Photo Essay: An Enquiring Mind Wants to Know about Rome, Beauty and Art

This enquiring mind has wanted to know something since 2006 when I rode by on the bus this bold statement at the Piazzo del Popolo in Rome. "If beauty is subjective, ugliness is objective." Maybe it's just me, but it seems the logic is somewhat stressed here. Then on another face of the same pillar was , "Cry for beauty, not for sense." I could see the two sides, but what was on the other two sides? Does anyone know? I figured the two sides would make better sense if I knew what the two sides out of my view said, but there may only be the two sides. Huh. When I recently researched Patrick Mimran, I was able to find the same two sides I have, but could not find any explanation or the other sides. These are the two sides most easily viewed, so is that all there is?

I did a google search and found out I was woefully uneducated about the popularity of Mimran who has had similar billboards and signs posted prominently in New York, Moscow, Bologna, Madrid, Monaco, Vienna, Tokyo, Lyon, France and many in Venice, including signs on the gondolas that read, "Art in motion." I think I would prefer to see the gondolas without the reminder. It's rather like having a super sized post-it note on the Mona Lisa, saying "Good Art Here." Also in Venice was the reminder, "Art is everywhere but not in everything," or "Art is not where you think you're going to find it." Born in 1956 in Paris, Mimran chooses Lyon of his homeland to post,"We will not die if art is a god for us."

So who determines if the young man who is doing his street art will join the ranks of multitudes of great artists who are celebrated in Rome? With all the exquisite art in Saint Peter's Basilica, is it possible that the sunlight streaming through the altar windows is the most 'subjective' beauty of all? Are the aqueducts beautiful because of the life giving elixir of water they brought to the Roman citizens? Can art be separate from the people, or does it need a person to complete it? Can a place that celebrated sacrifice and violence still be beautiful? Are ruins less beautiful than their original structures? Perhpas in the ruins there is a higher subjective quality. Do we find beauty in a symbol of a religion that is not ours? What about finding beauty in a monument to a time in history that celebrates our own downfall as in the Arch of Titus which commemorated the sack of Jerusalem? Can we find beauty in a fragment of the whole just as easily as in the whole? If nothing else, the quotes posted by Mimran begin a dialogue in our minds of the meaning of art.

Also a painter and a musician, Mimran is almost best known for these bold, sometimes cryptic sayings posted in major cities all around the world. They are always written in the same bold and simple font and try to get a conversation started. I personally am rather mystified how he has garnered so much attention for his relatively simple thoughts on art, but he does get us to think. But, still, this is my main question, are there two more sayings on the other two sides of the pillar I passed in Rome?