The wonder of you

Such a beautiful painting, you have captured such a special moment of motherhood.

Alon Martsiano’s The wonder of you is a heartfelt portrait of motherhood expressed with a sense of love and sincerity that defies verbal description. On the surface, one would imagine intensely personal subject matter difficult for most people to engage with meaningfully. Still, this dynamic is decidedly rare in art of any kind. Of course, some surrealist dreamscapes are difficult for many people to understand on an emotional level. However, even the most enigmatic Leonardo Carrington paintings are relatable not in their subject matter but in the general dreamy ethos, they capture. When one moves beyond highly subjective surrealist fantasies, the personal becomes even more accessible. In fact, one could convincingly make the case that personal narratives are the most powerful inspiration for mass understanding.

The viewer is enthralled by form and color when confronted with beautiful abstract artworks. This sort of appreciation is by no means inferior to its figurative counterparts, nor is the work innately less personal (although abstraction is in large part more dedicated to exploration and subversion of aesthetic traditions and capturing raw emotion than concrete human pursuits). However, when presented with figurative depictions of interpersonal relationships, viewers are compelled to connect their history to the subject matter or remain utterly befuddled. I contend that one is more likely to experience the latter when confronted with a masterful figurative expression of the personal like The wonder of you.

I do not have a child, and it is more than possible I never will, but as I gaze upon and ingest The wonder of you, I can feel the parental love I have never felt. I do not claim to understand it as much as Martsiano or any other parent, but his honesty and emotive clarity give me access to a love that was hitherto inaccessible. No matter one’s experience, Martsiano imparts his joy.