“I just don’t get it.” My brother Corben stepped closer to the wall, hoping this slight change in perspective would prompt the painting to suddenly reveal its significance. The work was a beautiful shade of blue, but that’s all it was. Light blue paint on a white canvas pressed against the wall of one of Rome’s most famous museums, The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. His eyes grazed across the piece one last time before he pivoted to another work whose simplicity was justified as “contemporary.” Over the next two hours, Corben discerned good art from bad based on a simple criterion: whether or not he thought he could make it himself.
My family’s two-week trip to Italy this past May marked the end of my semester abroad in Florence. As an Art History and Italian joint major, my decision to study in the city famously known as the birthplace of the Renaissance had been an easy one. While there, I explored as many chapels and galleries as possible, casually interacting with masterpieces by Michaelangelo, Caravaggio, and Da Vinci daily. I deepened my understanding of their classical techniques so that when my family visited, I was eager to explain the chiaroscuro of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes and the trompe l’oeli of Michaelangeo’s Last Judgement fresco in the Duomo. This is the type of art that I deem “Capital A Art”; art that everyone considers as such… art that even Corben admits he couldn’t make himself.
Over a thousand years before the Renaissance, ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle coined the term “mimesis,” meaning imitation but as a unique interpretation rather than a direct copy. They claimed that mimesis was the theoretical foundation of all art and that life is art’s subject for imitation. This concept was particularly relevant during the Renaissance, a period of Italian history that marked a significant pivot from life centered around the Roman Catholic church to a humanist reality that celebrated the individual and their potential. While most of the era's paintings were still biblical and glorified important Christian figures, artists began to sign their works. This addition of artist attribution was directly related to the rise of humanist ideologies and reinforces the idea that art reflects life of the present moment.
So I wondered with Corben: how is a plain blue canvas an interpretation of modern life? Today, we live in a world so oversaturated by media that it has become nearly impossible to determine a boundary between reality and simulations of reality. During the Renaissance, civilians trusted that paintings accurately represented the world because that’s all they had to turn to. However, in our contemporary era, photography, AI, and social media all compete for our attention, and classical art is lost in this flood of hyperreality. French philosopher Jean Baudrillard addressed this topic in a 1987 lecture at the Whitney Museum. He said, “Some say that art is dematerializing. The exact opposite is true: art today has thoroughly entered reality. It is in museums and galleries, but also in trash, on walls, in the street, in the banality of everything that has been made sacred today without any further debate. The aestheticization of the world is complete.”
Art has evolved in many ways throughout history, but its commitment to representing life creatively and meaningfully remains. While Renaissance masterpieces were remarkable aesthetic additions to an otherwise non-aesthetic world, classical art eventually lost its grip to other sources of visual stimulation. Nowadays, we are so used to mindlessly absorbing images that the sight of a plain blue canvas is frustrating and easily dismissed with a quick “I could paint that myself.” However, this simplicity is entirely intentional. Contemporary art distinguishes itself from the rest of our world by deprioritizing classical aesthetics; it satisfies a different need.
The next time you find yourself in front of a “boring” work of art, I encourage you to linger. Consider the moment, the artist, the place, and the audience. Instead of contemplating what has been added to the canvas, wonder what was left off. Appreciate both the abstraction and the intention. Reflect on the colors and shapes or lack thereof. Do they remind you of anything? How do you feel? Let art meet you where you need it most. See past the emptiness, and you may find relief, a long overdue breath, and a humbling ode to raw, authentic life.
By staff contributor Sierra Cameron