I don’t know much about art. I either like it or I don’t. That’s it essentially. Pollock’s paintings (above and below) are, from what I’ve gathered the subject of high praise and much debated arguments on whether that is art or just blots of paint on a canvas that a monkey could do too. Of course… there’s the argument that a monkey could indeed do art too which would raise quite a few interesting questions, but that’s not my point.
Personally… On the surface I don’t see much on these painting. Reading a book that by chance brought these painting in to discussion made me curious about them and somehow open my eyes to look at them with a different perspective.
No… I don’t see a pink elephant blissfully jumping from lily-pad to lily-pad on these, not no ulterior interpretation of Humanity struggle to overcome their meaningless trifling. It does however makes me wonder about time and life.
I often used to see the World in a stylized black and white painting. Good and Evil. Right or Wrong. Yay or Nay. Eh… so much for those simple times. Now its all a blur of grays. Hard to see where Pure White or Pure Black exist… they might be there, maybe I just need to look harder… maybe not.
Time on the other hand. Well… it keeps running. You may have noticed it yourself. Were I a super-hero (or villain) and had the possibility to choose my special power I would pick the power to stop or manipulate time. Just the idea of being able to freeze a moment in time… *sigh*… it would be indescribable.
Problem is, that’s not the way the game’s played. You’re thrown in to the deep end and the clock is ticking. Sure, you’ll make bad decisions, you’ll never grasp the bigger picture, you’ll miss important events or hints that flash by you. Opportunities are flying by you as you go… You either grasp them or you don’t… You might do well… you might end up worst…
Is there a pause? Is there a goal? Is there a pattern we’re missing? Am I missing it? Or is it not there, everywhere we look?
Hmmm… I can almost feel that I can grasp it (whatever it may be) sometimes. I never can though, at least so far. I doubt I ever will. I could keep making plans, re-assecing opinions, decisions, objectives and so on… where would I end up? Eh… I think John said it right in one simple sentence:
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
So I look again at these apparently confusing paintings and I wonder again: Are they random burst of a mad man delusion… or are they just a depiction of the nature of time and life? Yes.. it looks chaotic, its erratic and extremely complex. However… it somehow works. There’s order within the chaos. There’s beauty even.
Guess we just don’t see the bigger picture.
But… if we did…
Would we understand it and appreciate it?
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