Are You an Art Connoisseur?

 

Our four-year-old granddaughter was over awhile back and we were playing on the piano.  I was showing her the different sounds the keys made.  We would go all the way to the right and all the way to the left so she could hear the high-pitched sounds and compare them to the deep bass sounds.

Awhile after that, she came over and sat down by herself and started experimenting with the keys.  I tried to teach her how to count the black keys -1,2-1,2,3-1,2-1,2,3 but she was more interested in poking at the white ones.

When our kids were little, they used to hear me play the piano a lot.  I enjoy it and I’ve always thought it was good for kids to be exposed to music (I tended to play classical, albeit not that great.)  I also think it is good for us adults as well, to be exposed to the beauty of art.

There is a lot of beauty around us in God’s created world, but I also think pictures that make you stop and think and stare in wonderment are good for the soul as well.

I am not—by any stretch of the imagination—an art aficionado, but I do know what I like.  I don’t go in much for blurry paintings where the colors all meld together.  I like crisp lines that have sharp contrasts. 

It still makes me laugh when I think of an art piece my teacher showed us in my college liberal arts class. It was a line.

Now people joke about this stuff all the time, but seriously, I really could have drawn it myself.

As I recall, it looked something like this . . .

 

I don’t know, it doesn’t seem very imaginative to me.  It also doesn’t seem like it would take a lot of talent to put it on canvas.  I guess some people must really like simplistic art.

But, when you think about it, I still remember it, and now I’m writing about it, so I suppose you could say it was definitely a conversation piece!

But I digress. 

I much prefer God’s art. This world he created is amazing!  You have to peel back the layers to truly appreciate the depth of its beauty. 

From the natural cycles of life and death and regeneration, to the beauty of the human body and the wonders of a sunset and the oceans, God is no simplistic artist.

In fact, he even created this artistic expression of his love out of nothing!

Think about that and focus on the beauty around you every day.  There is a lot of ugliness being given a lot of attention these days, but as people of hope, we would be wise to follow these words from Wisdom, Chapter 13:

“For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen.”

This Chapter “On Nature Worship” in the Old Testament Book of Wisdom is one of my favorites.  I would encourage you study it for yourself and let its sensible wisdom sink in.

“For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world, how did they not more quickly find its Lord?”

How indeed.

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.blogspot.com