A Thought on Art

Bernini's Apollo and Daphne

Caravaggio's Entombment

Dome, San Carlo of the Four Fountains

Bernini's David

I'm in an art history class right now and I just love it.  It makes me want to watch movies like Chocolat and Midnight in Paris.  Cheesy, right?  But all kinds of wonderful too.  Anyway, this week in class we were looking at Baroque art.  My teacher made the comment that while the Renaissance is about quietness and order and perfection, the baroque is about exaggeration in motion, in emotion, in subject matter.  As we worked through our list of works we will be studying, I found myself almost overwhelmed.  I felt acutely aware of what it means to be human, to feel, and to exist.  It sounds silly and ridiculously passionate, but for those few minutes, and ever since, it has meant something to me.  How beautiful is it that we can feel, we can laugh and cry and smile and concentrate?  Almost as beautiful is the fact that people can capture that in a painting, a sculpture, or an entire building.  Whether or not we respond as the artist intended, we still respond.  It means something to us. And that is incredible.