THE HUMAN SPIRIT

WHy is art essential for the human spirit? 

​Art is the biggest mystery of mysteries. Why do people express themselves through art and have a need and desire to look at and collect art? It is a question for a thesis and for many more blogs. Art is the ephemeral expression of human thoughts and emotions. Paintings, drawings and sculptures reflect powerful expression for the human spirit.

Since life is such a mystery, we have a need to investigate, contemplate and reflect on it. Fine art’s masterpieces inspire us to explore the meaning of life. Here are some reasons why art is important and how it nurtures the human spirit:

• Art evokes the thinking mind and inspires people to think. When I look at art, I think about what the artist was trying to say. I think about why I like some things and not others. Even art I don't like makes me think about why I resist the image.
• Art lets you travel the world and takes you places. I love looking at paintings and pictures of Africa and the Far East, the western part of the US, the Mediterranean, of people, of cultures. Instantly you can be transported through art to a magical place which is not your home. I almost always feel the place that is depicted in the art work. 
• Art makes you feel emotions above the how, when and why. I have felt so many things while looking at art- desire, loneliness, adventure, empathy, disgust, confusion, connection. Certain art even evokes boredom -although rare, but it is still a feeling that another coffee cannot give you. 
• Art makes you pause, look and wonder.  It's hard to walk by art and not look at it. And then it makes you really look at it and wonder. It gives pause to the whirlwind of life we are all on racing to the finish. 
• Art makes you laugh. Sometimes, it is just plain funny or gross, sexy or disturbed. 
• Art makes you realize people are fundamentally the same around the world and throughout all of time. It is truly universal. Of course there are differences in the sense of culture, language and customs. But paintings of children, nudes, pets, landscapes have a universal appeal. All people from all cultures seem to have a desire to capture those things and hold onto them and remember them to feel a sense of belonging. 
• Art can last for generations which is longer than most things.  I love browsing through the Met in NY and see the stone statues of the Egyptians and the jewelry of the Greeks. Long after we will be gone, people might see paintings of us and feel a connection to us. 
• Art feels so good to make. It doesn't matter if you are a full-time artist. If it feels good to make art, you will be an artist for that time. It is the most amazing feeling in the world to make a beautiful piece of art. Why? I still have to figure it out. 
• You don't need language to understand art.  It is nice to understand the context and history of an art piece. What really matters, is the connection it brings to people and the emotion it evokes. What is so beautiful is the visual gratification it brings us. 
• Art says things that words just can't say. Art shows things that words can't say:; how an anonymous woman might have felt about an anonymous man or anonymous child in a strange land. What passion looks like. What pain and love and desire looks like. What the world did look like and what it could look like depending on your state of mind. 

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​Art is really the most unique phenomenon -next to Nature itself-, that humans are able to create, and in creating are extending their inner beings to the outer world.