Nova, 10 x 10″ Acrylic, Spackle on Illustration Board
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all sciences.”
– Albert Einstein
Is all beauty mysterious?
What makes something mysterious? Is it just that we don’t understand it? I think there is more to it since I don’t understand many things that I don’t consider mysterious (like why my teenage son won’t get a haircut). In addition to this lack of understanding there is some implied significant meaning to the object in question. There is a sense that if you do figure it out, you will learn something of value. This appeals to our yearning to discover truth in our lives and adds an important dimension to our perception of that mysterious object.
Mystery makes the beautiful more beautiful. It adds a quality of excitement, of greater meaning and potential. It touches our hearts in a way that something beautiful but without mystery does not.
Einstein groups true art and science together in their dependence on mystery. Most of us do not combine science and beauty or art in the same train of thought. And at some level, much of science deals with things without mystery, self-evident facts and processes which seem dry. Consider that there is a lot of art in the world of which the same can be said (I’ve made my fair share!). But at some level, both in art and science, true mystery is encountered from which emerges the true essence of both art and science. Perhaps each are equally capable of teaching us the same truths as we unravel their mystery.
This piece is the second of a series I am working on which I call “Universal Meanings”. In this series I’m exploring form and movement within the void, whether that is external space or our inner consciousness.
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