Being a creative writing major I am very partial to the idea of a Muse, and with my many trips to the Metropolitan museum as a high school student what always caught my eye were the white marble statues. With art being vague by nature, I think one of the most basic forms of art is the human body, more specifically the female body. Many artists have always attempted to capture the evasive quality of the human form, whether in paints, songs, poetry, or marble, the human figure remains to me the most recognizable symbol of natural beauty, no matter how self centered it may seem. Lets face it, we are a self centered species.
Here as one of my many favorite pieces of art is a work titled, The Three Graces, Antonio Canova. The three graces are Agleaea ("Beauty"), Euphrosyne ("Good Cheer"), and Thalia ("Festivities"). They are imagination captured in stone, an abstract concept given shape in an attempt to express the beauty of the human condition.
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When I was younger, I had the priviledge of going to Italy. In Florence, in the Medici mansion in the heart of the city, there was a Sandro Botticelli travelling exhibit. The collection had dozens of exquisite works which were donated from museums and private collections. I was particularly struck by his concentration on detail and use of color; it gave his art a unique-almost liifelike- quality. Now, I can't quite figure out how to post an image, but my favorite painting of his is Pallas and the Centaur. The vacant expressions on the two subjects faces in the painting are striking.
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