Feeling Ambivalent?

Today's the day to take a stand!

It's Make up Your Mind Day—time to make a decision and commit to following through!

Today's artwork by Mohan B. Samant was part of the Container Corporation of America's advertising campaign called "Great Ideas." Walter Paepcke, founder of the Container Corporation, wanted the Great Ideas campaign "to stimulate thinking and discussion about the ideas at the roots of what the philosophers call 'the good life'; ideas that are infinitely more important to the preservation of our society and our liberties than the pursuit of material gain."

In keeping with today's theme of decision making, the artwork is titled with a quotation from the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad-Gita, "What the wise choose the unwise people take; what best men do the multitude will follow." It was published in March of 1958 in The New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek magazines.

Source: Martina Roudabush Norelli. Art, Design, and the Modern Corporation: The Collection of Container Corporation of America, A Gift to the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1985).

Pictured: Mohan B. Samant, born India 1926, "What the wise choose the unwise people take; what best men do the multitude will follow."—Bhagavad-Gita, Book III. From the series "Great Ideas of Eastern Man", 1957, oil, gouache, gold leaf, and ink on paperboard, 21 5/8 x 17 11/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America.