Did any artwork change your life?

Someone reads a book that will change the way he/she has seen the

world.

Someone plays/conducts a piece of music that will touch the inner

hearts of the whole audience in a way they will never forget.

A piece of artwork may never leave your memory, because it revealed a

priceless experience for you.

 

In short: Did any artwork, in the wider sense, change your life and

to which factor / force do you subscribe the "success" of that

artwork.

the Eqyptian exhibit in the Louvre....long time ago...

Michelangelo's Pieta - I was 6 years old. It's the only thing I remember from the World's Fair and the memory is extraordinarily vivid and intense - so much so that I just <a href="http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/ny64fair/map-docs/bestoffair.htm"> verified it was there with a web search </a> (it has an otherworldly dream-like quality in my memories). My first "art" experience and maybe why I haunt European museums and churches.

Would my first 'earned with a photo' image of Ben Franklin on the $100.00 bill quailfy?

A photograph in National Geographic. I think it was published in 1964 by William Albert Allard.

It is of children running down a hill toward a Basque village. The Pyrennes mountains at dusk. They had been called to supper by their mother.

I was moved by the photograph but even more so by thinking how a person could be the one to make the photograph that moved others.

And to actually be on that mountain.

 

I have devoted my life to photography ever since.

 

It is what I do...what I am.

I don't think any one piece of art has changed my life. But, paintings by David Park and

works by ceramicist/sculptor Robert Arneson have definitely changed the way I view the

world - which has probably influenced how I approach photography.

There was not a single artwork, but the complete work and thinking of four artists: a sculptor, an architect, an orchestra conductor, and a composer. In the same order these are: Constantin Brancusi, Louis I. Kahn, Herbert von Karajan, and Gustav Mahler. These artists have changed in just few seconds the course of my life: both, the human and the professional sides, and two of them even saved it, acting like healing drogues. Here are very few details about these four artists and their work:

 

Brancusi said, when quitting Rodin, his master: �Under a big tree (Rodin), only grass can grow up�. He than went in opposition with his master, and starting from what was called at that time �primitive art�, he reached the limits of the simplicity and purity of the forms, while encrypting powerful existential messages.

 

Louis I. Kahn said, when teaching: �Silence to Light, Light to Silence. The threshold of their crossing is the Singularity, is Inspiration (Where the desire to express meets the possible), is the Sanctuary of Art, is the Treasury of the Shadows (Material casts shadows, shadows belong to light)�, and also (from memory): �Art doesn�t have to search for beauty. Beauty is just a selection made by people and time�. Luis I. Kahn built his aesthetics on two concepts: the Silence and the Light. He created exceptional structured forms, achieved with brute materials (usually brick and cement with no finish other than their own colors and textures). All these create the unique feeling of walking through perfectly functional �ruins� (out of time buildings).

 

Karajan was in music what Louis I. Kahn was in architecture: silence and light, structure and authenticity, out of time feeling.

 

Finally, Mahler is the artist who exceeded the human limits: he transcended the highest pain and even the death in some of his works, and all these in a pure humanistic (not religious) way.

When I was a child, the first real photograph (as opposed to family snapshots) I recall, was Dorothea Langes "Migrant Mother" and it had a profound affect on me. I have returned to it over and over and will until I can no longer do so. The expression and tonality are exquisite. Now, I don't remember which came first, but my most loved Aunt had "The Family of Man", given to her by a friend. She gave it to me to look at when I was little and my family visited her. I never wanted to put it down. Many years later, I mentioned to her how I felt about the book (at the time, I had never taken a photograph) and she gave it to me. I now have 3 or 4 copies. I have gotten them as gifts or bought them at used book stores. I have given the book as a gift to those I care for. It's strange to me that I had no interest in photography until about 14 years ago and now that's what I do when I'm not actively working or maintaining my life. But I majored in art for awhile as an undergrad and couldn't accept photography as worthwhile. I only later got into it as a way to document my travels. Then I understood.

 

There is also a painter who influenced me. He still does -- De Chirico. I nver fail to find myself inspired by his work.

