The happiness

“I have always considered art to be the principal means by which human beings communicate with one another thus feeling themselves to be a part of history and in harmony with nature and it is in this relationship that happiness resides”. Pierre Restany

Imagine being able to visit the Museum of Happiness, a magical place where the works of art are able to make us understand this powerful feeling, and not only understand it, but above all feel it, at least for a fleeting moment and to go away different, changed, transformed. To pause in front of a work of art, to stay in silence and let art and the energy of the creation take hold of us means to communicate with the elusive nature, with the fullness and the birth of the creation. It means to listen to the voice of our innermost aspiration: happiness. The sweetness of happiness reminds one of sugar, of earthly delights, yet at the same time it goes beyond the dimension of the senses to touch the invisible peaks of the human soul. The nature of happiness is the same as that of art: they are both revolutionary forces which stir from our thoughts and feelings and place such values as freedom and truth at stake. Art and happiness are tools with which to understand the world and human nature. They share two fundamental aspects of our being: on the one hand the desire for immortality, for duration in time, the aspiration to reach an ideal state,that of the work which represents Everything, means Everything, happiness and unhappiness, light and dark. On the other hand, there is the awareness of duration, of transience, of time, of all that is ephemeral, fleeting, wordly. When artists are absorbed in their work, they are completely immersed in a dimension which aspires to happiness as the original state of our being, of our creative intelligence. In mankind’s innermost soul the aspiration to happiness reigns supreme. It is up to us to defend it from those who would like to suppress it. Happiness feeds on the immaterial, yet it needs matter and experience in order to transpire. Yet what is the nature of happiness? Is it a form of hedonism and asceticism, it is also the ability not to become the victim of and dependent on pleasure. For this reason art is the golden mean to happiness, because whilst being involved with matter, the artist is called upon to expand the limits of his being and can do none other than wonder at the existence of the world, than see it as a miracle with eyes which go beyond possession. The happiness of creating is above whatever joy may derive from the created object and it is immortal and because, like the patient gardening of our soul, it is a constant practice which lovingly sets us in the present with the poetic vitality of life.

Stefania Carrozzini