glitter = life

What is it about minerals that glimmer, like silver, gold or diamonds, that makes people think of them as noble? One theory puts it down to the fact that for early man, the glittering of water signalled life. Shining water meant clean water. Only water that is drinkable - that gives life - is transparent. Whenever after trekking through deserts, forests and foetid swamps, a group was able to discern a body of water glittering white in the distance, they would have felt lacerated by happiness. Which would have been life. Which would have been beauty.

Han Kang. The White Book.

I used to think the paintings that speak to us, that we recognise as beautiful, reunite us on some weird level with a part of ourselves we forgot - and we recognise within it a once forgotten aspect of ourselves. As if one of our tasks in life is to find our beloved shards or aspects of ourselves that got blasted out in the big bang of our birth into consciousness, and to become whole again. But as Han suggests that our attraction to beauty is about salvation, maybe a painting that attracts us offers us something that saves and nurtures the self, that calls us nearer. Sanctuary.

It is interesting to think that we as human beings actively seek to adorn our homes with beautiful art and maybe it is because the beauty we see in it reminds us of water or another aspect of ourselves glittering in the distance but within reach, and offering us life.