The Whys and the Hows (2)

Children ask a lot of questions especially when they are younger.
Ask any parent of a five year old.

Now the challenge is not just in the multitude of questions or the rate of bombardment.
The real challenge for the parent is the ability to give the right answers.
And not just the right answers but satisfying ones for that matter otherwise your answers will just give birth to many off springs which are of course more questions.

I will give an example.

Years back my family and I visited the Louvre Museum in Paris.
My husband and I spent a lot of time admiring the beautiful collections on display to our children’s boredom and increasing irritation.
When one of them could no longer bear it he came over from where he was sitting and began to tug at my wrist.

‘Mummy, it’s enough. Let’s go.’

‘But I haven’t even seen the Mona Lisa.’ I replied.
‘How can I come all the way to this museum and not see it? Give me five minutes I will soon be done.’

He reluctantly walked back to his seat.

There was a great number of people surrounding the Mona Lisa that try as much as possible I could not push pass the sturdy wall of people to get close enough for a proper view.
Tired of trying I walked back towards the entrance and tried to capture some shots by zooming my camera lens.

After a few minutes I felt a familiar tug at my shirt sleeve.

‘It’s now five minutes. Can we go now?’
He was back.

‘Hold on, let me get this one shot.’

‘But why? Why must you get a shot?’
He asked.

‘I want it that’s why.’

‘Why do you want it?’ He replied, puzzled.

I rolled my eyes wondering why he had to start his question sessions at such a critical time.
I looked around for my husband to bail me out but he was no where to be seen.

‘Because,’ I said finally as I peered short sightedly into my camera in an attempt to capture that perfect shot.
‘It is the Mona Lisa.’

‘I know it is the Mana Lisa. You said that five minutes ago and also about thirty minutes ago.
Besides you said that we should never start sentences with ‘because’ but you just did.

I glared at him in reply and in the process mistakenly took a blurred snap shot of my feet.

‘And besides,’ he continued, unruffled
‘It’s just a woman wearing a black dress and sitting down. She’s not even smiling a lot.
What is so special about her that there are so many people staring and taking pictures?’

I gratefully passed the camera to my husband who appeared beside us at that moment and did my best to explain art to him.

My answer was probably just partially satisfactory because he proceeded onto other questions.

‘Why do people like to stare at other people?
Why do they take their pictures?
Isn’t it rude to do that?

‘I don’t understand.’ I replied.

‘Look.’
I turned to see what he was pointing at.
It was a portrait of a woman breast feeding a baby.

‘Why was the photographer looking at her while she was breastfeeding?
And the worst is that he even took a picture and put it here for everyone else to see.’

‘Look at that one’ he continued earnestly, pointing with one hand while peeking through splayed fingers, with one eye squeezed shut.
He did that whenever he thought something was inappropriate to look at.

‘She isn’t even wearing a dress, the photographer must have sneaked in and snapped her without her knowing and has now put her picture here.’

‘Why do people do that?’

It was a tough question based on shrewd observation and I found it difficult explaining myself initially.
I answered as well as I could then and we had a longer chat later.

But his questions left me asking some of my own, like-

‘Why a woman’s nakedness should be admirable and acceptable when in form of Art (painting or sculpture) but if a woman should decide to appear in broad daylight in her birthday suit it immediately becomes something detestable, shocking and unacceptable?

‘Why is explicit description of sexual acts permissible and even sometimes labeled as ‘good music’ while the demonstration of same to the public criminal?
Do they not affect the human senses?
Why should it offend the eyes but not the ears?
What really is the criteria for society’s judgement of what is acceptable and what is not?
Is it a case of one standard for this, another for that?

Maybe I should rename this post.
I think it would be better as ‘The Hypocrisy of Art.’

Or what do you think?