You can see why I asked the question.  Like the caption itself (“Still Life”), every detail of the composition connects directly to the art of painting, and to its history and within that to a specific genre, and within that to a particular style.  And “composition” refers to both the technical values of the image and the careful arrangement of the objects that were photographed.  There is nothing accidental here, and so the intention seems clear: to create an image, and response, that would as closely as possible approximate the experience of viewing a work of fine art.

Which would be enough to make some critics go ballistic.  From Baudelaire to Sontag and beyond, the censors’ reactions have been clear.  It is only an approximation, and a cheap one at that, they say.  The skill that is supposedly on display–and that was reason for the existence and value of the genre in the first place–is in fact being supplied by the camera.  Oh, sure, some technical craft is involved, just as is the case with arranging the table, or for that matter a department store window, but it can be learned in hours, not the years that would be required to paint such an image.  Worse, that de-skilling is matched by a loss of value in the work and in the audience.  Finely wrought images become cheap things to be admired and as quickly forgotten.  Because of the easy reproduction of the image, the artwork loses the aura that comes from being experienced within a tradition, and with that loss we become less capable of being open to or improved by the art itself.  Instead, modern society becomes susceptible to kitsch and related habits of excessive consumption.  A still life on your desk top, or those cheap reproductions of Modern Art  in every hotel room, or it doesn’t matter: whatever they are, they are not really art.

I’ve argued against this attitude, and usually I take the angle of saying that photography is not a fine art and all the more important for that; instead it is a public art, among other things, all of which have considerable value for modern society and politics.  (By the way, you don’t win an argument with an attitude in a day.)  Today, however, I want to take a different tack.

My argument can be stated very simply: It’s beautiful.  You can tell me that it’s derivative or that it’s not authentic or that it’s more contrived that photography should be, but you can’t tell me it’s not beautiful.  (And I’m speaking for me, by the way, not you.  If I’m a sucker for elegance or any other social value evident in the image, that’s my problem, though certainly not one foreign to painting.)  My idle scanning through a slide show stopped the moment I say it, and my day is richer for having seen it.  Nor is it idiosyncratically or oddly beautiful; instead, its beauty comes in part from how well it has reproduced the conventions of the painterly genre.  Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of still lifes, and I’ve walked by a good number that did not catch me as this one did.  (Yes, this had the advantage of not being in a museum context, but frankly I think photography always is orienting us, to greater or lesser degree, to see as if we were in a large, open air museum.  Furthermore, it stood out at National Geographic, which is saying something as far as photography goes.)  Long story short, although I never would have set out today to look at still life paintings, this photograph provided one nonetheless, and it’s beautiful, and I’m grateful for that.

There also is a more complicated argument to be developed along the same path, but I’m running out of time.  One thing to consider is how the photographer has labored to put photography back into the tradition of painting, and how something like an aura may be one result.  At the same time, there is little likelihood that anyone would mistake this image at a photography website for a painting, so perhaps the art of approximation also is being featured, and with that the conventions and history of the artistic genre.  This image may be an imitation of a painting, but also an imitation of a photograph; and it may be about photography more than painting, which would move it closer to the work of art in any medium.  (Admittedly, this still life doesn’t stun me, enthrall me, and challenge me as the best art does, but in my experience that’s a problem of the genre.)  And if it is about photography, then it is about modernity.  If tired of defending the arts, you might to think about that.

It might also be a statement that simple elegance is more available than we might think–much like a photograph is less expensive and more accessible than a painting.  It could be a demonstration of how beauty can be shared easily via photography, indeed, how photography is pitched toward sharing while painting continues to be defined largely by hoarding in mansions and corporate hallways.  When a photograph imitates an older art form, such questions are brought to mind.  Surely that can’t be all bad.

Photograph: “Still Life” by Rucsandra Calin, Craiova, Dolj, Romania, from National Geographic’s Daily Dozen, March 11, 2014.

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Winter still hangs on in the Northern Hemisphere, with the occasional thaw only enough to bring up the accumulated dirt and trash.  In the Crimea, another democratic spring has been flipped within days into another authoritarian consolidation of power; the pattern is now all too clear, while the rapidity of the military response is becoming truly impressive.  In Malaysia, a 777 has disappeared into thin air; at least the UFO hunters will be thrilled, but everyone else who flies now lives in a slightly more uncomfortable world.  And if that weren’t enough disquiet, for some us the calendar has moved into Lent, a time for reflection on our many personal failings.  So perhaps you can appreciate why I am grateful for this photograph.

The caption at The Big Picture said: “Reflected in a puddle of melted snow, people and dogs walk past umbrellas suspended from trees at Spanish Banks Beach in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Feb. 25.  The art installation, called the ‘Rainblossom Project’, was put up by an anonymous group to be a celebration of the rain the city receives.”

My favorite part of that caption is the word “anonymous.”  Whatever else happened on February 25th, there was someone in Vancouver who wasn’t working on branding, who wasn’t worried about others free-riding, who was willing to spend time and money and effort to improve the commons, and do it without any reward, much less making a profit.  Maybe it was a hedge fund manager on his day off, but I doubt it.  This was done by someone who cares about art and the general welfare in equal measure, and who is able to express those commitments generously.  We can call it a random act of public art.

