Eat? drink? kiss?

The sixth sense (after Nikolay Gumilev). 12"x24". Oil on canvas. December 2012.

This painting is linked to a poem by Nikolay Gumilev, "The sixth sense". This poem inevitably swims up to my consciousness whenever I read (or listen to) any discussion about whether Art is subjective or objective, whether there is a way to distinguish what is art and what is not. Here is a summary of this poem in English prose:

Glorious is the playful wine in love with us,and the gracious bread that goes into oven for us, and the beautiful lover, who torments and delights us. But what can we do with this pink light of dawn above deep cold skies, with silence and unearthly beauty, with eternal lines of poetry? Eat, drink, kiss?  

And the moment slips away, inevitably; we miss it again, and again, and again. As a little boy entranced by a girl, without knowing anything about love yet; as a prehistoric beast struggling to fly with wings yet to appear – so centuries after centuries, under the scalpels of Nature and Art, our spirit and flesh are tormented by the sixth sense yet to evolve.