How Art We Love Lights Up Our Lives
A friend asked: “What is it about a painting that makes us love it?”
It got me thinking about what Art means to all of us who love art in this strange year when staying home as much as possible has become the new norm for many and at times and in certain places for most of us.
In a nutshell, I think it’s an oasis of peace as we look for art we love on the internet and, oh so importantly, over and over again look at the paintings we choose for our homes. And I think, when we look at a painting we love, there’s a very real connection – it’s as though it reciprocates the appreciation and in a way communicates. It can be a quiet sense of pleasure, or a truly joyous feeling. It simply feels good.
I’m looking now at the six paintings I can see from my desk as I type. All except one are my own work. The exception is a painting of my last home in mid-Wales painted and given to me by a friend’s grandson when he was nine. Every time I take time to look I see how stunningly good it is. Naïve for sure – but truly, heartfelt naïve. He simply took in the house where I used to live and the hills around and put them down on the paper as best he could with enthusiasm and joy. And it’s a real, completely unique gem.
Somehow it’s like a bolt of warm comforting happy pleasure, isn’t it, when we look at a painting and realise it’s important to us.
The others by me – here and all through my place - are the same. Every one of them makes me tingle. It’s as though they look back at me lovingly and protectively, singing their own unique song which I sing along with as I look.
When this happens to you too, do you think it’s because of a special wavelength that a painting transmits when we happen to chime with it and love it?
It’s so easy to go through life not really looking at what is important to us. We even, sometimes, pay little attention to our loved ones, let alone the things we love like our paintings.
When we do both they and we blossom. Can paintings blossom too? Well in a way yes I think they can – the ones we really love that is. I don’t understand how it is, but I do very clearly sense they have a vibe all of their own that responds to our own equally mysterious spirit.
We’re so lucky to love and appreciate art. Paintings we love are a joy and give us a sense of how good life is, even though we’re living in uncertain, worrying times. Ah! That’s another answer for What is Art? “A good friend who lifts your spirits along the way even when times are tough.”
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for being, like me, someone who gets a real buzz from the art they love.
Art is a light that shines even when we’re troubled and don’t know what the future holds.
Art is a kind of love.
With light and love, Jenny
All my available paintings online are on eBay and there's a metre square one at Saatchi Art - just visit their sites and search Jenny Hare Paintings
