How to Look at Mondrian by James Elkins

Este é um exemplo em como por vezes, o que nos parece simples e fácil, não é tão simples e tão fácil assim. Basta que olhemos com mais atenção, para nos dar conta da complexidade.
Aqui, James Elkins dá-nos o exemplo de uma obra de arte, mas pode-se aplicar a tudo que nos rodeia.
Na minha opinião teríamos todos muito a ganhar e a aprender, se prestássemos mais atenção, aos pormenores. Quase sempre passamos pelas coisas e pelas pessoas, um olhar pouco profundo, fazendo uma análise superficial e muitas vezes, à medida dos nossos interesses. Mas nada na vida é simples, e linear.

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"Our eyes are far too good for us. They show us so much that we can't take it all in, so we shut out most of the world, and try to look at things as briskly and efficiently as possible.
What happens if we stop, and take the time to look more carefully? Then the world unfolds like a flower, full of colors and shapes that we had never suspected. [...]

My opening example is Mondrian.

 Specifically, one of the Mondrian paintings in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, across the street from where I work. It is called Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray and it was painted in 1921. It's a simple picture: off-white, with black stripes and four color areas: black, blue, pale lemon yellow, and a touch of orangey red. At least that's what I thought before I had looked closely at it.
I have occasionally taught a course in which students copy paintings in the museum. The course was open to anyone, even students who had never painted. The only requirement was bravery, because it turns out that when you put up an easel and canvas in the museum, everyone talks to you. They give you advice and criticism, and they aren't always polite. One of my students was harangued for choosing to paint a nude, "even though," as the angry visitor said, "you're a woman yourself." Another time, a guard asked me if I thought my student was worthy of copying a small painting showing Moses crossing the Red Sea. "Do you think your student believes the Bible story?" the guard asked. I said, "I don't know, but do you think the painter believed in the Bible?" He said he wasn't sure, and he'd get back to me. The next week, he said he'd decided the painter was an atheist, because the painting didn't have enough thunder and lightning in it--it wasn't dramatic enough to ring true. (I think the guard was thinking of the movie "The Ten Commandments.") After that, the guard left us alone: he decided that a non-believer could copy a non-believer's painting, but he just wasn't interested in the result.
When one of my students asked to copy that Mondrian, I said it might not be very rewarding, because it was so simple. It turns out I was very wrong, and since then I've had three students try to copy the painting. It's a very difficult and complex image, masquerading as a simple abstraction." [...]

[James Elkins]