Living Geometry

"We apprehend Him in the alternate voids and fullness of a cathedral; in the space that separates the salient features of a painting; in the living geometry of a flower, a seashell, an animal; in the pauses and intervals between the notes of music, in their differences of tone and sonority; and finally on the planes of conduct, in love and gentleness, the confidence and humility, which give beauty to the relationships between human beings."

- Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)

Unbroken Boundaries

"The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts.

...

There is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux.

...

In this flow, mind and matter
are not separate substances.
Rather, they are different aspects
of one whole and unbroken movement."

 - David Bohm (1917 - 1992)

Note. These are all reflections off of cars I took with my iPhone this morning to help break the monotony of sitting in a Nissan dealership waiting for my car to get serviced. As I've repeatedly noted on this blog, images - heck, veritable universes - are everywhere 😊

The Gift of Harmony

"The woods, the vines, the very stones, were at one with the brightness of the sun and the unblemished sky, and even when the sky grew overcast, the multitude of leaves, as in a sudden change of tone, the earth of the roads, the roofs of the town, seemed as though caught up in the unity of a brand-new world. And all that Jean was feeling seemed without effort to chime with the surrounding oneness, and he was conscious of the perfect joy which is the gift of harmony."

- Marcel Proust (1987 - 1922)
Jean Santeuil

Withered Leaves

"If in our withered leaves you see

Hint of your own mortality:—

Think how, when they have turned to earth,

New loveliness from their rich worth

Shall spring to greet the light; then see

Death as the keeper of eternity,

And dying Life’s perpetual re-birth !"

- Poem attributed to the initials W.L. (Epigraph, Chapter 6)
Arthur E. Shipley, Life: A Book for Elementary Students

Orderly Action Within the Whole

"One must then go on to
a consideration of time as a
projection of multidimensional
reality into a sequence of moments.

...

Thought divides itself from feeling and from the body. Thought is said to be the mind; we have the notion that it is something abstract or spiritual or immaterial. Then there is the body, which is very physical. And we have emotions, which are perhaps somewhere in between. The idea is that they are all different. That is, we think of them as different. And we experience them as different because we think of them as different.

...

Man’s general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."

 - David Bohm (1917 - 1992)

We Are All One

"When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?

For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole."

- Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)
The Problem of Increasing Human Energy 

A Sea of Forms

"A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature. For, although the works of nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the expression of them all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the ocean, make an analogous impression on the mind. What is common to them all, — that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms, — the totality of nature; which the Italians expressed by defining beauty "il piu nell' uno." Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Nature

Universal Patterns

"Every unique thing in nature is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. In geometric harmony of the cosmos there are ways that resemble, there are universal patterns, from blood vessels, to winter trees or to a river delta, from nautilus shell to spiral galaxy, from neurons in the brain to the cosmic web. A whole universe of connections is in your mind – a universe within a universe – and one capable of reaching out to the other that gave rise to it. Billions of neurons touching billions of stars – surely spiritual."

- Alejandro Mos Riera (1978 - )

Universal Causation

"But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages."

- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Stirrings of the Soul

"The sea refreshes our imagination because it does not make us think of human life; yet it rejoices the soul, because, like the soul, it is an infinite and impotent striving, a strength that is ceaselessly broken by falls, an eternal and exquisite lament. The sea thus enchants us like music, which, unlike language, never bears the traces of things, never tells us anything about human beings, but imitates the stirrings of the soul. Sweeping up with the waves of those movements, plunging back with them, the heart thus forgets its own failures and finds solace in an intimate harmony between its own sadness and the sea’s sadness, which merges the sea’s destiny with the destinies of all things."

- Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

Order and Harmony

"There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause. … This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized."

- Robert Jastrow (1925 - 2008)
The Enchanted Loom

Unexpected Meeting

"Mathematicians attach great importance to the elegance of their methods and their results. This is not pure dilettantism. What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration? It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details. But this is exactly what yields great results, in fact the more we see this aggregate clearly and at a single glance, the better we perceive its analogies with other neighboring objects, consequently the more chances we have of divining the possible generalizations. Elegance may produce the feeling of the unforeseen by the unexpected meeting of objects we are not accustomed to bring together; there again it is fruitful, since it thus unveils for us kinships before unrecognized. It is fruitful even when it results only from the contrast between the simplicity of the means and the complexity of the problem set; it makes us then think of the reason for this contrast and very often makes us see that chance is not the reason; that it is to be found in some unexpected law. In a word, the feeling of mathematical elegance is only the satisfaction due to any adaptation of the solution to the needs of our mind, and it is because of this very adaptation that this solution can be for us an instrument. Consequently this aesthetic satisfaction is bound up with the economy of thought."

