Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Definition of Art...

(Hat-tip to Paragraph Farmer):

Jennifer of Et Tu? (a former atheist who is now a Catholic, and has been chronicling her journey on her blog), has an interesting post about poetry and art:
"At some point after my conversion, I heard about the concept that true art is beautiful, in some form or another, and that in order to be beautiful it must convey truth. I didn't get it. How can art be true?..."

She goes on to discover:

"Art is the secret handshake of the children of God, the inside joke among those with souls. The spark that is ignited within us when we are touched by a work of art is a spark of recognition: the artist has brought us a souvenir from our homeland beyond the material world, the place that none of us should know about, but all of us do. To connect with a piece of art is to connect with the artist as a fellow traveler, to realize that you are both walking the same rocky road, and that he is homesick too. And it matters because true art, art that seeks a connection of souls, makes it harder to devalue and dehumanize one another. It reminds us what it means to be human."

Read the entire post here.

On a related note, it's time again for the Ventura ArtWalk - what was originally a tri-annual event on Saturdays in downtown Ventura has now become a bi-annual event that covers the entire weekend. This weekend is the Spring event, and the Autumn event will be in mid-October. For more information, click here.