'Tis a gift to be simple...Have you ever stopped to look at something ordinary and realized how amazing it is? I wake up every morning as the sun peeks over the tree-line and just lie there for a while, not truly appreciating it's glory.
Then Saturday morning I had one of those moments. It was light out, but not bright, because that early morning, dewy fog was still hanging low; and the scene that greeted my eyes was the most beautiful sight.
Picture this: Picasso, or some other great artist, wakes up one morning and sees the same sun rising, just like every other day. Yet that morning the light is glittering off a dew-covered leaf and creates a spectacular image.
This image prompts him to set up his easel and take out his paints and a canvas. Every morning he would strive to recreate this moment; yet despite his formidable talent and skill, the awe-inspiring beauty of this moment could not be captured by his paintings. this merely drove him to keep trying and painting, yet all the beautiful art he created would never measure up to the image he saw that morning.
I imagine it's much the same for composers such a Mahler, who create fantastic works of musical genius in order to convey something the composer is thinking or feeling at the time of the piece's conception. For some it may be the power of a thought, for others: the emotional pull of a muse. They might just wake up one morning with the desire to capture and depict their own internal thoughts on paper, and through this paper spread their heart's and mind's music to the world.
Poets and writers do this too. Robert Browning could have simply said "I love this woman and she means the world to me." Instead, he wrote a twelve line poem about meeting his lover at night, filled with rich, meaningful words that convey so much more than a simple "I love her" can.
Mahler once said, "If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." Victor Hugo completes my thought with, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
Art is merely a medium through which souls attempt to contact each other in order to share a message. Whether this message is: let's go to war, let's thank our veterans, let's honor the dead, war is grizzly, friendship is important, or I'm in love, art finds a way to convey it in a much better way than any of the above phrases ever could.
Which brings be back to my Saturday morning sunshine. It was such a simple, normal, everyday thing, yet it touched me in ways that could fill volumes and that I will never be able to understand or explain.
The image of a simple silhouette, framed by a fog dimmed morning light, that started my day was awe-striking, stunning, and heart-stopping.
It sounds to silly, so trite, so trivial. Yet it's the little things like that moment that will stand out in my memory for much longer than any other memory or experience. Because these little things carry more weight than most large events could, because of the simplicity of the occurrence, and the magnitude of its interpretations.
6/11/2008 5:40:03 PM | permalink | Comments (0)
Then Saturday morning I had one of those moments. It was light out, but not bright, because that early morning, dewy fog was still hanging low; and the scene that greeted my eyes was the most beautiful sight.
Picture this: Picasso, or some other great artist, wakes up one morning and sees the same sun rising, just like every other day. Yet that morning the light is glittering off a dew-covered leaf and creates a spectacular image.
This image prompts him to set up his easel and take out his paints and a canvas. Every morning he would strive to recreate this moment; yet despite his formidable talent and skill, the awe-inspiring beauty of this moment could not be captured by his paintings. this merely drove him to keep trying and painting, yet all the beautiful art he created would never measure up to the image he saw that morning.
I imagine it's much the same for composers such a Mahler, who create fantastic works of musical genius in order to convey something the composer is thinking or feeling at the time of the piece's conception. For some it may be the power of a thought, for others: the emotional pull of a muse. They might just wake up one morning with the desire to capture and depict their own internal thoughts on paper, and through this paper spread their heart's and mind's music to the world.
Poets and writers do this too. Robert Browning could have simply said "I love this woman and she means the world to me." Instead, he wrote a twelve line poem about meeting his lover at night, filled with rich, meaningful words that convey so much more than a simple "I love her" can.
Mahler once said, "If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." Victor Hugo completes my thought with, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
Art is merely a medium through which souls attempt to contact each other in order to share a message. Whether this message is: let's go to war, let's thank our veterans, let's honor the dead, war is grizzly, friendship is important, or I'm in love, art finds a way to convey it in a much better way than any of the above phrases ever could.
Which brings be back to my Saturday morning sunshine. It was such a simple, normal, everyday thing, yet it touched me in ways that could fill volumes and that I will never be able to understand or explain.
The image of a simple silhouette, framed by a fog dimmed morning light, that started my day was awe-striking, stunning, and heart-stopping.
It sounds to silly, so trite, so trivial. Yet it's the little things like that moment that will stand out in my memory for much longer than any other memory or experience. Because these little things carry more weight than most large events could, because of the simplicity of the occurrence, and the magnitude of its interpretations.
6/11/2008 5:40:03 PM | permalink | Comments (0)
Laura
Naveen
Nao
Naveen
Nao
Unless otherwise noted, all content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
