Art
Pure spatial intuition is the goal – Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Nietzsche and Bergson are my favourite Western philosophers. The first breaks things apart while affirming individual will against society, history, and collectivism. The second builds up, using a logic of intuition. Nietzsche read Buddhism critically, and Bergson is sometimes consistent with […]
My favourite line in the Book of Changes is for hexagram one in the fifth place: “Flying dragon in the heavens.” I like it for philosophical reasons, and what it means structurally. The fifth line of the first hexagram is important. Another line I like is in hexagram five: “Waiting in the meadow, it furthers […]
For Conceptual Art I find symbols, assemble ideas, and connect it together aesthetically. Researching the lines of Shakespeare, I found this: To gild refined gold, to paint the lily To throw a perfume on the violet To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous […]
There is an invisible world out there, and we are living in it – Bill Viola The creative process for Conceptual Art is the same with Conceptual Portraits. I learn about a person’s life with its details, interests, where they live, work, and play. Public figures like J.K. Rowling are not entirely private. If […]
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness ― George Orwell, 1984 1984 is a well known but you must know it book. I read it as a teenager with little idea of what it meant. The film version is grey, dark, and depressing, except for one scene where Winston escapes […]
Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain...
The Zen aesthetic is fascinating. Less is more, and encourages mental calm. That’s the reason for Zen gardens, reproducing nature with subtlety and suggestion. The wave patterns in a a bed of pebbles say something about natural energies. Consider how different that is from a city which talks to you incessantly, calling out, demanding your […]
I enjoyed this Conceptual Art because initially I didn’t know what to do. It was challenging. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a beautiful poem but doesn’t easily translate into a picture. I’ll describe what happened in more detail than usual. I thought of the opening lines describing a soulless and forlorn city. […]
Possibly my favourite line in Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain is this: “I like the unpath best.” It’s a quotation from a child. Shepherd doesn’t say it. The highest place I’ve walked is in the Swiss Alps where it’s hard to breathe. It’s an alarming experience. Mountaineers presumably get used to it, when they don’t […]
“For you know only a heap of broken images” ― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land The Waste Land is the poem I return to the most. Eliot, possibly, my favourite poet. This is because of intellectual depth, based on important premises. We can’t understand the present without gazing at the past. Won’t be able […]