Sylvia Bokor
Owning A Work of Art
In 1861, Gustave Doré created illustrations for a printing of Dante's masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. One illustration shows a great golden eagle carrying skyward a man bathed in the glistening rays of the sun. But the painting communicates far more than simply those particulars. You feel the rush of air on your face. You sense the glow of light on your body. You are engulfed by the passion of ascension. You experience devotion to the highest and best in man. And you are swept by a fervent re-dedication to your values. It is an intoxicating experience. You feel re-vitalized and rested at one and the same time.
A work of art you love is like a fire of the spirit, warming you. It can rekindle your vigor and ambition, re-ignite your stamina. It can remind you of your own courage as you struggle toward your own goals. It can be recalled to mind even when you are away from it, reminding you of your values, of the meaning of your life to you.
Wanting to own a painting or piece of sculpture is not a matter of prestige — as too often is thought. It is your lifeline to the very world you yourself are seeking to create through your own work. To own a painting or piece of sculpture that captures your view of the world is not megalomania. It is an expression of your own desire for happiness.
Among the arts, painting and sculpture are unique. They can allow you to see your values perceptually real and suspended in time. They can show your widest, most complex abstractions, your aspirations and desires, your greatest love. And they offer such things here and now, in front of you, achieved at this very moment and in future, for as long as you live. If you respond strongly to a work of art, you can be sure that it captures the essence of your own soul.
You work hard. And basically you are content. But you need some moment in time to rest, to actually see and contemplate your values concretely "out there." You need to feel that gloating, joyous satisfaction that is your reward for living the life proper to a human being. And you need this kind of payment in a form suitable to man, in some conceptual form that expresses some idea.
You can value ice cream but that is not the kind of value that will keep you going through thick and thin. You can value money and your house and car. But material values are in fact expressions of deeper values. It is these deeper values that we need to see and to experience. The value of freedom, or individualism or technology, for example, cannot be seen — except by the skilled painter who can show it to you. The value of romantic love or productivity is not perceptible-except by a painter who also values such things and gives them concrete form.
The artist selects a number of concretes and relates them in a particular way that expresses some evaluation of something. In a work of art all such expressions are fundamentally traceable to a particular view of man and of reality. If the artist's evaluation affirms your views, you feel the exaltation and joy of being in your kind of world. The artist has given concrete form to your values and they generate an emotional/intellectual response in you. Your values are no longer abstractions. The painting, you feel, is you in a deeply personal way. You experience the work as if the artist has made objective your own consciousness, your own special way of facing the world.
Man needs to objectify his consciousness. He needs to see his spiritual self just as he needs to see his physical self in a mirror. Romantic love is one way to see one's spirit. Art is another — but with an added feature. Art projects one's fundamental view of reality, yes, but it also reflects one's style of consciousness, the special way each of us has of facing reality, the level of mental clarity on which one is most comfortable. There is no greater visualization of one's self that can be offered. And when such a sight is offered in a beautiful, arresting way, one experiences the surge of unsurpassable joy. Such art, we feel, we must own. We must possess it. We must have it near to enjoy always. And rightly so. After all, that's what life is all about: to be happy.
A painting or piece of sculpture in your home is not decoration. It is a statement about what you are, of what you seek to achieve, of what you have achieved. And more: It is evidence that your world exists, that it is possible, that it is real. Recognizing that you are worth owning the artwork you love is half the story. The other half is putting that recognition into practice — and rewarding yourself for your best.
