The Greatest Things

Sometimes, you can look at something you know very well, or at least think you know, and perceive it as something incredibly new and different. Take for instance a painting. I hated the Mona Lisa. I thought it was incredibly stupid and over-publicized. I went to France and actually saw it and realized there was something special about it. Something it's impossible to really capture in the millions of reproductions that have sprung up across the globe. And it's sad, really, that of the most important things that makes it so beautiful is the one of the many things a reproduction could never give to its viewers. And about another painting. Another over-publicized painting. One that I used to love. I used to love Van Gogh's Starry Night. But upon closer inspection, I see nothing incredibly special or notable about it. It capures absolutely none of the small subtle brushwork many of his other paintings have, and that mysterious dark shape that I always viewed as a dark faraway spire in the middle of the town came into sight as a nearby shrub. And that was one of the most disappointing things I've ever noticed about a painting, really. Why is it famous? Is it because we never really stop to look at things? This is by no means the fault of the artist, but why give recognition to one of the lesser pieces of his work? I don't understand and I don't find that I can. In attempting to capture scenes of the night, this is one of Van Gogh's few and greatest failures. Everything is clear. Everything is overemphasized. You can clearly see the houses and the village below and the only thing even somewhat remarklable is the way the moon falls on the village. The mystery and subtlety of the night are gone and upon looking at the painting again, I have to say, about a painting, I've never felt emptier.