Visceral Response

Georgia O’Keeffe created this piece in 1918. Its title is Music Pink and Blue II. Music Pink and Blue is a separate piece, alike in many ways but distinctively different color schemes.

O’Keeffe started as an abstract painter but moved away from it partly because she grew weary of critics and art people reading too much into her images that she contends were never intended to be interpreted in such ways.

Many believe O’Keeffe’s paintings reflected her sexuality and sex in general.

I chose this painting specifically because it tells us something about ourselves.

Music Pink and Blue II is a fine example of the controversy surrounding her art as well as our visceral response as humans.

I would love nothing more than to just stare at this piece and feel the color and movement that’s plainly provided for me. But I have another visceral response.  I can’t get the fact that it looks like a female sex organ out of my mind and that changes the piece for me.  

In this case, at least for me, it’s impossible to be objective because my viewing of some of her art has been polluted by opinions and observations made by others as I’ve learned and experienced art.

Where does this piece guide me?
It guides me straight into the blue void. Right into the mystery, and it pulses with life. Just like music. And you guessed it, just like a vagina.

Shape is pertinent in this piece.

The repeating of the ovals in the painting always brings the viewer back to the blue void. I start at the green to yellow stem, which leads me back to the void, continually in a loop.

Simply as an abstract piece, this works because of composition and color and that intangible something that all good art shares. It is made even better because it possesses layers. I see color and movement. I feel the color.

But I also see a vagina.  What does that say about me?

That’s precisely what I love about good art; it exposes things about ourselves if we choose to see them.