I think today I discovered the most important concept in understanding the purpose and function of artistic expression. This is what has been missing from my work this past semester, and now it all makes sense. Perfection is not the goal of art, but rather it is the understanding of imperfections. Excessive details, and total information is not needed to relate a message. A simple line is enough to communicate an entire idea. For example when we were drawing the flowers in at Giverny I felt that I needed to use lots of lines and details to communicate the presence of the flower. I was trying so hard to make sure the image was accurate and perfect. I realized that I wasn’t creating art, but just copying information. It wasn’t until I stripped the image to a bare minimum that I started to feel the presence of the object. Just like the dinner at Dans le noir, we didn’t need all the information for us to understand what we were eating. Art is about giving just enough information to communicate a message, and leave enough to so that the image is intriguing.

My earliest garden memory would have to be in my garden at home. I would not categorize it with the gardens described in Wanderlust, but this was the only garden I knew. This was the place where we would spend all our time as kids growing up. Climbing trees, playing hide and go seek, having tea-time picnics, hunting for lizards and birds and picking fruit was how I spent my time in the garden. It is reminiscent of those days when I was carefree and interacted with nature very closely. I was not afraid of getting dirty because it was just pure fun.

In my opinion I think a garden can be considered a work of art as it relies on one’s artistic sensibility to arrange and organize flowers, plants, pathways, and trees. The person who creates this garden must also be very compentent in this skill. It is constructed using natural materials, but made by man, hence is not entirely “natural.” Claude Monet constructed his gardens specifically for his paintings. He collected, and chose specific flowers and trees and laid them out in an oderly fashion. He dug his own ponds and pathways. Although the elements are natural, the way in which they are arranged it very much man made.