Brandon Ross Aesthetics and Culture Los Angeles Film School Aristotle was one of the greatest intellectuals to ever live. His ideas are timeless and live on to the present. What I find the most useful of what Aristotle says is the key to the good life is the ability to have a good conversation. Finding balance in speaking to one another. Some of the greatest moments that have been overlooked in my life are the great conversations I’ve had with my friends. Being able to exchange ideas freely with others is the greatest virtues of being human. America is one of the greatest countries because it bases a lot of its systems off having conversations. But today the country is very divided and everyone is just screaming at each other like animals. The world could really benefit from looking back to the great Aristotle! Look at this painting! How does it make you feel? This is a painting by Jean Michel Basquiat one of my favorite contemporary artist. He was born in 1960 Brooklyn. He started as graffiti artist in the mid-1970’s who was responding to the culture around him. He didn’t want to live by the rules of society. He put his mark all over the canvas that was the city he lived in. He was truly a free spirit. He didn’t care about what people thought about him and people loved him for it. Once he begun to garner more fame for his paintings he was a rich man. Everyone wanted his paintings. He redefined what art meant to many people. What I love about this painting specifically is it brings what I feel his entire existence of his life in his culture into one huge amazing painting. There is something so raw and so intense about the way he paints. He doesn’t care about its perfection. He doesn’t give a shit about what you think about it or how clever he is. He doesn’t even care about what art is or what is supposed to be. He’s just screaming his art at you. You can feel every layer of the painting. It looks like he’s painted over it several times. I feel like this is abstract to its finest. You can’t look at it and just be like “oh he just scribbled” no he lived through this painting. He gave it everything he had. Just looking at the mouth it just feels like he’s literally screaming with the paint at you. The painting is its own entity. The rich color behind the black lines covering the face show Basquiat may have felt trapped in his own black skin but there was so much within. What Basquiat says with his art is incredibly inspiring to me as an artist. If you just throw all of yourself into your art people will feel it and see it as something beautiful. I think Basquiat really is one of the greatest intellectual artists that has ever lived. He experienced his surroundings and let the world know what he thought about it with paint. It’s beautifully simple and complex. The picture above is the owner of the painting who spent $110 on it in an auction!
