But Then Again I Know Nothing About Art

Wow, in a profound rippling thank-you thank-you way, I just read this via Graceful Presence blog and simply had to share. It gets the heart of why I care about art too:

Robert Genn, author of The Painter's Keys, is traveling and visited the Orangerie in Paris where the Claude Monet waterlily paintings are on display. He shared this experience:

I've been in these two rooms for so long that my stomach is concerned. A guard has already determined that I'm planning a heist. I'm sure she has alerted her supervisors. And then there's a man who has been in here almost as long as I. He moves from bench to bench. He has a round, friendly face and an honest smile. I find relief in pretending we have met. We talk in hushed, religious tones. He is M. LeClerc, an actuary from Poitiers, in Paris for four days. He thinks I'm an American. I tell him I'm from Canada. "What do you see here?" I ask him.

"I know nothing about art," he tells me, "But every time I come to Paris I enter these rooms. The collection was closed for some six years and Paris was very dull. These are sublime things. They are beyond words or expressions. They cannot be categorized or listed. In winter they take you to spring. They bring my boyhood and my home. Maybe God is in these things. What do I see? I see sadness and I see beauty. What else do we need? What else do we have?" His face is flushed, his eyes moist. "But then, who am I to say?" he asks. "I know nothing about art. Do you have such experiences in Canada?"

p.s. This is why I adore art (that is, art with heart...it's visceral, you are touched and moved as deeply as the artist themself dissolved into the work, and you don't learn that resonance, or recognition, in art history classes) and this is why I wish everyone would bloom into their natural artistry. And why I adore the Graceful Presence blog (definitely become one of my most precious daily visits).

images Jia Lu's Expression of Joy

Comments

[william]

Your comments about belief were similar to my experience of having to reexamine the influences in my life that were belief driven. I was once in conversation with a slowly dying poet and he reprimanded me after I said something in regard to what I believed. He looked at me sternly and said, "Don't tell me what you believe, tell me what you know." I looked away in silence not knowing what to say. It took me 20 years to finally get to a place where I could honestly say I now know some of the reasons we are here. All the best in your discovery process.

[Rita Patel]

Thank you for this post...it captures what I feel deep in me. I know nothing about art. I only know what I create and that which moves me is the inspiration that words cannot explain.

[Dan]

Thank you for passing this along. So beautiful.

I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life at Musee de l'Orangerie. I was struggling with a profound sense of failure in my life amd work, and the water lilies there came to my rescue. If you would like to read my story, you can find it at http://www.unfoldingleadership.com/blog/?p=90