- Henri Poincare (1854 - 1912)

Heraclitean Fire

Higher-res portfolio

"All things are in flux; 

the flux is subject to a 

unifying measure or rational principle. 

This principle (logos, 

the hidden harmony behind all change) 

bound opposites together in a unified tension, 

which is like that of a lyre, 

where a stable harmonious sound 

emerges from the tension of the 

opposing forces that arise from the 

bow bound together by the string.

...

The living and the dead,

The awake and the sleeping,

The young and the old are all one and the same.

When the ones change, they become the others.

When those shift again, they become these again.

...

God is day and night.

God is winter and summer.

God is war and peace.

God is fertility and famine.

He transforms into many things.

...

Day and night are one.

Goodness and badness are one.

The beginning and the end of a circle are one."

- Heraclitus (c.535 - c.475 BC)

Unexpected Meeting of Objects

"Mathematicians attach great importance to the elegance of their methods and their results. This is not pure dilettantism. What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration? It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details. But this is exactly what yields great results, in fact the more we see this aggregate clearly and at a single glance, the better we perceive its analogies with other neighboring objects, consequently the more chances we have of divining the possible generalizations. Elegance may produce the feeling of the unforeseen by the unexpected meeting of objects we are not accustomed to bring together; there again it is fruitful, since it thus unveils for us kinships before unrecognized. It is fruitful even when it results only from the contrast between the simplicity of the means and the complexity of the problem set; it makes us then think of the reason for this contrast and very often makes us see that chance is not the reason; that it is to be found in some unexpected law. In a word, the feeling of mathematical elegance is only the satisfaction due to any adaptation of the solution to the needs of our mind, and it is because of this very adaptation that this solution can be for us an instrument. Consequently this esthetic satisfaction is bound up with the economy of thought."

- Henri Poincare (1854 - 1912)

Eternal Harmony

"There are moments, and it is only a matter of five or six seconds, when you feel the presence of the eternal harmony . . . a terrible thing is the frightful clearness with which it manifests itself and the rapture with which it fills you. If this state were to last more than five seconds, the soul could not endure it and would have to disappear. During these five seconds I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my whole life and not think that I was paying too dearly . . ."

- Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)

A Great Dream

"Coincidence is the simultaneous occurrence of causally unconnected events...If we visualize each causal chain progressing in time as a meridian on the globe, then we may represent simultaneous events by the parallel circles of latitude...Thus progressions of causal events proceed in one direction, while coincidences link these events from a completely different direction, in a completely different progression. One might say the "motives" of coincidence are of a different "character" or even from a different 'dimension' from causal events.

All the events in a man's life accordingly stand in two fundamentally different kinds of connection: firstly, in the objective, causal connection of the natural process; secondly, in a subjective connection which exists only in relation to the individual who experiences it, and which is thus as subjective as his own dreams, whose unfolding content is necessarily determined, but in the manner in which the scenes in a play are determined by the poet's plot. That both kinds of connection exist simultaneously, and the self-same event, although a link in two totally different chains, nevertheless falls into place in both, so that the fate of one individual invariably fits the fate of the other, and each is the hero of his own drama while simultaneously figuring in a drama foreign to him--this is something that surpasses our powers of comprehension, and can only be conceived as possible by virtue of the most wonderful pre-established harmony...It is a great dream dreamt by the single entity, the Will to Life: but in such a way that all his personae must participate in it. Thus, everything is interrelated and mutually attuned."

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

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)

Goethe on Science

Symmetries & Forms

"The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand. The fact is that the beautiful, humanly speaking, is merely form considered in its simplest aspect, in its most perfect symmetry, in its most entire harmony with our make-up. Thus the ensemble that it offers us is always complete, but restricted like ourselves. What we call the ugly, on the contrary, is a detail of a great whole which eludes us, and which is in harmony, not with man but with all creation. That is why it constantly presents itself to us in new but incomplete aspects."

- Victor Hugo

(1802 - 1885)

Spiritual Wings

 

"... thus music brings into view the form of movement of celestial bodies, the pure form, freed from object and matter, as its very rhythm and harmony. Music is that art which has shed physicalness the most, by presenting pure movement as such, removed from any object, and by being carried by invisible, almost spiritual wings." 

