BEDA 12

I read an article today (ok, on wikipedia, but still) about Shakespeare's sonnet #20, which I love. I admit though, I have never even tried to analyze it. Now there's this whole page about the "playful duality" of the poem. About male and female jambi, about phallic poem shapes (really? I mean... really?) and what not.

I don't really know how I feel about analyzing art. If you need to read a book to understand a painting, it doesn't really serve its purpose and if you need to attend a class to understand a piece of music, it probably doesn't reach you in the right places.

Having said that, there are some pieces of art that get more intense if you know the meaning behind it. Know what the artist wanted to show you, tell you, make you understand.

However, I read many many years ago in a book about Zen (of which I've read too many, I admit) that true art is the transparency to transcendency. Meaning that true art can catapult your soul into a state that you can connect to the higher energies of the universe and understand something about the piece, but more importantly, understand something about life and about yourself.

There are many pieces of art that I consider true art, but there are also many pieces I can't connect to at all. That's totally fine though, because maybe there's a person out there who can and they will be the better for it.

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.