Consideration, Contemplation, and Spontaneous Meditation

In her article The Art of Slowing Down in a Museum, Stephanie Rosenbloom discovered that when exploring a museum, the typical visitor spends an average of just 15 to 30 seconds looking at a piece of art before moving on - and the explicit implication is that visitors seldom, if ever, return to a piece of great interest for further consideration, contemplation, or perhaps spontaneous meditation. Call me naive, but the idea that people do not regularly peruse what is before them with the intention of returning to that which truly sparks interest or curiosity, is both surprising and foreign to me.

For me, life is all about examining everything before me, and then returning to those things I enjoy most - this practice comes easily to me, and I take great pleasure in it, so I was really excited about the assignment we were given for this week's CMS170 class.

Upon entering the Sacagawea Art Exhibit I saw this:

Oh come on! A modernist painting consisting of a bunch of vertical lines all in different muddy hues of the same color palette?
Approaching closer, I saw this:

Ahhh…not a modernist line painting at all. They’re trees. I really like trees. I made my way through the entire exhibit once…twice…pausing to spend more time with a few pieces here and there…and a third time. On my third pass through the exhibit, I saw this:

It’s the same piece as the images above, but somehow on my third pass the subject matter resonated with me on a deeper level.

In the text White Space Is Not Your Enemy, the authors outline seven critical elements of art, and 6 design principles. The elements I found most striking in this piece were the lines – which are many, but upon examination have a profound way of communicating positive space (tree trunks) and negative space (everything other than the tree trunks) using color and value as critical deliminators. One is easily able to recognize the perspective from which the piece is created. The colors and values in this piece also effectively communicate movement, in the sense that one’s eyes travel up the lines of the trees, toward the lighter shades of the forest’s canopy – as well as look “forward” through the thick of the forest toward the edges that seem just yards away – what’s on the other side? Do I want to go there and take a look? Or am I happy just where I am?

I am definitely happy where I am. So much so that I sit cross-legged on the floor about twelve feet in front of this little piece of magic, and suddenly I am transported to my childhood. As a child I spent many solitary hours cross-legged on the forest floor, pondering the height, strength, and lifecycle of trees. I can hear the twitter of birds high in the treetops; the scampering sounds of squirrels running atop the leaves that cover the ground like carpeting that will soon dissolve into the ground. I am stunned by the beauty of the memories evoked by this piece, and humbled by the quiet power of trees, and artistic expression that I so misconstrued as nothing more than a hastily configured canvas of unimpressive stripes – and I am so very grateful that I have never had trouble slowing down in a museum to give consideration, contemplation, and even engage in spontaneous meditation to things that truly spark my interest and curiosity.