– F. W. J. Schelling (1775 - 1854)

Philosophy of Art

Photography, Elemental Forms, Narrative, and Music

"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.... I get most joy in life out of music" - Albert Einstein

In my "Long belated return to blogging..." blog entry a few weeks ago, I alluded to finding a new reverie in the "music" of Kauai's tonal forms and rhythms - something I'm becoming more and more drawn to in general (far transcending what my "eye" saw during my family's trip to Kauai in July, and something I am becoming more and more sensitive to in my photography); but I did not, in that ealier entry, elaborate on what I meant by "music."

Historically, the connection between photography and music goes back at least as far as the oft-told story of how, in his youth, the great Ansel Adams needed a few years to choose between pursuing one or the other. Having obviously chosen photography, Ansel's passion for - and ability to make - music never waned throughout the remaining years of his life. Indeed, it both informed and inspired his art. Some of his best known aphorisms are couched in music-speak; e.g., "Photographers are in a sense composers," he once said, "and the negatives are their scores." The list of accomplished photographers who are also gifted in music (and vice versa) is long (Graham Nash, Ralph Gibson, Milt Hinton, Bryan Adams, and Kenny Rogers, to name just a few); perhaps as long as the one that includes mathematicians and scientists as well (e.g., Bruce Barnbaum, Larry Blackwood, Norman Koren, Charles Johnson, and - of course - one of the co-inventors of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot).

"Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode – from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage – the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms feelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected." - Ralph Gibson

But the sense in which I find myself applying "music" to photography nowadays has little to do with this simplest of associations; for I mean it quite literally: images perceived as music! Perhaps spurred by subconscious machinations about my multi-year experiments with "Synesthetic Landscapes,"  I am tending to hear the tonal and elemental forms and structures of images, as though my visual and aural circuits have crossed (which, not coincidentally, is the essence of synesthesia). But whereas my "Synesthetic Landscape" series is admittedly an artificial construct, deliberately crafted to evoke a sense of synesthesia in the viewer (and whose physical appearance actually owes nothing to synesthesia, per se, since it is an almost wholly "cognitive" experiment), inexplicably, my aesthetic "eye" is being drawn more and more to compositions that - synesthestically - evoke real music within me. I hear the images that my camera's viewfinder shows me, and the ones that I seem to keep and decide to print are those whose melodies I enjoy the most. My current favorite "reason" (that I give to those who ask) why a specific image, say, continues to adorn my office wall, when others - even those I have liked in the past - come and go with regularity, is that the keepers simply sing.  But what do I mean by this?

After some deliberation (and with the understanding that these thoughts are still closer to stream-of-conscious ruminations than coherent worldviews), I'd like to offer a hypothesis of why certain images just seem to "sing" - and others do not - and what this may have to say about the general aesthetic appreciation of images on a fundamental level (at least one that I have not previously encountered in academic discussions). I propose that the images with which we most strongly resonate - those that give the most aesthetic "pleasure" - are those whose innate harmonies are entwined on two levels: (1) spatial, in which an otherwise complex morass of visual details and textures may be distilled into a much simpler set of elemental forms and structures; and (2) temporal, in which the relationships among the elemental spatial forms are, in our mind's eyes and ears, experienced as a narrative that unfolds in time. It is when an image harbors an especially acute harmony in both its spatial and temporal dimensions that our gaze tends to linger just a bit longer; and to which we can only say, if asked, "Why do you keep looking at it?" that it simply sings.

"Music creates order out of chaos." - Yehudi Menuhin

The "image" at the top of this entry depicts a 10-frame "narrative" that includes the elemental forms I've deconstructed out of one of my favorite "Kauai music" images (that also appeared in my earlier post). Here is the spatial deconstruction itself:

Each frame of the "narrative" contains just the elemental forms that - at a given slice in time - draw most attention (for me; your narrative will, of course, be different). I first look at the dominant root at near center, as it swoops to the upper right of the composition (frame 1). My eye next goes over to the top left to take in the gentle rhythm of the leaves (frame 2), then moving downward to gaze at the smaller root and the decaying bamboo sheath to its right (frame 3); and so on. The narrative encodes my experience in time of the elemental forms that make up the otherwise static image. The spatial forms are not only pleasant to look at (at least, for me) because they evoke a "harmony of fixed structures" (i.e., the "parts" that make up the distillation at the far right in the triptych above), but also strongly evoke a music-like "harmony of dynamic structures" that are best appreciated as an aesthetic narrative that unfolds in an inner, experiential time. It is as though the innate harmony of inherent forms is so strong that it lifts the otherwise two dimensional image into a higher dimension; one that is best "seen" by having its innate melody heard, and as its elemental notes gently play out, and linger, in our mind's ears. Photographic aesthetics as an experiential union of space and time.