Art is something really odd. Enjoying it is more or less like your soul, looking at, talking with a somehow altered version of yourself. Yeah, it a kind of taking with yourself, and definitely the experience is different from talking with, say, a real self.
Without running into any form of art. People do speak with themselves, but more or less, a same self. Talking with that figure is problem solving, as he may see the problem you met from a different side; but also, to some extent, tedious, for his knowledge, worldview and standpoint are generally the same with yours. Sometimes, you need some thing new.
And that is just what art brings to us. You know, when you are enjoying a piece of art, poetry, music or painting, what you are doing actually is to toss a part or even the whole of your heart to it. And like a set of mirrors and lens or even a more complicated, mythical optic set, it send back an illusion, a figure, who is like you, but more than any version of you that you can possibly met.
Take what I felt when I was reading a piece of poetry, Fire and Ice, for example. It was written by Robert Frost. The poetry itself is short. but in such a short poetry, he presented us two ideas about life. Before the perish of his world, he thought fire was what must be cautious about, for the sake of its great power of destroying. But since the real disaster fallen on him, crushing his known world in ruin, he finally realize what is really horrible is the ice. "For distruction Ice\ Is also great\ And would suffice", he said.
And when I read this piece of art. My memory swifted with the lines. It's like my past being reorganized by the author, not me. And then, my past came to have its own thought, every single element of which is so familiar that I can interpret it as my own thought, but the thought itself is almost new. And very soon, after a brief period, the thought became totally mine, and whenever something bad happened on me, the thoughts would come to me, chatting with me. And both of us became more mature than before.
See, enjoying art is such a magical process, during which a new version of yourself is created. And he talks; You talk; you blend into one, or quarrel with each other. But whatever the outcome is, you will be fascinated, and well refreshed after the enjoying, even if the piece is gloomy, sending only a desperate version back to you as a feedback. Because whatever it is, it will make its impact on your soul, enrich both you and your inner partner with new elements.
For me, the new elements might not be colorful, but will be hopeful, giving me the possibility to form a better self, leading myself to a better world.
And that's why I love art.
