Murals: art or mess?

Last winter while I was artist-in-residence in St. Petersburg, I visited the Hermitage Museum almost daily. That museum’s collection, one of the wold’s greatest, spans the entire history of art from the Paleolithic to the present, and includes masterpieces from all cultures by artists both famous and anonymous.

In the presence of great art the conditions that determine aesthetic value clarify themselves to the thoughtful observer. There are formal consideration, those of excellence in line, color, shape, design, and composition.

There is consideration of iconography, the specific content of and in the art, and iconology, the deeper meaning and significance of the of the art, the universal and archetypal essence of what it is communicating.

Keep all this in mind when you look at the murals that are appearing in Homer, and decide for yourself: art, or mess.

Jo Going