www.theepochtimes.com: Costume designer Rachel Healy believes the classic arts—ballet, classical music, theater, literature, and the fine arts—are a reflection of the truth about ourselves. Through them we are able to better approach and connect to our own humanity.
“All people grapple with the big questions: Why are we here? Why are we connected?” she said in a phone interview on Nov. 25. The classics are vehicles that allow people to find those answers for themselves. “They allow us a place to go home to—inside.”
1 comment:
I think what Healy says about the Classics connecting us to our humanity is accurate in more ways than one. What the classics do for me, when I am able to relate to them, is remind me that I am not alone. It is one thing to read "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and see I am not the only one who feels the things I feel today. It is one thing to watch "The Full Monty" and feel solidarity with a storyline which takes place in the 1980s. But it is another thing altogether to jump back to where it all began, to read Hamlet and observe the Mona Lisa and hear a Beethoven sonata, and feel as though someone gets it. I think my generation tends to have this idea that we invented the issues we fight for and against, because suddenly we have social media and technology and more means than ever of spreading our voices. The things we feel and the problems that riddle our lives are nothing new. That can be hard to accept, but to observe classic art and see that people were thinking the same things I am now hundreds of years ago is an incredibly important reminder that I am not, never was, and never will be alone. Like Healy, I grew up in a family which considered art to be a part of every day life, like the sky and the trees. Art doesn't have to run in your blood, but it is vital to the creative, pondering mind's survival. And the classics are a great place to start.
Post a Comment