Beauty of a Rose
By Lylyan Yenson
In the podcast by John Green on Agnes Martin, many things resonated with me but the main thing would have to be this quote: “Beauty is in your mind, not in the rose.” Martin says this to a young girl and while listening to this podcast again I thought about the significance of this quote.
This quote stuck with me as I think this quote stuck with Martin throughout her whole life. The beauty she saw in the world was really the beauty in her mind. Her paintings were able to portray so many emotions without because of what our minds connected those images and colors with.
Green talks about how he never understood her paintings until he stumbled on one particular piece called “With My Back to the World.” The way he described it made it seem like any other painting, but the emotions and messages he connected to that painting were what made it special. The way he felt when he looked at those colors were what gave meaning to the art.
Our mind, our thoughts connect images, sounds, every and any of our senses to memories and feelings. If I told you to think of the color red, what would you associate it with? Love, roses, anger, war, tomatoes? While the color has no significant meaning, people associate it with something that has meaning to them.
