divine standards

Above is pictured The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Giovanni Bernini. This image is often featured as an opening introduction to my art course that I teach at UAA. We discuss what we see and we reflect on what is going on. Saint Teresa was a mystic nun who saw visions. An angel is seen plunging her with an arrow, over and over again filling her with the love of God. This sends Saint Teresa in a state of ecstasy; her face almost orgasmic with pleasure and pain. It was completed in 1647-1652 during the start of the Baroque period and it is housed at the Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. This is what high art should be, a transcendence of spirit; a statement that stands on it's own.

What is today's standards? In the Oxford Dictionary, they describe standards as a required or specified level of excellence. I am not sure if the word standard fits into our 21st century; I often deny it and easily cast it out and it has become a warped, manipulated concept.

When I show art images, I identify certain works of art as obtaining an excellence and integrity in craft, a tediousness of detail and execution into the final outcome of a masterpiece that lives throughout time, a creation from the divine.

Students can visually see this work and identify it as something quite unique and special. I present this art work as a recognition of a time that we have lost in our own century - a standard of excellence. It is this level of exquisite fineness that takes us to another level. There is no need for any definition, no explanation required. It exists with an intense aura of power and it is perfect.