I remember one day in the first grade when my teacher took my class to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the time, I watched the portraits of the rich and poor and thought, “probably some famous people that existed a long time ago” and kept walking. I glanced at some sculptures and recognized that some were of people, while others were of animals. My six-year-old self wasn’t taken by anything my eyes were catching, until I found a group of adults absolutely astonished by a particular piece of artwork. The water painted piece consisted of squares and rectangles of different colors. That was all. What in the world were these adults analyzing? I could sneeze and a better painting would result! I was absolutely furious, how could this simple idea make it in such a credited and huge museum?

KLEE ABSTRACT

This experience stuck with me and became my reference point on my personal understanding and idea of what art is. As I grew older and continued to visit museums and exhibits, the once “famous people that existed a long time ago” became mothers, daughters, fathers and sons. Their eyes that were simply a representation of what the human eyes look like turned into eyes that pleaded for change or eyes that wrinkled from years of smiling and happiness. These portraits that were once silent, suddenly started screaming their stories. I could have been in a room of a museum all by myself, yet standing alone with the portraits felt like each of them was standing by my side, telling me of all the hardships that they’ve been through, and all the good times they’ve had. I could be looking at a painting of nature, and suddenly feel at peace, forgetting all of the anxieties and hardships that I was facing at the time. I could glance at a setting of a total catastrophe, and start filling in the blanks that the artist left out in his painting. Once I had reached that level of understanding of art, I realized what art meant to me. Art is the recognition of emotion in a painting, sculpture, piece of music or any other form of art that speaks volumes even when completely and utterly silent. Art is experience. You cannot sense emotion if you’ve never felt it. Without this unconscious knowledge that we gain through experiencing life’s ups and downs, art is difficult to recognize and appreciate. How can you tell that the man with his head in his hands is feeling heartbreak if you don’t know what heartbreak really is? How can you really appreciate a smile, if the feeling of happiness is foreign to you?

Art is also creativity, talent, and time. In order to create a work of art, an artist has to look at the world through a magnifying glass and see things that others do not. They have to be able to take their abstract ideas and make them into a real physical element, which doesn’t just take skill, but true talent. Being able to show other what you see in your own mind is a difficult task. At the Brooklyn Museum, one of the works of art that I observed was the Soundsuit by Nick Cave. Made with hundreds of twigs, looking at it made me wonder, how long did it take Cave to put this together? How many splinters did he ignore in order to continue working? Art not only takes time, but it conserves it. Art will never grow old, and it will always represent a thought or an idea a person had in a certain moment. It outlives yet keeps the artist alive, and is a part of him/her forever.

NICK CAVE’S SOUNDSUIT

Institutions like the Brooklyn Museum take a piece of art and confirm that it is just that, a piece of art. They bring thousands of creations out into the views and eyes of the people, and give them recognition and the chance to be seen and critiqued. They set a standard and have a huge influence in determining what people view as art. Through going to museums and exhibits of art, I was able to trust in the institution and open my mind to create my own definition of art through the work that they chose and presented. Without having gone to the museum, I may never have seen works such as the Soundsuit, let alone considered it a work of art. Walking into a museum, my brain turns into an analytic mode and I no longer just look at what is in front of me, I see it. I know longer feel simply my own feelings, but the passions that the artists put into their work. With all of my senses, I experience art.