Day Meme - Day 17

[scottishlass]

30 Days Meme
Day 1 Song	Day 2 Movie	Day 3 TV Show	Day 4 Book	Day 5 Quote
Day 6 Anything	Day 7 Happy Photo	Day 8 Sad Photo	Day 9 My Photo	Day 10 10 Years Ago
Day 11 Recent	Day 12 Anything	Day 13 Fiction	Day 14 Non-fiction	Day 15 Fanfic
Day 16 Sad Song	Day 17 Art	Day 18 Anything	Day 19 Talent	Day 20 Hobby
Day 21 Recipe	Day 22 Website	Day 23 Youtube	Day 24 Anything	Day 25 Day
Day 26 Week	Day 27 Month	Day 28 Year	Day 29 2010	Day 30 Anything

Art ... yes .. hmm ... well. One could say I'm a bit traditionalistic, nay almost conservative with art. I love paintings and photos to display something recognizable, that I can recognize and relate to. A place, a flower, a landscape, a person ... I love the Pre-Raphalites and their pseudo King Arthurian paintings, Monet and his inevitable lilies, Frida Kahlo's mysticism and vibrant colours, even Mucha's morbid paintings find a resonance in me. However, if I look at paintings of a later era, by Picasso, Pollock and other more modern and abstract painters it mostly leaves me cold. There is nothing I can relate to and most of the time I do not find anything in there that is a part of me, of my soul. A circumstance I have more or less accepted, even though very bewildered. Shouldn't Art be all-encompassing? Global? Shouldn't the same piece of Art hold the same meaning for someone like me as it should for someone in Asia?
I come from a home where any type of art - whether from a great master or just the neighbouring lady - was respected and accepted. If our neighbouring lady took her time to create something with her own hands, be it a small painting, a post card or a quilt, then this was recognized as art and for my great-grandparents this piece of art was just as dear and precious as a painting by Monet or something.
Strangely, from a very early age I turned into a bit of snob where Art is concerned. Hence my problem with the more abstract paintings. It probably comes from the fact that I paint and draw myself, that I always thought that painting in an abstract way only meant not to have any real talent in putting down real things and persons down on paper. That is probably also the reason why I wasn't accepted at the Academy of Arts in the first place ... I might have been the one lacking the talent while I had the skills and tools to paint the realistic way, I was a copier rather than an inventor.