It’s true that few can afford the work of the most famous artists to hang on their wall. It’s true that we prioritize those items that keep our physical bodies alive…. food and shelter. Art can’t keep us alive…. or can it?
The world we live and move in, that world is a work of art. The stars that fade into the sunrise into the blue of the day. The stretching out of the land, flat or rolling or cracked deep. The water. The plants. The animals. Us. Beauty is free. Something that’s free can’t be a luxury.
We can’t escape beauty even in the midst of the blandness or cruelty of life. The light will catch our eyes. We’ll see the brave weeds growing up through the cracks, green and flowering.
A man who is starving isn’t kept alive by the food he lacks, but by the thought of beauty. The stories, the hope of love, the clouds scudding across the sky, the heaving breathing of water that reflects the sky and reveals the depths in turn. The food is what is too costly, the luxury he cannot afford. It is the beauty that is free, that gives him courage to go on.
