Some paintings make us smile, some make us sad. Some make us anxious, some make us curious. Some, despite their stillness, unleash a flurry of thoughts in our heads that leave us utterly exhausted. Some stay in our mind's eye even several years later. The fact that paintings are expressions of emotions is what allows each one of us, across nations and religions and professions, to identify with them in our own peculiar ways. Every person interprets a painting differently. What would you think when you see a painting of a young boy in worn-out clothes standing by the shore, waves gushing to his feet? To the painter, perhaps, it was just an expression of his memory of days gone by, of a childhood by the sea, or perhaps a longing for what was lost. To the optimist, it might be a picture of unlimited opportunity. And to you, it might be something totally different. The fact that paintings lend themselves to varied interpretations is also the reason they withstand the test of time, because, after all, they are expressions of human emotions, which are felt universally across times and centuries and worlds. So, no matter where you may be, no matter your religion or profession, you know of the famous Leonardo da Vinci and his Mona Lisa and Last Supper, of Michelangelo and his painting of the Sistine chapel in the Vatican, of Vincent Van Gogh and his sunflowers, of Pablo Picasso and his varied expressions of women, of Claude Monet and his powerful nature scenes and of Rembrandt van Rijn and his self portraits. You know art for art's sake. |
