I was one of those sleepers back when I took Art History, and now I can’t get enough of it. I find myself going back to those books, cracking them open again, and it’s fascinating. Discovering the details of the widespread “scene” of which Van Gogh was a part, the way his studio brimmed with the activity of assistants, how they were all participating in a massive movement in Dutch arts is cool. There are lessons of collaboration and style to be found there. The act of learning to understand how Monet’s lifelong fascination with the interplay of light on scenery was of paramount concern to him — how it drove him to sit in the same location for complete days, for months, in order to reflect it in pigment — can inform all of us about what he spent so long figuring out. When’s the last time that you did that? The last time you sat for a whole day to witness the movement of natural light across a landscape or piece of architecture? If you’re a busy professional out on tour, or banging out corporate work all the live-long day, maybe it’s not recently. But by finding the time to see some of Monet’s work, and seeing those lessons manifested, you can still find some of that value.
–From Bob Boniol's Art In Design feature in December PLSN Projection Connection.
