\u2013 Andy Warhol<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many people find that kind of heart-stopping, dwarfing beauty in nature. I don\u2019t. I hear \u201cNature\u201d and immediately think of dirt and snakes. No nature buff, I. But there are works of man-made beauty that make me gasp, works of art that freeze me in awe. Architecture, music, writing \u2014 Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s \u201cFalling Water\u201d and the Guggenheim; Ella Fitzgerald scatting through \u201cJersey Bounce\u201d; every sentence of Proust\u2019s In Search of Lost Time<\/em> \u2014 these things, for me, are among the highest achievements in man-made beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Three paintings that I\u2019ve seen definitely epitomize the kind of beauty that dwarf one, paintings that arrested my attention and dwarfed me, humbled me in their presence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first was Picasso\u2019s \u201cGuernica,\u201d which I saw in Washington DC before it was returned to Spain. I sat and stared at \u201cGuernica,\u201d and cried, for about half an hour, overwhelmed by the enormity and power of Picasso\u2019s images of the suffering of war. The next was Keith Haring\u2019s \u201cPink Triangle,\u201d another enormous painting, silver figures dancing intertwined on a huge pink triangle, a testament to the lives lost to AIDS. And finally, the third was Warhol\u2019s \u201cSoup Cans,\u201d all of them together as Warhol intended, deceptively simple in execution but gigantic in power \u2014 the paintings that changed Art forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, those experiences of the power of Art \u2014 the dwarfing, humbling, inspiring power of man-made Beauty \u2014 are an essential part of life. They add color to our otherwise dull drab days and remind us that we are capable of wondrous things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hank Trout is a writer and Senior Editor of A&U Magazine, based in San Francisco (USA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some kind of beauty dwarfs you and makes you feel like an ant next to it. \u2013 Andy Warhol Many people find that kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[205,203,202,207,204,208,206],"class_list":["post-913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-andy-warhol","tag-guernica","tag-hank-trout","tag-keith-haring","tag-pablo-picasso","tag-pink-triangle","tag-soup-cans"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/beautyforabetterworld.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/PicassoGuernica-e1491024225315-1024x640-1.jpg\")
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