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| Left: Painterly Realism of a Football Player by Kazimir Malevich. Middle and Right: Recreations by Esther Flatau |
I have a love for all people, no matter what size or shape, purely because they are people. Similarly, I have an appreciation for all art, simply because it is art. That said, my appreciation does not always extend into an understanding. Minimalist art, for instance, is an art form that I often do not understand. Though somehow, through this project, I feel as though I gained a special insight into minimalism and abstraction. Oddly enough, what made it make sense is my diet—what I eat these days. Recently I had a run-in with some stomach issues causing me to alter the way I eat by cutting out many of the foods I love. Without out dairy, or wheat, or eggs (to name a few of the offenders) my options seem so limited. So minimal.
I chose to recreate the oil painting, Painterly Realism of a
Football Player. This work by Kazimir Malevich
is actually a part of the Suprematist movement, focusing on non-objective
abstraction. The significance of my
selection may become more apparent upon hearing this title of the
original. I could not produce this
project without touching on size, image, and judgment. Maybe Malevich really wasn’t focused on
football players all that much, but I do know that a football player’s size is
much different than my own. What I eat
may be related to my size, but not in the way that people may think. Usually people jokingly make comments about
my size, being skinny, or needing to “put meat on my bones.” Some even venture to mention anorexia. It seems they don’t realize that being skinny
is not my intention.
Cutting foods, some of my favorite foods, was so abstract to
me. When I heard of people who had food
allergies or certain sensitivities, I could not even relate because that was
not personal to me. Yet. Now, it’s not so abstract. I am finding the beauty in this form of
minimalism. Feeling well again is a
beautiful thing to me. But not everyone
will understand that just by looking at what I eat.
The takeaway: Go ahead and appreciate things for what they
are. Appreciate art because it’s
art. Appreciate people because they are
people. But you are not going to
understand every painting and why it looks like it does, just as you will never
understand every person and why they look like they do from the outside.
