The Rooster Crow

                                                          La Promenade by Claude Monet

Monet had little to worry over during his lifetime. Unlike Van Gogh, who faced a lifetime in obscurity and financial destitution, Monet had ninety-nine problems and selling art wasn't one.

I talked about Monet's relatively low level of inhibition 

a few posts ago.

 I've also mentioned the majesty of Van Gogh's dream for humanity.

Understanding an artist's message is difficult. Do they act as prophets displaying hieroglyphic symbols with hidden meaning or are they vying for humanity's transcendental enlightenment? 

I talked about visiting museums a few posts ago. 

When we visit a museum to view artwork,

we participate in cultural empathy,

not to get kicked out. 

But if you want to get kicked out (can be fun sometimes),

 just follow the last post about museums. It'll go well for you. 

An audience remains the most critical part of the artist's endeavor; they witness the final painting. 

Artists always have their audience in mind. 

Not because there is a powerful symbol they want to creep forth through the canvas and sit in everyone's subconscious.

These symbols do get painted in regularly and can even be the reason behind starting a piece.

However, after a piece leaves the artist's studio, the painting is now for the world's participation and consumption.

Everyone is free to decide how they feel about a painting.

(No worries. You don't need a weird aluminum foil hat.)

Zombie-Rex Juice Anyone?

Hopefully it's more than just a general response that the artwork is "powerful" or "moving". These words are empty and don't reflect that any new type of insight reached the audience.

Paintings are ideas put to canvas. Not just the paint and canvas. 

When something is "powerfully moving", that means it really stinks. Nothing in the painting grabs the viewer. The artist seems uninspired. The canvas may as well go where other movements go.

 Into the toilet. The artist may want to go there too.

If we look at La Promenade, and only stare at its beauty, we will have lost nothing. Monet will still have made his money. Van Gogh will still have died without any. 

Yet, if we approach the piece and realize what it means to us, what it could represent for others, then we will have participated in an act that far surpasses the freeing beauty of uncertainty

trapped in a parasol wielding woman who smiles a challenge

towards our notions of security. The boy without a smile becomes us; we stare, trapped in the sunlight that dances off the dress. A time, that has left us before it arrived, just as light travels through the vacuum of space, dances through a meadow -- forgetting it's duty to fate, instead, going on holiday to play in the breeze.

Steampunk Promenade

By: Nic Tatum

Let's struggle against the machine that binds us to live without creativity and develop empathy for culture.

It is our job to witness the journey of painters, sculptors, artists, writers, poets, and dreamers. The child in all of us stands in Monet's painting staring back an audience, people living quite a different life, as if asking them, "Of what good is a life not explored to every capacity?"