I used to think that a painting was something you saw with your eyes… that a symphony was something you heard with your ears. I believed this because it was something my art teachers and music teachers had taught me to believe, all my life.
I don’t feel that way any more.
*
Late afternoon.
I open a book of photographs I love: Lukas Felzmann’s Waters in Between. It’s a thick, hardbound collection of shots — some in color, some black-and-white. Some dreamy and surreal, others stark in their sense of quiet realism.
I carry the book over to the sofa under the bay window. Open it to a page of tangled black branches against pale sky.
Then I lay the book down on a pillow.
I am trying to see it a different way …
Or maybe not see it at all.
*
Slowly — very, very slowly — I am coming to a place where I believe that art is something you experience in a deeply visceral way … not just in the eye or in the ear, but in all sorts of stranger places in the body.
I hear a certain snatch of song and I feel it as a kick in the stomach. Electricity crackles down the length of my nerve endings: at the back of my neck. In my fingertips.
Or I look at a particular painting and I feel myself flinch: the face first, and then the shoulders, arms, hands.
One foot slides backward from the canvas.
The head bows in fear … or love … or prayer.
*
I stare at the open book in front of me.
Where in the body is the soul located?
Where does the brain end and the mind begin?
What — really — do we mean when we talk of the heart?
I run one fingertip down the book’s spine.
*
And maybe, just sometimes, art doesn’t have to be experienced all at once.
Maybe memory sows it like tiny seeds just under the skin.
Maybe the subconscious plants it deep, like an autumn bulb buried in my chest.
Maybe the message waits: days. Months. Years.
Maybe it comes back to me a decade later, while I’m penning a grocery list or driving to work, and suddenly — without any obvious trigger — the words swim. The road blurs behind tears.
The seeds put out leaves down the length of my arms.
The tulip inside my heart opens all its petals at once.
*
I lie down with my cheek against a photograph of shattered glass.
I imagine myself there — write my whole body into the story.
Then, suddenly, I am lying with my back to the desert floor, my face to the sky, feeling the broken shards digging into my spine.
There is a moment where I wonder if I will get up, but I do — shake the bits of sparkling glass from my hair and take a deep breath.
*
I’m not sure, anymore, where the art ends and I begin…
And I like it that way. ❤
This is awesome and I agree…
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Beautiful writing.
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Thank you, Miriam! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment … always so encouraging. 🙂
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A marvellous, feeling, piece
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Thanks, Derrick! I enjoyed writing it.
I’m glad you’re one of those people who doesn’t think I’m *completely* crazy. 🙂
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For some reason reading this made me think of that scene in Immortal Beloved, where Gary Oldman’s Beethoven is playing the beautiful Moonlight Sonata, his head lay flat on the piano to try to feel the music, his music, that he can no longer hear.
(No comment to make you smile today-I shall work on your next post!)
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What a beautiful (& haunting) image.
I love it.
🙂
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wow! Terrific shots, the last is absolutely the best! And what eyes! ps little promo space… I know you do not read Italian, but in the video there are no words… https://youtu.be/CGsO8Dv4P8M
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How creative!! 🙂 Did you do this one yourself?
I really do wish I could read Italian. 🙂
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Oh yes it is 100×100 home made. You should have seen the face of my wife when she realized I put all our booka in a mess 😁
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Haha … Spouses of writers and creatives must truly be some of the most patient people on the planet. 😉
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Love, love, love this post!!! Where does the mind end and the soul begin???
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I’m so glad you enjoyed, Fatima… I could puzzle over questions like this all day. 🙂 Glad I’m not the only one!
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Lovely post, yet so powerful. Your ending was so poetic. Bravo. Another great read.
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Thank you for that… You’re always so encouraging. 🙂
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Smile. Have a wonderful week.
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🙂 🙂 you too!!
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The way you describe experiencing art sounds like mindfulness in action. I treasure those tiny occasions when I can remind myself to use every one of my senses to drink in the moment, and even the mundane becomes transcendently beautiful.
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Yes!! Exactly. Couldn’t have put it better. 🙂
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That’s too true! The Visceral thing… There are certain composers or artist that when I hear them Time seems to sees existing or I’ll look at my favorite painting Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion and I feel like I am there
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What a beautiful painting … so full of emotion and wonder. Glad you mentioned it. 🙂
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Well, perhaps art should be a truly immersive experience, not something we merely look at or listen to, but that we feel with our whole being. I’m not sure I’m quite there yet myself, although when my son is practicing his guitar and singing in the next room, quite a lot of that bypasses my ears and instead travels in shudders up and down my spine. 🙂
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Haha … I can see it now. 😉
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🙂
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I loved this piece.
I was at Susie’s and said, “I know that tiny face”… haven’t been out and about in a while but do remember Alpha Whiskey Foxtrot.
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Well thank you for that! It’s always nice to be remembered. 🙂
Your blog is so much fun. I just spent a few minutes tooling around there, and already I feel happy and creative. Thanks for that! 🙂
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This is amazing! I have to admit – I was browsing through wordpress and came across the name of the article and had to read it!
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I’m so glad, Natalie! A total pleasure to have you here. 🙂
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Thanks! Can’t wait to read more!
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Oh so beautiful. Yes, every fibre in the body alive with art.
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Change perspectives. The first step to thinking outside the box.
Most times I go to a concert (Last time was Salif Keita) I close my eyes from time to time to try and separate each instrument’s voice. 🙂
I haven’t listened to a painting yet. Up on the to-do list.
Be good
Bravo (Mike)
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Listening to a painting sounds rather wonderful, actually…
There are SO many paintings I’d love to run my hands across, if the museum guards wouldn’t have me arrested. 😉 So much incredible texture, and so much of a sense of intimacy with the artist and her process, if only I could just touch all those brush strokes… 🙂
And of course, there’s nothing like the sound of a symphony from inside the orchestra pit. 🙂
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I understand the temptation to touch. Unfortunately, that is why so many greco-roman statues in the Louvre have black stains. A touch of the hand on a graceful marble hip? We carry germs and fungus with us and they attack marble. (I confess to scolding tourists when I am in museums…) having said that, I have a few 19th century paintings at home. I will wash my hands thoroughly, and touch the strokes. Will let you know. 😉
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I completely understand. I would NEVER do it … Although I freely confess to fantasizing.
Art list. 😉
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Now I got it: Art lust. An interesting concept. another question, when in a museum, how close or far away from a painting do you stand? (I stand as far away as the room and crowd allow)
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Most of the time, if I’m going to feel an attraction for a painting or a piece of art, I’m going to experience it first from faraway, as you do — usually I know it in a single glance, but not always.
If it attracts me, I want to examine it from multiple angles, and eventually at extremely close range, if I can manage it.
It’s like a slow development of intimacy, I guess. 🙂
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Agree totally. Especially old paintings, were made to watch form a distance first. Rich people had large houses. And yes the different angles, then maybe come closer.
have a lovely week-end “Alfa Zulu”
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*lust. Ha! 🙂
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nice look and cool eyes 😉
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Well thank you Joshi. 🙂
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