, and that Bob Ross was a goddamn national treasure.

We good? Good. Let’s continue. 

Sure Does, Bob, Thanks For Asking

I’ve always admired the impressionist school and their refusal to adhere to the style at the time of having everything heavily shadowed. Rather than paint everything like it was sitting in a dark, claustrophobic room, Monet and his compatriots chose to portray their subjects in bright colors, with largely undefined hard edges, and totally eschewing the use of the color black to give their paintings a noticeably vibrant appearance.

I’ve always appreciated that artistic mindset, that drive to create new styles, and present new stories to tell. Forgoing bleak dramaticism to show that life can be colorful and fun as well as brutal and unforgiving is a lesson I think more authors could stand to learn. Monet and his fellow Impressionists certainly new how to embrace the unknown (and a mistress or two but that’s beside the point).

Now, I’m not saying you have to be part of a movement that revolutionizes your chosen artform (kudos to you if you are) but, like Monet, I firmly hold that anyone who endeavors to create should try to look at things from a different lens.

Do you have a favorite poem, painting, book, or song? Meditate upon this if you will: why is it your favorite? Is it the colors, the sound, the memories associated with it? The key to mining creative gold is to analyze what you consider beautiful without killing the joy you receive from it.

For example: one of my favorite paintings is Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I love the colors and how it manages to somehow convey the coolness of a summer night and the warm glow of a candle all wrapped into one. Primarily though, I love this painting because I can remember the first time I saw it.

You see, dear reader, I first saw this painting in kindergarten and (being from the Midwestern United States) I didn’t know what a cyprus tree was. Therefore you may surmise that I didn’t see the cyprus trees in the painting for what they were.

Instead, my little child-brain saw the tree on the left as a castle from fantasy, a twisted-spire emitting roiling clouds of magic to protect the town below.

Then someone pointed out the castle was a tree and the magic clouds were stylized stars and I went “ooooooohhhhhhhh, right.”

Now, here’s the thing, my reader, this didn’t ruin the painting for me.

You see I can appreciate the artist’s intent, the soft color pallet, the strokes of the brush. I can see the trees and the stars. But all I have to do is blink to see the spire.

One blink and the magic is still there.

Analyze the media you love. Cherish it. Take what you learn and apply it to your own work. You never know what you might gleam from looking at something familiar from a new perspective.

If nothing else, it’ll make you more fun at parties.