Art is not what you see, but what you make others see

What is art, truly? Is it the brush on canvas, the chisel on stone, the rhythm of music, or the silence between words? Or is it something far more intimate, an invisible thread between the creator and the beholder, where feelings, meanings and ideas are transferred without needing to be explained?

Edgar Degas once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” It is a statement that haunts the soul of every creator and invites each viewer to step beyond mere observation into an act of connection.

To see is easy. To make someone else see, not just with their eyes but with their emotions, memories and inner world, is a rare kind of magic. When Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night, he did not replicate the sky as it appeared. He transmitted the turbulence of his soul, the storm of mental illness clashing with a longing for peace. The viewer doesn’t just see stars; they feel isolation, longing and the fragile beauty of existence.

This is where the process of art begins, not with paint, nor stone, nor words, but in the mind. Before Michelangelo lifted a chisel, he claimed he saw the figure trapped inside the marble. He simply removed the excess. Such vision is not merely technical; it is cerebral, imaginative and deeply spiritual.

The brain of the artist works differently, it fuses logic and intuition, detail and abstraction, thought and instinct. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t just create Mona Lisa; he gave us a mystery that has endured centuries, a smile that seduces every imagination that meets it.

Art is the language of the unseen. It’s how Frida Kahlo expressed pain that could not be verbalised, how Picasso made sense of a fractured world, how Claude Monet captured time not as a ticking clock but as light gently dancing on water. It is how we learn to see again, not with our pupils, but with our hearts.

The imagination is not just a luxury for artists; it is the birthplace of empathy. When Gabriel García Márquez wrote about magical villages and eternal rain, he wasn’t escaping reality, he was decoding it, translating human truths into metaphors that pierced the soul. Similarly, Yayoi Kusama, through her infinity rooms, does not simply present art, she pulls us inside her mind, where obsession, pattern and eternity collapse into one.

But making others see is not about control. The artist doesn't dictate interpretation; rather, they open a door. Each viewer brings their own history to the moment. A painting may whisper freedom to one and melancholy to another. In that space of ambiguity lies the true power of art: its capacity to multiply meaning, to ignite different truths in different hearts.

When Banksy paints a girl letting go of a red balloon on a crumbling wall, he’s not just decorating public space. He’s telling a story, of innocence, of loss, of rebellion.

Art like his cuts through noise because it speaks in silence, in irony, in metaphor. The same is true of Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose seemingly chaotic canvases are explosive conversations about race, capitalism and identity. They don’t demand answers; they demand introspection.

Art is a form of communication older than language. Long before words, humans painted on cave walls trying to say, I was here. I felt this. I mattered. Today, whether through digital installations, photography, music, or performance, artists continue the same mission: not just to be seen, but to be felt.

To make others see what you see is not to replicate your vision, but to inspire theirs. The artist’s mission is not to persuade but to awaken. Sometimes, they succeed in creating a single moment of revelation where time pauses, breath catches and a person says, “Now I understand. Now I feel.”

That moment is sacred.

Art is not a product; it is an experience. It is the invisible hand reaching from one soul to another. A mirror that reflects, a window that reveals, a dream that transcends. It is a whisper across time that says: Look again. Feel again. Be more human.

Art is not what you see, it is what you make others see. And in that shared vision, we find the essence of humanity itself.