A Worthy Peace

You can’t fast forward art. It can’t be summarized or sped up. It was never meant to be propagandized, monetized and mass-consumed; it should only truly be experienced when you’re standing in front of it. 

Hear the room where it’s placed. Smell the faint aroma of paint and canvas all around you. Listen to the hushed voices wondering about the artists’ intent and motivation. Feel for yourself, deep down: what does this art mean to you?

Living is now in high speed. Technology has added so many things to our lives. It has given us new opportunities for connection, created new platforms to share our uniqueness with the world and introduced us to new friends and acquaintances. But in our haste to each find our differentiator, our unique megaphone, we have fewer connections with the things that make us human; bumping into neighbors at the local grocery, driving to the bank, the post office, the art gallery.

Art offers an experience that we find is becoming increasingly rare: solitude. Even in the privacy of our home, comfortably clad in sweatpants, lounging on our favorite armchair, we are inundated with noise, products, calls-to-action—all clamoring for our bandwidth. Seemingly, there isn’t a place we can go to get away from the din. But in front of art, it all slows down. It has to— that is, if you really want the experience.

See, solitude won’t find you unless you seek it first. There is a worthy peace that comes from a real study of human experience. An introspective consideration of the work an artist so lovingly and viscerally brought to bear upon the world. No captions or witty copy, just heart, soul and the visual representation of one person’s inner life. That’s all art really is, or could aspire to be.

What does this mean to the everyday life? Well, put down your devices for a moment. Find the closest gallery and go stand in front of art. Let it hit you head on and run you over. Slow your pace and discover a richness that is so easily drowned out by the silent, sixty-cycle drone of technological monotony. These are art’s greatest gifts to us. See. Feel. Think. Consider. Repeat.