The same can be said of the photograph.  “Random” may seem incorrect, for surely the photographer was acting on an intention, but the same is true of the red umbrella hangers and the other strangers signified by the allusion to “random acts of kindness.”  The act is, by definition, intentional, but “random” because not directed by the usual logics of economic exchange, competitive marketing, political persuasion, or even direct social reciprocity.  Yes, the photographer will have been paid for the image, but there was no guarantee of that happening, not least because there was little chance of finding hard news, or even soft news, on a beach in Vancouver in February.  This image barely qualifies as news at all, although it does inform us about the public artwork on the beach.  It’s something else: another work of public art, and one just about as incidental, unexpected, ephemeral, and generous as the other.

And what a fine work it is.  The photo is true to the work it depicts, while enhancing and extending it as well.  The red umbrellas hang improbably in the sky, and the trees, mountain, clouds, sky, and lake seem equally improbable and beautiful as well.  That lake, itself perhaps newly freed from the ice, reflects the figures above it, just as the photograph reflects the entire tableau.  Likewise, the deep blues balance the blossoms of bright red, as if they were low and high notes harmonizing.  These symmetrical optics evoke a sense of serenity, but not by pretending that the scene is any more solid than it is.  The reflection on the water can be broken by a single ripple, just as the scene can disappear the moment you turn away.

And we all will turn away.  Even those in the scene, who rightly seem to be enjoying it immensely, will walk on.  The clouds will thicken, and the rain will come–remember, the umbrellas are an offering of gratitude for the rain–and the umbrellas will deteriorate or be taken down.  Like the rain, this scene is not something that you can hold on to.  Only the photograph will remain, albeit probably forgotten.  But that’s OK, if we understand what it is teaching us today.

The world is more abundant that we know.  Not always, but too often the suffering that occurs is due to artificial scarcities: due to greed, hoarding, and the withholding of kindness.  Any decent society ultimately depends on more than natural abundance: on commitments to the common good, the general welfare, and sharing in both hard times and good times.  So it is that we ought to feel thankful for those artists and arts that are themselves acts of generosity for a public world.

Photograph by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via Associated Press

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As I write, demonstrators opposing the authoritarian government in Kiev are being killed in the streets, Aleppo is being bombed into the stone age by forces loyal to the Syrian dictatorship, China has said that the UN report on the torture chamber known as North Korea contains “unreasonable criticism,” and the Central African Republic is turning into another of the world’s hellholes.  No wonder people are watching the Olympics: why not opt for mindless diversion?  Even if the show is a day late (in the US, for example).  Even if it is being staged by yet another autocrat.  Keep the eyeballs on the screen, as you can’t do anything about the rest of it anyway.

Actually, I get that.  And I think cultural critics, and particularly those fixated on visual media, have gotten way too much millage out of faulting people for wanting to chill at the end of the day.  Frankly, a lot of culture is diversion first and foremost, and only then can it rise to something else.  If you look at culture with an attitude that is too pragmatic or instrumental, you won’t be open to what it has to show or say.  If you look too long at the moral and political disasters that demand one’s attention, you may become too reactive or too exhausted to respond as you should.  We look away because we can’t stop looking, and perhaps after looking at something else we can circle back to respond to the pain of others with a better sense of perspective or empathy than before.

And so you might ask, what is that tiny block of ice doing there?

One answer is that it is being placed willfully in front of the images from Kiev, Aleppo, and other contemporary disasters, and placed there in order to block them out.  Soon enough they’ll be back, waiting for me in the morning paper and online throughout the day.  As well they should be: we live in on a single planet, alone in a desert called space, and so we need to watch out for one another.  For a moment, though, it might help to contemplate a world of natural harmony and no human predation.

We think of fire and ice as opposites, as they are in ordinary experience, but this image reminds us that they both are part of a unified physical universe that will always be greater than our capacity for comprehension.  The Siberian sun can melt the ice layered on Lake Baikal, but not before its light is reflected and refracted by the ice.  The small block of ice seems majestic in its ability to stand up to the sun for awhile, and so it fittingly looms large and distinctly shaped while the great star appears small and hazy in the background.  The ice is doubled by its reflection and seems more solid for that, while the sun appears less powerful because its light is reflecting off of every surface.  The subtle irony of the scene reflects back on us as well: we know the ice is ephemeral, but the sun is as well.  By valuing the ability of the ice to persist a while before its inevitable dissolution, we are looking at a reflection of our own mortality.

The Greek word “cosmos” means both universe and ornament.  Macrocosm and microcosm, beauty and totality.  The photograph above is but an ornament–a decoration and diversion–but like the ice, it reveals something much larger.  Perhaps by reflecting on that, we can do something about the fires that are raging elsewhere.

Photograph by Edward Graham/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest

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This week Feature Shoot lists 50 Awesome Photography Websites.  (Full disclosure: NCN is on the list.)

Photo Contest Insider Lists Over 150 Photo Contests.

And did you know what Wikipedia has a list of photographers who already are the subject of Wikipedia articles?

I told you it would be short.  The fact that I forgot to do a post for today had nothing to do with it.  Nothing at all.

And thanks to the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team for filling in.

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