In Search of Beauty, Goodness and Truth
Yesterday we visited the Uffizi Gallery here in Florence. It was awesome to see the many priceless treasures, the statues and portraits, the tapestries, all interpretations of life in another time. There are 50 or 100 renditions of Madonna and Child. Each has a sameness and a uniqueness about it. Each is an interpretation of a biblical event and yet each is seen and PORTRAYED through the eyes of the interpreter/artist. I wondered about the differences. Why was it that the facial features of each of these Madonnas was different? It seems as if the artist portrayed, in each instance, his own interpretation of beauty which, I am confident, also portrayed something of himself.
Each of us sees beauty, goodness and truth through our own lens. As we look at any work of art we see not only the work of art but the artist as well. So we are interpreters of interpretations as we stand and admire and begin to recognize the artist in the painting or the sculpture. We see his technique or his style. We see his preoccupation, his stance, his perspective and we are left to appreciate as observers of observers, adding yet another perspective on the life portrayed.
As PULSE practitioners we are artists. Our participants are the subjects as they portray to us and to each other their version of events and circumstances. They are also artists, painting the picture from their own perch or stance. We are the interpreters, the portraitists, looking for the beauty, truth and goodness in what they have said, providing a PULSE interpretation of or focus on the situation, a new perspective … an appreciative FRAME through which to view their world.
The art in PULSE is in the listening. In every work of art it is the artist who adds light and colour to what he sees or hears as significant. PULSE artists work to remain true to the beauty, goodness and truth of the subjects of the masterpiece. PULSE practitioners understand that their perspective is one of many and they greatly value the perspective of the subjects of the portraits, understanding that it is truly the only valid perspective, the one that must be honoured in the portrayal. As they listen, PULSE practitioners focus their subjects on the truth, goodness and beauty in the work of art that is their conversation.
So the style of a PULSE artist/practitioner could be described as appreciative realist, an artist who uses simple, skillful, brush strokes or questions to focus attention, an artist who allows the beauty, goodness and truth of the participants to predominate in his or her rendition or interpretation of the circumstance. An artist with a simple yet complex approach that encourages individuals to inperpret for themselves, to take the beauty, goodness and truth from the past, see it in the present situation and to search for beauty, goodness and truth in their rendition of the future.
Thank you for listening and adding your own interpretation, taking your own meaning, seeing your own beauty, goodness and truth. Today we go to Cinque Terra.
