Back in my junior year of high school I was convinced to take a CUNY Business Communications course by my guidance counselor.  The class was scheduled on saturday mornings and the sheer idea of getting up six days a week for school was depressing.  Thankfully, the class was enjoyable; the professor welcomed comic relief from the students and the work was not overwhelming.

It has been some time since I finished that course but no matter what I still remember learning about one topic, Frame of Reference.  No matter what I do, where I go, who I meet, the phrase always stumbles back in my life, just like it did in Seminar.  Not only did the dean of Macaulay use the phrase but the book given out in the gallery was subtitled, Frames of Reference.

A frame of reference is the way a person perceives something.  This is what stuck with me when I was in the gallery or looking at the artwork in the books given to us.  After the initial shock caused by the detail in the prints wore off, I thought about the frame of reference of those who would gaze at this art hundreds of years ago compared to my generation.

My assumption might be wrong but I think it is safe to say that mankind is less secular now than the time the art was initially created.  Back then, the average viewers of this artwork would have had an easier time building a connection between this art and their lives, particularly with their religious views and teachings.  Nowadays, I assume that a typical person would merely appreciate the artwork’s attention to detail and shrug it off once the art is out of sight.

I might be making too much of an assumption, but I see the modern generation as a secular one.  However, this is just coming from my frame of reference.