 

Conni

V.

 

Have you seen the documentary, "My Architect"? It's directed by his son who is trying to find out who his father really was. Turns out Kahn had three families. That aside, there are some great scenes in and around his buildings.

No, I didn�t see the documentary �My Architect� made by Kahn�s sun. I heard about, but with Kahn, as with all the artists influencing my life or simply liking their works, I staid with the works and their philosophy only, trying to avoid as much possible any biographical biases. I have to recognize there sometime is one, but never understood it, a gasp between SOME artists� private lives and the altitude of their works.

 

And BTW, I forgot to mention another artist, which is a 5th �landmark� in my life: the film director Andrei Tarkovsky. His �Stalker�, years ago, had a strong impact on me, defining my predilection for the symbolic language in art. For a moment I thought David Lynch went on the same way, but I later discovered that Lynch uses only signs, not symbols. Signs are formal codes, with no propre content, part of a puzzle that owns all the identifiable content (message). While symbols are informal codes, with their own content (message), that might be mount in a composition of higher complexity. Signs are working with the rationality, while symbols are working with the consciousness. In conclusion: I like Lynch, but Tarkovsky is the �landmark� for me.

 

PS: None of these artists� names is used for any of my passwords (Ha, Ha, Ha...)

Discovering Fernando Pessoa's 'The Book of Disquiet' had a profound impact on me, not only how I think about the world and the reality we each make of it but also how I think about photography. It allowed me to open myself up to something more than the mere pictorial, because, after all, there is no mere pictorial.

 

It's a shame Pessoa is so obscure outside of his native Portugal. He was truly a genuis, both in his ideas and his writing. I must agree with those who say this book is "one of the defining texts of the modern world." (Nicholas Lizard, The Gaurdian)

Thanks everybody for your open and heartful answers.

 

The reason of my question is to find a trace what makes extraordinary art, that energises to change the course of ones life for better. Is it the source of inspiration that connects the onlooker / listener to a realm of consciousness he hasnt experienced before?

 

Or is it the audience that is in a deeper inner search for "something"?

 

What is required on the side of the audience and on the side of the artist to make art meaningful (read: fruitful)?

 

There is always a lot of talk about art, styles, intenions, the historical backgrounds etc.. But to me it seems that timeless art is always ready to spread its healing and divine message spontaneously without the need to explain itself beforehand.

 

Taking Michelangelos Pieta of St. Peter as an example, which is also my favourite: First time I saw it I wasnt prepared at all. But it is hard to pass by without getting absorbed from the aura of divinity that this sculpture radiates. Simply from a different world.

 

Any takers?

Tim, I was pleasantly surprised to read of another fan of Fernando Pessoa. I was introduced to him by a friend who still gets ecstatic at reading random pages from The Book of Disquiet. Needless to say I have all of his books, and they are a treasure trove of richness. We were discussing minor vices some time ago, and here's what she wrote to me:

<BR>For me, yes, it's coffee and cigarettes. I was reading a poem called The Tobacco Shop by Fernando Pessoa. After a long journey into exploring his own sense of aloneness, of feeling he is the only one having the feelings he's having but realizing there are millions of people having those same feelings, he looks out his (poetic) window at the Tobacco Shop across the road and writes:

<P><I>". . . But a man goes into the tobacco-shop (to buy tobacco?),

<BR>And plausible reality suddenly dawns on me.

<BR>Vigorous, sure of myself, a man again, I half rise to my feet,

<BR>And I shall try to write this poem in which I say the opposite.

<BR>I light a cigarette as I think about writing it,

<BR>And in that cigarette I relish my total release from having to think.

<BR>I follow the smoke as though it were a private tour,

<BR>And enjoy in a suitable and sensitive moment

<BR>My release from any kind of speculation

<BR>As I realize that metaphysics comes of feeling ill."</I>

I don't think it exactly changed my life, but the first artwork that I remember blowing my mind was when, as a 12-year-old who loved horror films, I went to the theater to watch David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly. I don't think that at the moment I fully understood why it impressed me so - maybe I was too young to grasp the movie - but with the years I've come to dissect what makes it such a brilliant film:

 

- However cliched it sounds, it works on many levels. What I saw a as a kid was merely an impressive horror movie, but there's the heart-wrenching love story, the fact that Brundle's turning into a horrible fly-thing could be seen as nothing more than a wasting disease that's also affecting the person's mind, and the realistic relationships between the characters.

