Perception :: Essays Papers

Perception To see a scorned, beaten, and crucified man, lying dead in the arms of his mother is an image, which can inspire overwhelming emotions within the heart of an observer. Yet, for the longest time I've had such difficulty looking at Michelangelo's art in this way. To me, art has never been about expressing oneself or conveying a message to others, but simply creating an image for the sake of beauty and perfection. When I look at Michelangelo's art I see a cold, solid mass of marble carved by the skilled hands of a master, Rather than this work of great beauty, capable of eliciting a deeply emotional response. I look at it in terms of the techniques Michelangelo used the understanding he had of the human form, to render a piece ultimately comprising precision and realism. It has been upon these standards that I have based my concept of what art is. In my eyes, art has always been just a unique ability that I have. I feel driven by it, not to express some deep emotion, but almost as an obsession to perfect my own ability. Every stroke of a brush and every motion I make are to make what I've created more detailed, graceful, and real. I'm only now beginning to realize how much more there is to art than what I had previously understood. When I look at a piece of my work, I see the detail and realism of it, yet somehow I feel that these aspects are all that it possesses. I wonder whether or not I've almost turned my sense of art into a science that lacks the essential characteristics of art, which are expression and emotion. Somehow now I have begun to see that the strictness and precision of my art truly is an expression of who I am, and that through it, one can understand how I perceive the world around me. Personally I feel uncomfortable in a world where nearly every aspect of our lives is becoming less clearly defined and where right and wrong are continually forsaken for a vague sense of truth. So in some respects, art provides me with the sense of structure, order, and continuity, which I feel, is lacking in modern life.