By F. Lennox Campello

“Art is in the eyes of the beholder” is easily both the most trite and yet truest art saying in existence.  I have both empirical and anecdotal evidence.

When I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art, I used to sell all my art school assignments at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.  I did this through my graduation in 1981, and in the process learned a lot of great lessons in the art of selling art.

One of them deals directly with the aforementioned saying.  Here’s my anecdotal evidence:

Imagine the horrors that come out of an art school assignment in which objects are put inside a brown paper bag, which is then stapled shut and the task is to draw the items inside the bag by feeling them through the paper bag.

This assignment, matted and shrink-wrapped sits in the display bin at my space at the market for several years, seen and passed on by tens of thousands of visitors to my space at the Market.  One day, someone pulls it out, looks at it, and turns to her friend and smiles as she says: “I LOVE THIS!”

From the other side of the table, my hands in my pocket to keep them warm from Seattle’s ever present liquid sunshine, I think to myself: “WHY?”

Answer: Because art is in the eyes of the beholder.

Here’s my empirical evidence and a fun thing to do the next time that you visit a museum.

Pick a painting, any painting in the museum, preferably one that has a couch nearby to rest your tuchis as you conduct the evidence gathering.

Notice the museum visitors as the walk slowly through the edges of the museum, looking at the artwork on the walls at a slow walking pace… keep your eyes on just one painting, photo, whatever on the wall, and you’ll notice most people walk by it, some read the wall text with title, artist, media, year, etc., and move on.

And then, every few dozen or hundred or so, someone STOPS in front of the artwork, as if an invisible magnet has reached and glued them to the work. Their eyes and body language tell the story of being mesmerized and hypnotized by the art.

What this particular work?

Art is in the eyes of the beholder.

This of course, also works when you develop a “favorite” work of art in a particular museum.

Mine is Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley at the National Gallery of Art.

Copley’s gorgeous painting depicts an event that took place in Havana harbor, Cuba, in 1748.

The naked guy in the water is fourteen-year-old Brook Watson, who was attacked by a shark while swimming alone in Havana harbor. Lucky for Watson, some of his mates were already at sea waiting to escort their captain ashore, and were able to fight the shark and rescue Watson, although the shark bit one of his legs off. On his return to England, he got his fifteen minutes of fame and Copley painted this work.

If you study the painting carefully, you will realize that Copley probably had never seen a shark in his life, and his depiction of the great white in Havana harbor yields one of the most ungainly and ugliest non-sharks fish things ever painted.

I love to sit in front of this painting and watch people as they walk by and get mesmerized by the brutal event taking place and kids making fun of the shark.

What is your favorite work of art? Not just DC, but from wherever you hail from?

About the Author: F. Lennox Campello’s art news, information, gallery openings, commentary, criticism, happenings, opportunities, and everything associated with the global visual arts scene with a special focus on the Greater Washington, DC area has been a premier source for the art community for over 20 years. Since 2003, his blog has been the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet with over SIX million visitors.