 

- It knows what it wants to be. The Fly didn't ramble, or go for cheap, jump-out-of-your-seat scares. It turned out that what Cronenberg wanted to tell was a love story, with one of the characters being ravaged by disease. Focusing on that made the movie be a superb study of three characters that we get to know: no car chases, no big fights, no going through walls while pursuing the cute girl whose clothes become skimpier and skimpier, no filler.

 

- It crossed boundaries between genres, mixing a horror movie with a love story and a character study, creating something that I hadn't seen before and couldn't have expected. So far it is the only horror movie that, while filling me with revulsion at the sight of the monster, a being I wouldn't want to have anywhere near me, also managed to make me feel sorry about the creature - enough that I cried at the devastated beast's last gesture.

 

- It was personal. Cronenberg's obsession with the body (and apparently, the body getting out of control and rebelling against the mind trapped inside) infused the film with a strength it wouldn't have had otherwise.

 

- It stood on its own merits. I am often unable to enjoy the films by Hayao Miyasaki, because he tends to preach so loudly that his pontificating drowns out the movie. Chricton's novels have become mostly about how dangerous technology is, and it will probably get out of control and kill/drown/eat all of us. The Fly never points the finger at technology, or even at Brundle's own carelessness. You never feel the author tapping you on the shoulder, pointing out the Really Important Stuff that you shouldn't miss.

 

Now, if only the guy who keeps posting that photography isn't art read that, I'm sure he'll have a seizure.

Another here: Vasari, Renaissance author, wrote about lives of artists, an interesting and inspiring book. While this is not artwork to look at, vasari was skilled about bringing across his excitement and enjoyment of art, and the personalities that were producing it...recommended reading, I think you can find it in paperback...

<I think you can find it in paperback...>

 

You can, john; Penguin Classics publishes it in paperback. Highly recommended.

<ahref="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/features/legendsV2Q2/legendsIndex.shtml">duane michals</a>

 

check him out , didn't changed my life but certainly my view of photography

Here is the link of <a href="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/features/legendsV2Q2

/legendsIndex.shtml">duane michals</a> where he talks about his photography in a very philosophycal way

Um. Of course. What would our lives be like without art? It's all around us. We'd still be living in caves. Seeing as architecture is art...

 

To me this question seems really silly.

Bob Ross: "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents"

Bradley, good answer, quite in relation to your understanding of the question.

Yeah, I'm too dumb to understand this deep question. LOL

Bradley, I didnt say you are too dumb. Again you are not reading properly. If your interpretation is so negative then it is your own problem.

 

Of course, all art did change our lives, but certainly not all art did it in the same measure or with the same intensity. If you are not capable of making this difference then really, I am sorry for you.

"Did any artwork change your life?"

 

Yeah. My house, my car, my computer, etc.

 

If you don't understand my simple point that life as we know it wouldn't exist without art, then I feel sorry for you.

 

Your question is more along the lines of, "did Bambi make you cry?" Which seems pretty silly to me.

Bradley,

 

Look, there are always ways to misunderstand a question if you really want to. If you would have read only some of the answers on this thread carefully, it would have appeared to you that art can do something extraordinary with us. This has very little to do with the design of you car, watch etc..

 

You wrote: "If you don't understand my simple point that life as we know it wouldn't exist without art, then I feel sorry for you."

 

Sure I understand this, but it doesnt give you the right to call the question "really silly", as the target of this question was a different one.

 

You wrote: "Your question is more along the lines of, "did Bambi make you cry?" Which seems pretty silly to me."

 

This is called arrogance. But let me help you a little, even if it doesnt sound cool for you: There is a profound difference between an emotional or sentimental reaction and a deeper inner experience.