During the holidays, I read this beautiful book built around a 350 year old painting, The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius. Malcolm Jones writes a thoughtful article about the book and seeing the original painting in "Face to Face With ‘The Goldfinch".
Having been so business/production/goal oriented all my life, I struggle with my wee small (mean) voice that says, "Producing art is, at best, a selfish act and, at worse, a frivolous waste of time." A very wise friend asked me if, during the many days I spent this June in art museums in Paris and Vienna, whether at any point I thought "What a waste of space" or "That guy should have gotten a real job"? I answered a horrified "Of course not!". Added to my admiration of the talent, heart, passion and courage evidenced in the art I was lucky to see in person, was the awe I felt that these fragile works of art had survived for hundreds of years.
As the author says, "For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time -- so too has love... It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next."
Having been so business/production/goal oriented all my life, I struggle with my wee small (mean) voice that says, "Producing art is, at best, a selfish act and, at worse, a frivolous waste of time." A very wise friend asked me if, during the many days I spent this June in art museums in Paris and Vienna, whether at any point I thought "What a waste of space" or "That guy should have gotten a real job"? I answered a horrified "Of course not!". Added to my admiration of the talent, heart, passion and courage evidenced in the art I was lucky to see in person, was the awe I felt that these fragile works of art had survived for hundreds of years.
As the author says, "For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time -- so too has love... It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next."
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