adminMany a times, art has been seen as just a visual aid, nothing more than a piece to hang up on a wall or a sculpture to place within a garden or on a patio, but if dug deep enough one can see art is much more than that. Eleanor Heartney is a well-known art critique and has written a couple of books, one is “Thoughts on Doom” where she analysis the art that relate back to religion and its apocalyptic themes that are demonstrated. Here she was grown up with Catholicism being very important within her life. Since religion has played a large role in her life, she continues to examine and write about the pieces that demonstrate or appear to continue to any type of religion, the ones that explore wrong versus right.
Within her book and the critiques that she published within this year show that she has focused upon doomsdays concepts or apocalyptic thinking that focus largely the ones that have a narrative and represents the good versus evil battle. Eleanor Heartney focuses on the deeper thoughts of the pieces that she chooses to write about, the ones that tell a story about the balance, union and battle of good and evil in relation to the numerous religions and/ or the events that have been occurring, like the pandemic this year.
Within numerous writings of hers, the contrast of good and evil or right and wrong has been brought up. The paintings she feels has a way of expressing the contrast, the yin and yang as I would like to call it. This she sees as artists relating back to their origins, the religious background that they grew up with but didn’t appreciate until they were older. Here it’s almost, as if she is reading a story line that is not present until you look closer upon the works and think deep, try to understand where the painting is coming from, the artists intention.
I believe when looking upon any artwork that they have a deeper meaning not just the apocalyptic ones, the modern contemporary ones, even the ones that seem straight forward since they resemble reality and are realistic. Art can be seen as always as image that holds a story, as we had seen when we practiced for state exams and the prompt was a single photo but a story had to be written. Art makes people think since there is usually no one to tell anyone how to interpret it.