Jennifer Gauvreau
Step back five paces. That was the rule. I was told as a young girl to stand at least five paces away from paintings, in order to really take them in and enjoy them. My parents were both active members of the arts community, and a result, my exposure to the arts was deeper than that of my peers. It was always my inclination to move very close to a painting. As a youth I really wished to experience art (and all of the things in my world) with all five senses. Of course, this notion is absolutely ludicrous, as it would not be fitting for a little girl to be wandering the halls of the Art Gallery of Algoma licking paintings and running sticky fingers along the ridges of wild oil paint. So, very early in life, five paces away became the rule.
Growing up, I found it to be needlessly inhibiting and contradictory, the five paces rule. The hippies who ran the kids’ art programs in the teaching room were all about freedom and joy, reckless abandon, oddity for inspiration. When we created art, it was of absolute importance that we felt free to do what we wanted, how we wanted. Yet, a few feet away in the gallery, we were to be silent, reverent, and distant.
When you move in real close to a painting, you see more than a content image. Go ahead, look closer. Don’t be afraid to look— on the tongues of Medusa’s snakes lie a thousand fables and lessons. Look closer and you’ll find the passion of a painter: brushes blitzing, complexions colliding, oils oozing, tint tenting to form piles of pigment and scraped down valleys. You’ll find the clockwork of colour, and the tempo of tempera. Does this view enhance or diminish the humanity of the painter, the craftsman, bent over his work, trying with every brush stroke to reach across the void?
Now, step back. Make it five paces. Take it all in, allowing your eyes to dance across the canvas. Maybe this is a more comfortable view. Do you understand more, or is it less from here? The painter is now traveling through time and space to touch your very soul. They are creating poetry in paint- humanity on display, essence expressed. Upon meeting your eyes, the craftsman’s reach across the void becomes an artist’s embrace, encircling you with all that it is to be a part of the human condition.
For a long time, I was stuck in the binary viewpoint. I thought I had to choose between openness and inhibition, experience and appreciation, immersion and altitude. The longer I consider point of view, the more sure I become that both ways of experiencing art, and life, are vital to the human experience. Moderation in moderation. Wildness in waves. Five paces be damned.