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emotionalmotionsickness3 · 3 years

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So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

Give abstract art some respect. It’s more important than you realize.

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emotionalmotionsickness3 · 3 years

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I didn’t know why, at 17, seeing you for the first time hit me the way it did. It wasn’t “love at first sight,” or maybe it was and I just didn’t know what love was yet. But I knew, at that moment, something had happened. It wasn’t just an exchange in passing, there was something that was telling me “remember this moment, hold onto it” and I did, even though I didn’t know why at the time. I never fixated on it, I didn’t think about it constantly over the next few years, I didn’t try to understand what exactly it was that made me pause that day; I went on with my life, and so did you.

We went to different colleges, in different cities, in different states. We never shared another word for six years; Then we met again, but I wasn’t at a point in my life that I could share it with you, and neither were you. We both still had growing, and healing to do. So I thought that would be the end of it, I thought that was the extent of our story, that maybe whatever had pulled on me and said “remember this moment” was meant for something else.

But here we are. Five years later. Eleven years total. “Remember this moment” I remember being 17 and seeing you for the first time. Despite four years of high school together we managed one single interaction. I remember being 23 and waiting a whole month before you asked permission to kiss me. I remember being 26 and falling in love with you despite all my efforts not to.

We were just friends. I was moving, I told you that up front. There were no expectations, no standards to meet, no occasions to rise to. We were just friends watching football, sharing stories, building furniture. Eventually I tried to push you away, and you didn’t budge. And if I’m being honest with myself, that’s the moment you had me. How ridiculously simple of me, to fall for a man because he fought for me just once? No. You fought for me every day. You made an effort. You held me through my tears. You nursed me through fevers. You loved me through the darkest of my days. You forced me to face my feelings instead of suppress them. You made me talk instead of shut down. You convinced me to stay instead of run. You showed me what love was supposed to be.

“Remember this moment” as I’d watch you move through the kitchen, cooking dinner, my move always a heartbreaking whisper in the back of my mind. How many months left? Days? Hours? How many dinners? Not enough. Never enough. It felt like a lifetime in the beginning but summer came, turned into fall, turned into winter and as the days got shorter every little moment whispered “hold onto this.” Before I knew it I was holding you and sobbing, clutching the fabric of your shirt like if I held on tight enough I could make the world stop spinning. But I couldn’t, and you had to go.

“Remember this moment, hold onto it” because it’s those moments that get me through every day without you. Every day I’m alone in an unfamiliar city, missing the person I love the most, wondering if I made the wrong decision. But you never let me believe that, not for a second, you supported this move, even if it meant going without you. You never held me back, you only supported me, encouraged me, pushed me to see the excitement and opportunity instead of the sorrow and loneliness.

I love you, so wholly and completely. Without question or pause. Without conditions or concerns. Something I’ve never known before.

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