The English Writer C.S. Lewis, in the autobiography upon which is based the Richard Attenborough film "Shadowlands", remembered a painting that hung in his childhood nursery. By means of it he would travel in his youthful imagination to another world - a happier one, without shadows. This aptly illustrates how a work of art can transcend reality, transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary - transporting us as in a reverie to a better place. Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of such commonplace things as his chair, shoes, and bedroom in Arles also exemplify this principle. Who would be enchanted by comparison, with photographs of such mundane things? The photographic image, though it faithfully reproduces reality - perhaps because it does - lacks the evocative power of the artist's brush. Van Gogh's paintings somehow touch something deep within us, so that we delight in hanging images of such everyday things on our walls to delight in again and again, always finding new sources of pleasure. We know not how, but the artist gives us new vision... and ugly old boots become remarkably, amazingly, beautiful. But not everything aspiring to the lofty title "work of art" is able to do this ...to tranform the mundane into the magical. Why is this so? The answer to that question is shrouded in mystery and measures the great chasm that separates art from mere illustration. To find the key that unlocks this great mystery is the challenge facing the would-be artist... the butterfly he must capture, the pinnacle he must scale, the angel he must wrestle... to transcend reality, make gold from mere dust, and a silk purse of a sow's ear. James Povah

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