Love and Art

I found a piece I wrote during my senior year of high school, when I was still learning and coming to terms with what I went through. Though my views have amended to conclude that damaged love can be rebuilt and reconstituted, I find my previous insights no less intriguing.

     "Some people say that art is a reflection of emotion, of love, but in reality they are one and the same. Love is an art and art is a combination of all of the emotions involved in true love; a painting can show a wide range of color, can use more colors to create an image than the eye can recognize. One might see a picture of a beautiful woman and not realize that her even skin tone is a combination of ocher, crimson, chartreuse, and azure. In this same sense, a true loving relationship might appear simple and elegant, but is composed of trust, anger, affection, frustration, patience, and honesty. There is always more than meets the eye in a skillfully crafted relationship, as in any good painting.
     Love, like oil paints on canvas, begins blank. It develops through small strokes and layers, like the tiniest connections and bonds that from between people. A multitude of colors and thoughts and feelings are incorporated in the process of building this image. When an oil work is finished and dried, we admire it. The elegance and balance is astonishing; the skill and time involved in creating something beautiful does not go unnoticed. Such a painting might become a prized work that serves as an ideal or example to future artists. Yet, over time, oil paint cracks. Onlookers who view the painting regularly may not notice the colors fading, the warm tones and soft hues steadily yellowing. They would not be immediately alarmed as the top layers of the scene began to crumble and flake off of the under-painting. Someone who saw the painting for the first time, even a person who is unfamiliar with art, who realize that the once-blue skies have transformed to a sickly aqua. They would see that lush plant life browned and withered over time. An unfamiliar viewer would see the cracks and chips and question why no one ever tended to them.
     We, who treasure love as we do priceless oil paintings, would eventually try to restore the masterpiece. We would attempt to repair the damage, perhaps even paint over the layers upon layers of crackled image within the frame, but the damage would be there. The original, beautiful, skilled strokes that once graced such a lovely scene would be long-since faded and ruined. Perhaps centuries later viewers would be unaware of what the colors were originally meant to be. Future viewers would not lose the sense of awe that the original appreciators had, but that awe would be centered around the age of the painting as well as its survivability over the years rather than the beauty it once represented. Love is a painting. It is a layered scene of emotion, trust and affection that should be elegantly framed within stability and mutual dependence. An artist puts their heart on canvas as surely as a lover puts their into another's hands, though hearts are rarely treated with the due reverence that priceless oil paintings are.
     Our idealist nature romanticizes art as much as it does true love. We are forever seeking the vitruvian man of emotional connections; our views of relationships and love are often as skewed as the proportions of the human figure throughout artistic history. We often seek unrealistic perfection in both and thus the realistic experiences in daily life seem to pale in comparison. It is only upon our realization that elegant oil figures on canvas are skewed that we can love someone. We love fine works of art for their flaws, not in spite of them, an the same should apply to people in our lives. The smallest mistakes in the under-painting of a scene, disproportionate measures of a statue, or lengthened perspective in a drawing are all flaws to be embraced. Though, not all flaws may be overlooked. In love, as in art, there are certain standards that must be met.
    We might value a painting for its unique character, but if vital pieces were missing, or huge mistakes made on the part of the artist, the finesse of the painting would be lost. No one would have the kind of reverence for the Mona Lisa that they do if she had no nose. Onlookers would, in fact, become disillusioned and disappointed in their once-favorite artist. There are some fundamental mistakes that shake a person to the very core; if these mistakes are made in a loving relationship, one partner might see fit to forgive, but the disappointment and disillusionment would linger like a gash across canvas. There is, unfortunately, no way to repair such damage. Once a painting is torn, it can be patched but the integrity of the artist's work is forever lost. Trust can be rebuilt, but the mistake that damaged it cannot be undone.
     there is no end to the list of similarities and comparisons between love and art. They are integral to one another and inexplicably intertwined in the human psyche. Art is an extension of ourselves that is responsible for love, in all its macabre splendor. For any artist, the two are irrevocably paired; our work is influenced by the emotions and reflects all of the torn canvases we have endured."