The summer of 2012 has a lot of memories. This is about one of them…one that has lit a fire in me, one that I don’t want to put out. But I’m jumping ahead of myself.
We got to see a lot, but from a learning perspective there were two two highlights . The visit to the Vatican (and the Sistine Chapel), and to the Center Pompidou in Paris.
How do I describe this, the Sistine chapel was awesome, and that is such an understatement. It is contrary to popular belief that Michelangelo painted the ceiling on his back, it turns out that he didn’t. He spent 4 years day in and day out standing on a scaffolding painting looking up. I would get a crick in my neck standing like that for 15 minutes.
There is a painting on the Altar wall in the Sistine Chapel, “The last judgment” a depiction of the second coming of christ. What stuck in my head when the guide was describing it, was the sheer terror that people who saw it for the first time (in the 1500’s) felt, they ran out crying, screaming because it was so different, so jarring compared to anything that they had ever seen, it evoked terror. Hold this thought…
The center pompidou is a modern art museum. The building stands out on its own, and the best way to describe it is that its built inside out. the innards, like staircases, pipes, escalators, elevators are all on the outside of the building. A very jarring sight with all the beautiful buildings of paris around it. It is basically a gallery, whose art keeps changing. So that every time you go there is something new to see.
This was my first time time in a Modern art museum, sure I have seen some modern art before but this was the first time that I was walking around a museum, in the center of the art world (Come on, paris is where it’s at! you knew that!), and I couldn’t help but snigger. Here was a pristine gallery with paintings on the wall, and these paintings were paintings of photographs…
…and there were people walking up to a picture, looking closely, daintily at the pictures. It felt like a sham.
I walked on through the museum. More pictures, more paintings, art from the 40’s, architecture, a rock with shading, while walking through that museum something changed. I started feeling a thrill as I walked up to pictures, rooms that were architected to demonstrate color, feelings, shapes and my mind woke up.
A realization happened…this was about expression of the self. This was about the artist ignoring the magnifying glass that is the world around us, and expressing what he/she wanted to say. It was no longer about the picture, it was about the expression of the self…about the artist putting up their innermost feelings thoughts up for display, for interpretation, criticism.
How else do I describe it…progress? All human evolution is about taking the risk, ignoring the self and doing something that nobody else had done before. To have the guts to express themselves, to put their innermost thoughts up for display, and even criticism is what makes up the artist. And I got it…
Art is about the self, without art there would be no progress. You have to look at the world a little differently to change it a bit. Michelangelo changed it for us when he painted the Sistine chapel. It generated fear/terror at that time, but the world moved on, it internalized it, and today we talk about the story it tells us. The world is a much better place because of Michelangelo, DaVinci and so many other like him…
Samyeer Metrani 