Dear Learners,
'The question as to whether a thing is dividual or individual is decided
by the criterion of indefinite extension or definite measure. For where
there is indefinite extension, arbitrary divisions can be made without
changing the structural style. But where an individual has definite
measure, nothing can be added or subtracted without changing it into
another individual.' Paul Klee.
(Soft Voice - Sotto Voce) Symbol arising such that nothing is repeated-
every unit is different from every other.
Lord Kenneth Clarke once INFORMED me this of a Rembrandt self portrait in
Washington when comparing it to earlier works and later ones, so defining
a metanoiaic moment in the passing life of a great humanist, 'Even if that
head had appeared unsupported from the darkness as with Rembrandt it often
does, it would still be a great picture. All artists have an obsessive
central experience round which their work take shape.'
Particle and whole as co-dependent?
I see a 'ragged edged vortex' arising from the ground of my imagination.
A microcosm in the sensible universum now is forming multiversa.
How does one change the world for heaven sake?
I will say that again in case it gets missed ;-)
How does one change the world for heaven sake?
Young genius that Rembrandt was, his excellence then lay in his desire to
offer us vivacity of expression 'affectum vivacitate'- to give visible
form to human feelings. For him this meant 'pulling faces', distorting his
own visage in innumerable etchings and drawings.
Within the confines of his own face he would seek the freedom of all
faces.
Many times he presented himself as a beggar, he frequented the 'lower
orders' head down toward mother earth, possibly?
Then the success, the 'fancy dress' the uniforms of wealth, disguised in
furs and armour and satin and brocade for his beloved Saskia. But it was
not to last.
In the Washington portrait 1650 a certain veil of sadness has descended,
the fine clothes remain but the essentiality is expanding to embody his
growing inner experiences and realizations, he has hit a ragged edge
somewhere undefined between his 'current reality' and his 'vision'. The
game does not so much widen as deepen. He reached to the plough.
He has a new countenance Not one that is grimaced into existence, scowled
or laughed into the contortions of expression but he has acquired the face
that 'involvement in the spectacle of life' has given him. He receives
himself differingly and in this he is gifted and freed so that he receives
all others differingly.
With greatest 'care' and 'compassion'. Life has 'gifted' him the face he
deserves.
It is in truth a reflection.
The best. The only.
A man asked another man, 'Is there too much suffering in the world?' The
other man replied,' No, there is the perfect amount.'
Inward and outward, searching the deepest inner rhytmn.
The pulse of life. Self-examination.
Detachment and engagement.
Like Pollock centuries later, Rembrandt too lost himself into the voids of
his darkbright backgrounds in the 'certain knowledge' that for now he was the
limit of his world and out of the void that he now constituted all loss, all
yielding leads forth, issues forth a richer understanding, an 'overstanding'.
A new reality is now possible, rebirth of self in self reflection or
examination through the objectivity afforded by concentration on the
formal means alone...¦no different for the purest scientist I reckon...¦he
now has no reason to make himself 'appear better' than he finds himself,
or better perhaps than his neighbour who in the past has modeled for him.
It was his neighbour after all in whom he found the countenance of his
Lord on the cross, or the disciples and the host of characters 'this
worldly' and 'otherworldly' that are the raisonne d'etre of his
'lifework'.
Letting go of our 'surface sensibilities' in the ground of 'selfless'
work, however mundane it may have to be affords us IMHO the 'sustaining
glimpse'. Even toward the greatest stretching of human sensibilities of
human existential philosophy we are inspired to believe that in losing
even our faith it is restored and regained. A differing but same metanoia
I am sure.
As Clarke points us, we need patience in masterwork, even the masterwork
in/of the life belonging of a 'simple beggar' takes care, patience and
time. Rembrandt's paintings now contain many layers that each takes days,
even weeks to dry so much so that in his preferred way, he might then, and
only then, apply the next. So the face you see that is so authentic as a
'glimpsed' given/received moment, surely as immediate as any photograph
may in fact be the result of months of work. We might now be led to the
idea of a forming held within the form, time suspended within a one truly
deep surface (as per his universum) that is truly, deeply many surface one
nesting on and in another, (as per his universum).
Can one be many? I see no reason, why not?
I will say that again ;-) I see no reason, why not?
The one known sitter who had the patience to sit for him twice was
Margaretha Tripp. Since the 'one' sat 'twice' he gave us two portraits
both in the London national Gallery, one a public face and the other a
private.
Most of those who have patiently stood with these remarkable expressions
of loving human industry remark that what is indivisible as a quality in
the divisibility of quantity that is the pigmentuponsurface (one word
please) is the 'mood' of the painter, whether the subject be self or
another. Even unto, into, out of and around a landscape or a Lion.
In one face we can have the melodious and invisible slipping of fine tonal
values which 'ease' us from one facet of face to the next in semi
permeable relief and release, but then in lighter tonal areas, which in
the 'orbit of the human skull' must mean the light defining, the brush is
inverted, the sharpened point 'scratches' and cuts into the
fleshwhichispaint. It is like the scalpel at work, soul searching.
Now another moment of metanoia (-I want to say release).
I must use word upon word those of the esteemed Lord Clarke since his
genius differing respectfully bows not before the mighty genius of
Rembrandt but before that unsightly and bulbous nose, swollen from a
lifetime of hard drinking and involvement. " By that red nose I am
rebuked. I suddenly recognise the shallowness of my morality, the
narrowness of my sympathies and the trivial nature of my occupations. The
humility of Rembrandt's colossal genius warns the art historian to shut
up.' (1960)
I cannot just leave you floating with the metanoiaic moment of a great
mans reflections upon another's nose.
I want to invoke and evoke.
'The question as to whether a thing is dividual or individual is decided
by the criterion of indefinite extension or definite measure. For where
there is indefinite extension, arbitrary divisions can be made without
changing the structural style. But where an individual has definite
measure, nothing can be added or subtracted without changing it into
another individual.' Paul Klee.
:-)
Rembrandt, like his lifework was made of many marks, receiving and giving
imprints alike. I ask anyone to show me the imprint 'received' or that
'given' that was not necessary to/for the 'whole' lifework he both
bequeathed and that he was, is and will always now be.
It is not possible.
Of another it is said that He knows them all by their names. Every living
thing and even 'unliving' thing has a 'name' and the 'only name' it has is
to be properly met in the 'only moment' that passes by; somehow always
that way and not this- or so it seems to us.
And capturing that is 'caring in essence' so far as I can see.
When I typed in the word 'unliving' a few lines above this the software
correction facility on MS '98 gave me another word instead perhaps
thinking I had meant to write something else. Try it you might be
surprised, that is metanoia too...¦maybe.
A tiny gift?
You choose.
Best wishes,
Andrew Campbell
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