Truth and Beauty

The purest Truth and Beauty

Reside not in long winded statements

Or displays of complexity

Of technique and skills

But in the lost art of simplicity.

I don’t think this piece needs any elaboration. Yet still I’ll add my two bits for a (most probably) unnecessary explanation, or elaboration, if you may, of the idea in the verse above.

Most people these days try to make things looks really, really complex. If they have something to say, they dress it up in long winded statements that can drag on for paragraphs which in turn can crawl on for pages and pages filled with utter nonsense and drivel, all to say just one little thing which could have better been said in a line or two. Many artists make their works look dauntingly complex all in the attempt to show off their highly developed skills and that in itself makes them loose favour in my eyes.

Not to say that those pieces aren’t beautiful too, they are, but they pale in comparison to any piece that on first glance conveys to the viewer a sense of simple beauty no matter how complex the technique and arduous the task of producing it may have been. What I particularly enjoy are those pieces that have an almost organic fluidity to them, those where the eye flows over the image or the sculpture or canvas rather that jump, those that convey their meaning in one go, drawing one in to then notice the subtleties that are testament to the artist’s genius. Those pieces are my favourites.

The same is in the matter of truth, the more long-winded your statement, the lesser the hopes of the essence of it being conveyed faithfully.

After all, a long essay of a joke is infinitely less impactful than a witty two-liner that gets the essence of the situation.