Beholder of Beauty

Like many people, I have struggled with the same two questions. What is good art? And, what are we having for dinner? I’m going to answer the easier of the two questions.

Years ago, I walked into a big art gallery and was stopped in my tracks by a huge abstract oil painting. Think a hundred different competing colors—less paintball aftermath and more flicky-wrist splatter. Only the painting wasn’t abstract to me. I spread my arms wide and exclaimed, “Hong Kong!” I was with friends, so it made for a very dramatic moment.

My friends doubted me. We moved twenty feet closer. Right there typed on a small piece of paper beneath the painting were the words Hong Kong at Night. I KNEW IT!

You see, I once spent a week in Hong Kong, and seeing that painting evoked every happy memory. Does that mean the painting was good? My friends weren’t impressed. And the title of the painting didn’t do much to improve their opinion. I, on the other hand, didn’t need the title to know what I was seeing. The artwork succeeded in speaking for itself. It just happened to be in a language that I spoke, too, through a personal experience. Ergo, good painting.

The formula for good art is very simple (assuming all technical boxes are checked.) The artist must transform lines and color into a picture worth a thousand words. When the message is complete, when a story can be told without the artist standing next to me, I call that good art. I found such a painting and hung it on my wall.

I have no idea if the painting has a title. I never asked the artist. Like the painting of Hong Kong, I didn’t need a title, because I already had a story to go with the painting.

Awhile back, I took a business trip to Durham, North Carolina. Wow—have they got trees! They were everywhere. I’m not knocking trees, but they were swallowing me whole. They swallowed everything—grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants. Everything was hidden. I experienced claustrophobia for the first time in my life—and I was outside! Naturally, I unburdened my edginess to a colleague. She settled me right down with the most beautiful comment. “You miss the big sky.”

Yes. My big sky. I have a tendency to look up whenever I leave the house or a building. I like the reassurance that the sky is still there, and seeing plenty of it gives me a giant dose of security. When I returned to Utah, I nearly cried when I could see the golden arches from ten miles away. My big sky had returned.

Where I live, I’ve lost sight of the stars. There’s too much light pollution, and I don’t think I could get enough cooperation from my community to turn off the lights once in a while to see what’s sparkling overhead. I suppose one day enough air pollution could shroud my eyes from the heavens above. So far, my big, azure sky is winning that battle. But if air pollution gets the upper hand, I’m ready to pull my very persuasive protest sign from the wall and take it to the streets. That’s good art telling the whole story.