- John Reid
The Intelligence of Art.
Updated: Jan 18, 2022
The realm of a painting
has an interesting irony.
A volley
A chemistry
outside our realm of logic
that cancels and negates the notion of owning and understanding.
A great painting is a world of fleeting information
of knowledge.
Not the knowledge we commonly associate with
that we methodically ram in our heads to remember.
The intelligence in a painting has no such gravity.
It is like the breeze
clear and ungraspable.
You can’t own this information.
As soon as you try it vanishes.
It’s a realm where nothing is stationary
so as to make sense of it.
Where the important conversations
you have with yourself
and the best paintings never leave the artist.
In this way a great painting gives us freedom from thought and the seeming imposition of structure.
It’s an essential service.