Sunday, March 4, 2007

Perspective in Prose and Poetry

Today I spent five and a half hours at the library trying to get through my British Lit. class. While reading the introduction to one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems, I read the following quote, which he had adapted from Thomas Burnet's Archarologiae Philosophicae:

"... It is helpful sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as on a tablet, the image of a greater and better world, lest the intellect, habituated to the petty things of daily life, narrow itself and sink wholly into trivial thoughts."

It was an unexpected and beautiful reminder about putting life in perspective.

Friday, March 2, 2007

And That's Why They Call It Impressionism...

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Art on BYU campus to see a new exhibit with Mom, Amy, Heather, and Easton (who is 2). The exhibit was designedto highlight the influence of French Impressionism on American painters in the 1840's and 50's.

So there we were... wandering through the exhibit, thoughtfully gazing at each painting, when Easton delightedly exclaimed, "Horsey!"

Thrilled at the thought of Easton actually enjoying himself, we all leaned in to see what he was pointing at so we could praise his intelligence in our own sing-songy, baby-talk voices. Heather was standing--Easton in her arms--in front of a beautiful lanscape depicting grass and trees bending and waving in the breeze of a beautiful, sunny day.

Strangely, there wasn't an animal to be found on the canvas. There was, however, a series of brush strokes in the green grass that looked strangely like the shadow of a galloping horse if you looked at it with a forgiving eye.

After a moment we moved on to the next painting, and to our surprise heard Easton exclaim once again, "Horsey!"

No, I promise, darling boy... even though it might look like a horse, it's not actually a horse.

But it couldn't be helped. If he saw a horse, he saw a horse, and who were we to tell him otherwise?