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 Many contemporary artists are hard done by if people look at their work and simply state: “That is not art!” They often put quite a lot of thoughts and effort in their work and don’t find it easy to express something in a new way and to find their style. We’ve seen it all – impressionism and expressionism, surrealism and cubism, art deco and post modernism, renaissance and baroque.

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 Every style and era found its own masters and masterpieces. The galleries throughout the world are full of them. How overwhelming must this be for a young and coming artist at times, when looking at all these perfect master pieces by equally perfect masters of the genre? What is to be added, what else to be said in your work. As frustration kicks in, the ground is broken for shocking and adverse items, for art that actually puts art on the stand and asks – what is this?

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 That’s, where the circle is closed, because innocent viewers coming into the galleries and left alone with this question, will in their overwhelming majority come to the conclusion that “This is no art at all!”. It helps if the artist gives the viewer something to pick upon, some appetizer of what their thought process was like when they created it. That is done in the accompanying notes for the piece of art. And so, they should not contain disposable phrases like “Untitled”, “Graphic IV” or “The Grey”, but could provide just the straw the interested visitor is desperately looking for.

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 But back to the beautiful. Has it really vanished, is nobody interested in beauty today? The contrary is the case. The glorious and beautiful is admired by the masses in form of celebrities, VIPs, TV stars and so on. People aim to be like their idols, kids try to follow in the footsteps of their most admired soccer stars or singers. Many people still enjoy the wonderful array of beauty nature has on offer. They adore flowers, trees, gardens, birds and so on. There are many people who also love taking photos of beautiful landscapes and scenes, or they like portraying people in order to grasp their individuality.

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 By capturing the beauty in everyday life and nature, we can find consolidation in our own life, some reassurance that we are wanted, and that our life has a meaning as a part of the beautiful environment that surrounds us. Beauty also provides us with hope. And it might be an ideal at times, but the positiveness about it is what makes our life happier. It would be good, if more young artists would pick up on this and start integrating more beauty in their modern works of art – not in clichés and not as to try and copy nature, but to integrate some sense of idealism and hope in what we look at.

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