Art teaches through experience

Clinton Bronder

Subject: Art teaches through experience

Topic of my choice: The Nature of art: Chapter 1

April 22^nd, 2011

Art has the power to involve us in its message by utilizing many methods that all add up to a telling of the arts story. Rembrandt’s painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son, depicts his interpretation of the Christian idea of mercy. Many methods used to depict his idea are nonexistent outside of the word of painting. He utilizes expressive lighting and coloring, eliminating the father as he gives mercy to his sinning son, along with physical expressions of the characters, visualizing the stiffness in the father and agility in his son, to create a strong sense of the event. The further we take our relationship with art, the more we immerse ourselves into art, the more we can experience the essence of the art and the truth it conveys. In class, we involved ourselves with Gain Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. By placing ourselves in Saint Teresa’s position, weak with pleasure, arms heavy, and overcome with the sensual encounter of divinity intrude on your body, we are guided to the overwhelming orgasmic essence of Saint Teresa. An artist is the messenger of a particular moment or emotion in time. An artist intends people to involve themselves in all the sensation the art offers in order to understand its message. By involving our senses in the beauty religious art offers, we gain an understanding of the religious truth it depicts.