A picture speaks a thousand words
Thursday, May 13, 2010
♥ Thursday, May 13, 2010
There is much mystery in the art of a picture. This is because so much is conveyed in so little. A picture speaks a thousand words, and in a thousand words I therefore intend to speak for a picture.
In this picture, I’ll say that there is a call for relevance. As such, the black background caused by a shadow cast from the flash of a camera, throws the irrelevant chairs, tables, walls and decorations away into oblivion. This is not a painting and the picture itself is not art. It is the object of the picture, the central focus that makes the picture one of beauty. The background must therefore be brought into oblivion simply because it is not relevant. What is relevant is the person from whom the shadow forms it shape and by which the picture finds its theme. The theme is Simple Beauty.
Simple Beauty. One characterizes another. But the inverse might not be right. Beauty might be simple, but simplicity is not necessarily beautiful. The evening dress can never be the adjective to describe her uniqueness. Rather, it is she who gives one reason to call the light-turquoise gown she’s in ravishing. And so, what does simple beauty mean?
It means that there is neither act nor pretence. A smile is a smile which conveys nothing more than the happiness behind the occasion that brought the smile about and that speaks; nothing more than the joy that is crystallized in the curvatures of her lips. I therefore would make a bold and presumptuous speculation that should she revisit her photo ten, twenty years down, the purity behind the elation of that occasion would reach over and beyond the confines of the picture to tug at her heartstrings. And evidence that this has happened, would be in the form of yet another smile. This time, maybe the smile of a life lived and loved. Maybe of the fond memories of pranks played and jokes cracked.
I’ll say something else. Simple does not mean simplistic. Simplistic is a magazine with Britney Spears with a caption of “oops I did it again” smeared across the front page after another annulment. Rather, simple just means authentic. But like how only the knowledgeable get to appreciate the mona lisa and her aesthetic dimensions, authenticity is not observed and felt, but known. This throws an entirely different spin to our theme.
More essentially, this is the logical and academic analysis behind her resplendence shining beyond the rectangles of the picture to pierce the deep recesses of someone who knows her.
See the thing about beauty is that it seeks to convey what is real. What is real goes beyond what we can see. This is a message I’ve learnt over the course of three months. I will say that what is real is found in an invite to “doubt no longer but believe”. Like after putting our hands through the pierced sides and wounds, we believe after we’ve seen the choices a person makes to be present to another. She puts aside what is the most essential resource- that rejuvenates her day and energizes her spirit- only to tell me “I still want to talk”. She goes beyond time and space to ask, simply, but not simplistically, “can I pray with you.” She says, fighting back fatigue and lethargy “tell me about your day”. Simply put, she chooses to be real. And this is enthralling.
Her posture says it all. She leans forward- slightly relaxed and concurrently slightly eager. As if there was something that she is curious to know and yet as if she is already basking in the luxury of knowing it. It is as though there is an anticipation to encounter another, without judgment without preconceptions and without expectations. And yet at that same time, the same assurance and confidence that she has found the right view of the other- the view from above. The view from above that says, “this is my child, whom I am well pleased”. It is as though she’s found the key to celebrating another and she is saying that it begins with celebrating who you are.
Who she is, is a peek into her soul that the eyes have become the windows for- so the saying goes. What you will find is a deep sense of awe and a marvel of the world she’s been brought into on a Sunday morning, and a joy that exclaims “I am so happy for my friend” on a random afternoon. What you will find is a cheeky laughter which is neither shackled by the euphemistic “realities” of today nor stifled by the fears of an uncertain tomorrow. In her eyes, you will see her courage to dream.
She makes a slight tilt to the left. Her jaw line leads into the no man’s land between the mind and the soul, the head and the heart. This is the proverbial longest journey any one is to make. Against a flock of black and brown and with a pair of dangling earrings is the importance and distance of this journey emphasized. Yet where does the one end and another begin? When does the intellect give way to the personal? That is the beautiful mystery that we can only observe and ponder.
“God must have spent a little more time on me…” she quotes from a song in a playful and cheeky triumph at that time, completely oblivious to the fact that such a quote could summarize succinctly what the picture is all about. The picture says that “captivating” does not come in sophistry and complicated shades of colors in masterful strokes on big cathedrals; it says that “mesmeric” can be one articulated not just as a matter of eloquence but as a matter of truly knowing another; it says that here is a girl whose eyes and smiles, whose posture and personality and whose life, such beauty exudes from. We know that we are made in the image of God. We are a little clearer what that image is, today.
