"Art for Life's Sake", Wall Street Journal, November 2 & 3, 2013, Alain de Botton.

You know, I don't take time to mull things over in my mind much.  I read and move on to the next thing most of the time.  Not all the time, but I am a little ashamed to say that that's what I frequently do.  This article is a great one for those who enjoy this kind of thing...as I do.  Art, why art, what does art do in our lives, or what do we make it do in our lives.  Why do we enjoy what we enjoy in a piece of art that we are drawn to? 

De Botton states that art has lessons in life for us.  Appreciating the those beautiful or "pretty" pieces as hope.  There is beauty to be seen in the mundane.  "Fragile" does not necessarily mean "weak".  The toll of life on our bodies and souls.  The suffering that distills dignity into our souls.

My life experience has so much to teach me, but I, agonizingly too often, run from place to place, task to task, pleasure to pleasure, challenge to challenge without processing in my soul what has happened, why I enjoy this book I'm reading, or what else I might find in it.  And so on.

This isn't to say that one can't just read something for the momentary pleasure of it.  But when I neglect to put more thought into in more than I currently do, I'm missing out on more of what's there.  For example, if I look at Michael Coleman's "Uninvited Guest", I see a bear and cub looking intently on a couple of fish that someone caught who has momentarily left his fish for another task.  The setting is the deep woods.  When I look at it, I think of my grandmother who liked wildlife so much, my grandfather who enjoyed fishing, the woods where I spent so much time with my grandmother, my childhood friend, by myself.  There's the thought of the man and the bears who both enjoy such a naturally provided meal as fish.  The bears are contemplating these fish, and, I imagine, with a few more seconds, will pull them down and eat them.

A simple analysis, I'm sure.  But this is what my thoughts produce as I take more time than I would in a museum going from piece to piece on the walls or trying to read what the placards say about each.

Art.  Love it.  Show it to children.  Put it on your walls.  Buy it--prints, canvases, postcards--whatever your budget allows for a bit of it.  Walk through museum doors.