Good Friday Thoughts

I have been thinking about what makes one painting more powerful than another. Once you get past the "bones" of the work such as composition, brushwork, values...what makes it better than another one?

For me, it has to be the authentic voice of the artist. It has to express something that the artist needed to say visually.It has to rise above the rest being unique in some way... Great art gets through to you immediately. You feel something from it.

Today those thoughts were exemplified when I watched a utube video for Holy Week:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR2YBMkGIOo that uses great art and music...few words. The art spoke and drew out my feelings, even though I wasn't in front of the actual pieces. I am sure that I would have felt even more emotionally if I had been in front of the works.
You didn't even have to know the story behind the paintings..You know from the dramatic lighting in some of the pieces and the captured emotion in the faces what is going on. The artists used all the techniques to convey what they thought was important.
Great art can do that.