Why do we see and interpret ART differently?

Last week I came across a post by @michaelulmer in Instagram, where he creates an image that represents the weight of the grief he carries from the loss of his grandmother.

The video starts of with an image of a rock, sitting on top of a log. And at the end , he reveals a composite photo, where he is carrying that rock ( which is huge in size now) on his back . I had a chat about that photo with my friend.

She said , “Yeah, It was a really powerful image that he showed at the end”.

“At the end ?”, I thought.

So that’s when I remembered people connect differently with photos. For me , the image of rock sitting on top of the log itself was enough to feel the weight of the grief or the emotions. But for my friend, they needed to see the final image to process it.

I have brushed past this concept earlier. On how we’re all embodiments of our past experiences, books that we read and people we met and each one of us would connect or relate to art differently based on that. Like I was able to connect with a simple image of a rock on top of wood , each one of us would have had instances where we felt an emotional connection to a piece of art , that was seemingly meaningless to rest of our friends.

I think that’s the beauty of art. It connects with people differently. 2 people seeing the same image will have their own interpretation of it. Their own experiences shape their reality. For some it might be the tone of the image. For some , it might be the emotion that it carries. For some it might be the composition or the colors in the image that reminds them of things.

In the past , I have taken subjectively interesting photos and decided not to post because I felt it was not instagrammable. But this incident just made me realize that and image need not be instagrammable to be able to evoke emotions within people. Afterall a simple rock on top of the log made me feel the weight of the grief that an artist was trying to communicate.

So today , on the light of this newly attained revelation, I was skimming past my old photos and that’s when I saw this beauty. As a mentioned before, typically this is not an instagrammable photo and earlier I would’ve straight away ignored it. But here we are.

Did you feel anything when you saw the photo ? Would love to hear from you.

Good Day !!