Someone sees a painting. They pause. Maybe tilt their head.
Then it comes. The question:
“What does it mean?”
It happens so often it’s practically cultural choreography. Like sipping wine and nodding at a gallery wall.
But here’s the interesting bit: No one asks that when a song plays. Nobody stands in the middle of a room and interrupts a tune they love to say,
“Wait. But what does this mean?”
They just… feel it.
They move. They remember. They resonate.
There’s no need to explain the bassline in words. Or justify the chorus. Or decode it like a riddle.
So why do we treat art differently?
Maybe because a painting doesn’t give you a duration.
It doesn’t walk you in and walk you out again, verse–chorus–bridge.
It just is.
Right there.
Whole.
All at once.
And we’re not used to that kind of presence.
So we project. We search. We ask for clues.
We try to reduce the wild thing on the canvas into something polite and safe and knowable.
But here’s the truth: Art isn’t always about something.
Sometimes, it’s just the feeling itself.
The same way that song got you through a breakup.
Or brought you back to your first road trip.
Or made you cry for no reason at all in the car.
You didn’t need to understand it to be moved by it.
And maybe you don’t need to understand the painting either.
Maybe liking it, or not is reason enough.
Maybe feeling something is the meaning.
So the next time you look at a piece of art, try not to solve it.
Try to sit with it.
Let it work on you, the way a great track does.
Let it be what it is.
Unexplained. Untranslated. Undeniably yours.