Henri Matisse
Sometimes, differences are the most important parts of our world. If there weren't differences between people and things and colors and sounds, our lives would be devoid of diversity and art and music. While differences are definitely something that should be celebrated by all of us, we unfortunately seem to react negatively to many of them. If someone doesn't do something the "right" way, if someone is wearing "weird" clothes or even "acting weird," we tend to react in ways that tell that person that he or she is doing something wrong by not conforming to the "norms" that are so important to us.
But if I'm a green and you're a yellow, that's a wonderful thing. And it's wonderful simply because it is so, not because of any sort of inherent value in either of the colors. What tends to happen to us, though, is that we like to fit in ourselves, so I would tend to gravitate towards other greens. I feel safe if I do so because we share something very important, and I'm never going to get mocked for my color by other greens, because they're green, too. And once I'm together with other greens, we like to look for things that set us apart from others in order to reinforce our self-images. We greens, after all, believe in A, B, and C, while I met a yellow yesterday who actually believes in D and E--those yellows sure are strange, aren't they?
But Matisse understands something very important from an artist's perspective: our differences are worth looking at because they're what allow us to distinguish between things. On a canvas, the ocean is blue and the sky is a different shade of blue--or even yellow or red if you're painting a sunset. Or the ocean can be grey, and the sky a different shade of grey. The trees are green while the pond is blue and the flowers are yellow and red. The differences make the things stand out, and we don't fault an artist for pointing out the differences between yellow flowers and red ones.
For some reason, though, we may find it offensive to point out that one person's skin is darker or lighter than ours. We stay quiet and don't talk about someone else's sexuality, because it's their business.
The important thing to remember, though, is that if no judgment is included in a statement, it's not offensive. If a person is simply making an observation, then what's the problem? Your skin is darker than mine. Cool. You're gay, and I'm not. No big deal. The problems arise when we tie in judgment with our observations--then we're judging others for something as simple as the pigments in their skin, or something as private and personal as their sexual preferences, or for their gender or age.
Matisse didn't judge when he painted differences. If he saw blue, I hope that he used blue paint to represent what he saw. Can you imagine an artist with this plan: "I won't paint any yellow flowers because yellow flowers aren't as good as orange ones"? It would be ridiculous.
Our differences make for an amazing world. None of us really want to imagine a world of identical beings thinking in identical ways and doing identical things--it would be a horrible nightmare. We really must celebrate our differences and accept others just as they are if we're really going to live full and fulfilling lives, for not to do so would be to deny the diversity of life, to limit ourselves to what we consider to be safe, while judging things that make us uncomfortable. And once we start judging other things, we'll never actually learn from them--and that's a terrible tragedy.
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