This morning, I felt inspired while looking at some photographs by Hans Aarsman.
In particular, I was looking at his series: Hollandse Taferelen.
I did not find any pieces from this collection on creative commons, but here one from the christies website.
Inspiration is a feeling of expansive creative energy.
The photo I focused on is of a highway and some hay under an overpass. There is a green field, beige dirt, and thin slivers of cement. Half the photo is the off-white sky. Why should such a vista inspire me?
I spend most of my time in the Hudson River Valley these days. I can see these scenes in real life.
But the photograph does something different - here is what it does for me.
The image is the first image on this website.
Curiosity and Universals
In my daily life, I sometimes become curious about my surroundings. What is that smell? What sort of tree is that? Is that plant edible? I even had a crazy notion of camping out in graveyards when I kept passing graveyards in my car.
These observations are of a particular thing, they are not frames, and they are not scenes. They are not worlds. I have a world where I see and observe and note objects and actions when I look at nature.
When I look at a photo, I see the world through from eyes of another. I see a new world.
I am curious about this new world, not only objects and people in the world - and I see the world in an entirely new way.
The Particular Image
When I describe this image above, I recall the green grass and white sky. I also see the red hey trucks and the yellow hay. I look at the photograph's composition, a series of squares, rectangles, and diagonals.
I am drawn to this image from an aesthetic perspective. It is interesting to my eye. That is aesthetic appreciation; we can even call this beautiful.
The fact that this was "found" and framed by the photographer distinguishes it from the composition of a painting. The photographer forages and gathers; she gathers beautiful compositions.
The Rabbit Hole
These days it is hard to look at a piece of art without the "backstory." That is the piece of criticism or artist statement that explains the work.
When I become curious about a piece of art, I want to know how this piece relates to other works; what is the larger tradition. The artistic tradition is so vast and complex that these questions bring me down a rabbit hole.
Here, I learned that this photo was part of a movement called New Topography, which redefined landscape photography to include built environments. This version of New Topography focuses on sub-events; a farmer stashing hay under an overpass amists a partially constructed road as an 'event.'
I would also call the painting, The Gleaners, by Milliet an event, but not all depictions of landscapes are depictions of events - an observation I find inspiring.
What is art? / What is beauty? / What is this activity?
The art world has changed since Duchamp called a urinal a work of art. Art and art movements are now socially conditioned - they are themselves events. Critics and artists rarely talk about beauty. I once called a book beautiful and was chided by the bookseller for being bourgeois (which I am).
These days, Art gives us something other than a beautiful experience - it gives us creative energy - a creative evolution.
But still, I want the beautiful.
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