[Jim Moonan]

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To some here this may be old hat... But even an old hat is worth wearing once in awhile : )

Recently the NYT posted an article entitled Test Your Focus: Can You Spend 10 Minutes With One Painting? My first thought was to post this on the “Art Board”. But it is more about contemplation than it is painting. It guides you to focus closely for ten minutes on a piece of art — In this case James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Blue and Silver. At first glance it is unassuming. But the objective is to spend ten uninterrupted minutes examining it, noticing things that a glance does not reveal. At risk of hyperbole, it proved to be an antidote to my “sound bite” reality where everything is going at high speed. It proved to be a simple exercise to slow my mind down and deepen my thoughts. It can apply to almost anything worthy of considering.

If you want to go all-in, they also link of Professor Robert’s original assignment given to her students in her Art History class that requires spending three uninterrupted hours with a painting (or song or poem or old shoe).

At this very moment I am staring at a clear glass of water with ice cubes in it. If I should continue to gaze at it uninterrupted for ten minutes — or even three hours — I’m certain to come away enlightened.


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[Nick McRae]

The Sistine Chapel comes to mind as one where my wife and I did this without thinking about it.

Lately I find I can only give that much attention to poetry during vacation days. That's the only time I have the energy for it.

Maybe staring at art is a luxury.

[Jim Moonan]

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It takes a conscious effort for me to slow myself down and experience the depth of so many things I whizz by at ninety mph. It's beginning to happen gradually, late in life, when contemplation is at its best. Not everything, mind you, requires contemplation. But there is so much I miss when I'm not prepared to experience it.

Ten minutes is an arbitrary thing. The point is, we look but don't see; we hear but don't listen. Let's not call it mindfulness. Let's call it awareness.

It's more than an exercise. It's a state of preparedness.

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[Julie Steiner]

This sounds like a variation of this study from about ten years ago:

Stare Into Someone’s Eyes for 10 Solid Minutes and Things Are Going to Get Weird

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

Thread title: Can You Spend 10 Minutes With One Painting? One Song? One Poem? An Old Shoe?

My first thought was to post this on the “Art Board”. But it is more about contemplation than it is painting.

FWIW, Jim, I don't think the analogy holds. The claim on our attention made by a poem or song (or something in prose) is more time-bound than that made by a painting. Which isn't to say that it doesn't require concentration to focus on a song or poem.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

.Ten minutes is an arbitrary thing. The point is, we look but don't see; we hear but don't listen. Let's not call it mindfulness. Let's call it awareness.

It's more than an exercise. It's a state of preparedness.---

That sounds a lot like enlightenment to me. I think what you point out is a perennial problem, but I sometimes wonder if not seeing or listening can have it's own logic. Maybe what one is driven to give their attention to varies from person to person, and for some, the objects of interest just don't have a lot of depth.