writingaboutpaintings

Hippocrates once famously said, ‘life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgement difficult’ kind of sums up my love affair with Art. I remember when I was younger , I used to be so obsessed with the physical experience of being in a museum. I thought to myself, if only I understand what all these paintings and sculptures mean. Why are they here ? Why are some artworks more important than others? What would it feel like if I were able to walk into a museum and understand all these questions I had in my mind?

The Greek philosopher’s quote resonates so well with my experience because to me, the single most fascinating thing about paintings, monuments, sculptures and architectures is that these masterpieces have outlived our predecessors and will continue to do so with us. They stood before an ancient Roman in a toga, and now stands there as pristine as it was in front of me in my varsity t-shirt, torn jeans and iPhone in hand, eagerly snapping pictures for my next Instagram story.

Lives have faded away and new ones have appeared, and yet these things stand there , untouched by the hands of time. The meanings they hold are as fluid as a holographic surface, gleaming and ever-changing through flashes of chromatic colour, as each person who is beholding it gives it different meaning, with our own experiences shaping the meaning in what we see. The result? Each one of us holding the key to change the destiny of what stands before us , each of us holding as much authority over the Aphrodite as much as her maker Praxiteles did. The meaning of such pieces are therefore not as rigid as the stone that they have been cast in, and if one looks closely, one can even find multiple meanings hidden tucked away under each fold of the marble faux fabric.
Be it the perfect and proportion of the Renaissance, the imperfect courage of the Baroque’s dream or the scurry of the brushstrokes of the Impressionist masters to capture the sunset before it’s too late, it’s imperative that one still finds beauty and utility in Art. I therefore make it my personal mission to help you to relate to them and your everyday contemporary life. Let us seek to understand beauty through our contemporary lens before it will be too late. After all, time does flies when you are having fun.