Thursday, July 12, 2012

Picasso's Guitar

The security guards must’ve chuckled between themselves. “That guy has been there standing for hours like a tree.”

If I were a security guard at the Ontario Art Gallery, I’d probably make a joke about it too. After all, my job is to browse/examine/study people, while they browse/examine/study Picasso’s paintings. I never understood what is it about art that encapsulate a person’s thoughts like a mind magnet. And I still don’t understand it, but I surrender before the power of art nevertheless.

This afternoon I lost myself in front of a Picasso painting that supposedly a guitar. I like guitar. Except I don’t see the guitar. I see rectangles, triangles, angles with no names. I thought, perhaps I should see it from a different angle. I bent over, looked under, turned sideways, back and forth. Looking closer, I see the fine lines and edges and marks and cracks. Still, no guitar.
The harder I look, the more I see, yet the less I see.

People came and went. I stood there. The Picasso’s guitar disguised itself behind episodes of confusion and obstruction.

My vision blurred from the mid-afternoon dreariness. My mind began to drift. I still stood there. For minutes, maybe hours. I stopped looking, but kept my eyes fixed on the shapes and let my mind wander.

I saw Picasso’s guitar.

Beautiful.




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