My wife recently hung a small painting in the master bathroom. I bought the painting some years ago during a trip to Florida. In slightly impressionistic style, it depicts a rowboat tied to a dilapidated dock. Behind the boat the sea stretches out until it meets the graying sky.<\/p>\n
When I walk down the steps into my basement, a close-up photo of a tiger\u2019s face greets me, taken by one of my adult children. The tiger keeps a close eye on me as I turn on the landing and head toward my recliner.<\/p>\n
On the mantle in our living room is a large giclee print of a painting by my mother-in-law showing\u00a0the stretch of the Chattahoochee River that ran directly behind my wife\u2019s childhood home in the northern suburbs of Atlanta.<\/p>\n
What use do these paintings have? Why spend the money or make the effort to adorn a home?<\/p>\n
Among many responses, one might say: I do not live near an ocean; I rarely visit the beach. When I do, I am stunned to silence by the grandeur of it all. By putting a small glimpse of a seascape on our wall, I can experience some of that awe every day.<\/p>\n
To my knowledge, no tigers inhabit the dense forest around my home. But every time I walk down to my basement, I glimpse the splendour of one of God\u2019s feline masterpieces.<\/p>\n
The art offers windows to glory that would otherwise be invisible in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n
The river scene on the mantle is multiply meaningful for my wife. I, more abstractly, am reminded of slow muddy Southern rivers, of Huck and Jim and Great American Novels.<\/p>\n
I can make a similar point from the other direction. Though a small town in the deep South, my home town could be Anywhere, USA; or Nowhere, USA.<\/p>\n
Several of the main roads are four-lane highways lined with chain restaurants and stores, organized into mini-malls containing three or four businesses. The architecture ranges from nondescript to cheap to ugly, nondescript being the highest level of achievement.<\/p>\n
So what? Is my town missing anything? We can get everything we need at the local Publix or WalMart. There\u2019s a Starbucks and a Chik-fil-A and a Buffalo Wild Wings if you want a beer with your meal. What more could one need?<\/p>\n
What missing is any building that can plausibly be described as beautiful. What\u2019s missing is the window to glory that art provides, the window that rouses the soul to joy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My wife recently hung a small painting in the master bathroom. I bought the painting some years ago during a trip to Florida. In slightly impressionistic style, it depicts a rowboat tied to a dilapidated dock. Behind the boat the sea stretches out until it meets the graying sky. When I walk down the steps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":19571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art"],"yoast_head":"\n