Response #11.

In Skyla's blog, she questions, "Are there works of art that you see as breathtaking and does the beauty of the piece take away from the message/meaning in it? Basically, can beauty be too distracting?"

There have been no pieces of artwork - from my experience - whose message was taken away some by it's beauty. For me, the opposite usually happens - usually when I see a piece of artwork that is breathtakingly beautiful, it adds to the meaning of the piece and I grow to appreciate it substantially more than when a piece is merely average, in my opinion. For instance, music is beautiful to me, some pieces moreso than others. One of the most beautiful acoustic guitar instrumentals is a song called "Ocean" by the John Butler Trio, and the first time I heard it, I was moved to tears by how beautiful the piece sounded to me. I love acoustic guitar, I play the acoustic guitar, but the song made me appreciate the sound of the guitar a whole lot more because of how beautiful and moving the song was. There are no lyrics to the song, but the message of passion and sorrow and beauty still shined through because the musician was able to totally commit his body and soul to his instrument in such a way that the music was spellbinding. It certainly did not distract me from the song at all, because it made the song was it was.

My question is, "Do you believe that contemporary mainstream music overlooks the spiritual function that music was originally intended to portray?"