In October my sister and I hope to go on a trip to Bordeaux, France -- and in preparation I've been reading a book, "The Cave Painters" by Geoffrey Curtis, which focuses on the many paleolithic cave paintings in the south of France: when and how they may have been painted and by whom, who discovered them, and the archaeologists and anthropologists who have tried to understand their meaning and purpose.

Curtis writes about his emotional reaction seeing a cave painting where a male reindeer is leaning down to lick the head of a female reindeer, saying that it is "rare among cave paintings because it shows a moment of affection." And then he says: "Beauty in art or in nature or in a person is always surprising because it is stronger and more affecting than you could have anticipated."

I've been thinking about that -- about how the moment of encountering something beautiful often feels like a wave, unexpectedly powerful, washing over me. Whether it's looking at a painting or photograph, or a summer field of flowers, or the delightful, perfect beauty of a cat -- in that moment, I sometimes think "If life consisted of nothing more than this, it is enough."

Perhaps that's what art is all about.  Perhaps artists -- of any time and place -- are simply trying to capture a moment of beauty -- to explore it, preserve it, share it.   How very human that attempt is -- now and here, in Vermont, or thousands of years ago in a cave in France....

Elizabeth