Monday, January 30, 2017

Aspect of Unreality


"From the mast-head the mirage is continually giving us false alarms. Everything wears an aspect of unreality. Icebergs hang upside down in the sky; the land appears as layers of silvery or golden cloud. Cloud-banks look like land, icebergs masquerade as islands or nunataks, and the distant barrier to the south is thrown into view, although it really is outside our range of vision. Worst of all is the deceptive appearance of open water, caused by the refraction of distant water, or by the sun shining at an angle on a field of smooth snow or the face of ice-cliffs below the horizon."

Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 - 1922)
South! (from Captain's log of "Endurance")

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Imagery


"There is at the back of every artist’s mind something like a pattern and a type of architecture. The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery. It is a thing like the landscape of his dreams; the sort of world he would like to make or in which he would like to wander, the strange flora and fauna, his own secret planet, the sort of thing he likes to think about. This general atmosphere, and pattern or a structure of growth, governs all his creations, however varied."

- G.K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The Invisible


"We are more closely connected
to the invisible
than to the visible."

- Novalis (1772 - 1801)

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Organization of Energy


"Science shows us that the
visible world is neither 
matter nor spirit;
the visible world is the invisible 
organization of energy."

- Heinz Pagels (1939-1988)

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Hidden Laws


"We should not see beyond nature. Rather, we should, so to speak, see through nature. We should see more deeply, see abstractly, and above all universally... The laws that have come to define the artistic culture are the great hidden laws of nature which art stipulates in its own way. It should be emphasized that these laws are more or less hidden behind the superficial aspect of nature, hence abstract art is opposed to the natural representation of things, although it is not opposed to nature, as most people think. It is opposed to man's brutish, primitive, animal nature, yet it is synonymous with the true nature of humanity."

- Piet Mondrian (1872 - 1944)

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Let the Waters Settle


"Let the waters settle
and you will see the moon
and the stars mirrored
in your own being."

- Jalaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273)

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Spirit


"It is not always needful
for truth to take a definite shape;
it is enough if it hovers about us
like a spirit and produces harmony;
if it is wafted through the air
like the sound of a bell,
grave and kindly."

Johann Wolgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Saturday, January 07, 2017