Originally posted by dtremain:
Originally posted by vawendy:
Because my reality can't even begin to compete with people's visions that can't be seen in reality. Imagination is so much more interesting. I wish I had some. :) |
Oh, pshaw,  vawendy. People are easily bored. When they see something time and time again, they come to categorize it as "common", and don't even think twice about it, when people who haven't seen it before will travel half way around the world to see it in person. Think of Ireland - do folks who live there think it is the most beautiful place? Or Hawaii? When I was there, I talked to some kids who were dying to leave the islands because there was nothing to do! Or pick any tourist destination city. Do New Yorkers go visit the Statue of Liberty? Carnage Hall? Grand Central Station? Empire State Building? Do folks in Seattle go visit the Space Needle? Fisherman's Wharf? In San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge? In Indianapolis, attend the Indy 500 or the Brickyard 400? In Chicago, the Pier? the Oriental Museum? Folks in Cairo, Egypt, the Sphinx? the Great Pyramids?
I'd say that the greatest artist on earth can't imagine something as grand as a sunset, as beautiful as a flower, as incredible as a bird in flight, or many of the other natural, or even man made wonders. We fill in with fire, fog, plain backgrounds in our imaginations. But reality is detail after detail after detail - no gaps, voids, or blank spots. Just because we've grown familiar with something doesn't decrease its wonder - we just increase in our ability to ignore it.
To me, the greatest artists are the ones that evoke our emotional responses from previous experience - maybe not even something we can put into words, but something we've experienced, thought, felt, saw, or related to. As a final example - the horror or scary genre of story or film. The artist can't scare you (startle is another matter), but the best at their craft provide you the cues and tools to scare yourself silly. |
Nice post. excellent sentence: Just because we've grown familiar with something doesn't decrease its wonder - we just increase in our ability to ignore it. And so very true. I still will bother to go out and look at a sunset or sunrise when the light coming in through my window looks golden. Yet photos of these usually bore me. Same with rainbows. I know the rainbow lighting. And when I see that in the sky, I go look for the rainbow. Yet rainbow photos have never interested me. It's our experiences that matter and put things into perspective. |
