‘Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.’

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Art e meditation

I have chosen this exact quote by Henri Cartier Bresson because he is a master photographer and not a painter. I was struck by how powerfully this short sentence summarizes what I think about drawing and painting.

It might seem a bit overblown and presumptuous to talk about pictorial art in this way but it’s really a perfect snapshot of the difference between the two art forms. It quickly brings us to an understanding of how drawing and painting are first of all meditative acts.

In this moment in history and in this society we are continously brought to spend our time and address thoughts outside of ourselves. We are all rushing about trying to reach something that remains beyond our grasp.

Photography is king in capturing the moment; managing to represent it surprisingly quickly and faithfully.

Drawing and painting, on the other hand, necessarily require more time. They need our total and loving attention. When we draw or paint we must inevitably come to terms with the extent of our creative abilities that lie inside our being, often overcome by prejudices and constraining convictions. We directly experience this process when painting and representing nature.

Naturalistic art, in fact, is an art form that invites us to contemplate, to slow down, to be meticulous. It might even seem a bit anachronistic in these times of breakneck speeds and technology but it has the great value of making us reflect and admire nature. Something that some of us, in our frenzied lives, have forgotten. Thoughts lighten and eyes relax when sitting in a meadow looking at the distant horizon.

Unexplainably we start slowing down, we smell the air, we contemplate the multitude of colours our eyes can perceive. Maybe meditation’s most significant quality and characteristic is just that; slowing down. It is through this slowing down that we regain an awareness of our rhythms, of our real desires, of our dreams. We reconnect to our inner being.

On this journey, this search, painting generally becomes our first ally, our first faithful companion who offers us its precious and undervalued characteristics as a means for expression, for reflection and meditation. We can play with painting, we can experiment with it or we can start a deep and long-lasting relationship with it as I have. We can also just immerse ourselves in colour, in form without looking for perfection or scientific realism. It can always be, if we so wish, the most beautiful and colourful tool we have at hand. Painting nature is maybe the first instinctive form of art therapy and chromotherapy in that in stopping to contemplate and represent nature and its beauty on paper we bathe in the therapeutic vibrations of its colours.

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