Art is a kind of memory. It makes our human experience shareable and visible. It is a form of communication. It is a unique cognitive human ability to use visual metaphors, symbols, artistic representations of feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Renaissance art, in my opinion, is one of the best-known forms of that.
Art, as such, has no survival value like food or drink. So why bother? Human neural pathways are fascinating. They span the monstrous and the despicable to the sublime and radiant.
I belong to the same species as the monstrous and despicable but I can choose the radiant and sublime.
(All images from Raphael: Sublime Poetry, first international exhibit of over 200 works including 170 of Raphael’s paintings, drawings, etchings, and tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
All photographs courtesy of author. Reproductions are prohibited without written permission.