David Hockney

Caravaggio, 1598-9, Judith Beheading Holofernes

I just finished David Hockney's Secret Knowledge, cover to cover. Intriguing. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. I don't totally agree with everything he writes, but certainly, his thesis merits deeper investigation, even more than what he has already found. Basically, he claims that early in the 15th century, artists used lenses (a camera obscura) to help them draw and paint the world. And that even if they had not actually used the lens to draw, certainly they were influenced by paintings that were drawn with the aid of a lens; ultimately, paintings have a certain "look" when painted with the aid of a camera obscura. From my own experience, I can tell you, that certainly painting from a photograph is absolutely, 100% different than painting from life. There is a certain look to it that betrays its photographic lineage. It could be that when one is working from a photo, it feels as if there is no time limit... so, naturally, the hand slows down, the lines become static and too sure. Live models are fleeting. Muscles settle and move, expressions change, fruit decay, light fluctuates. But, mostly, you see differently. I see objects and can feel they are dimensional, they continue beyond what one can see, they continue to exist in time as well. Photographs are flattened and the dimension of time is lost, and it shows even when one tries to paint them. Hockney says the "look" of the camera obscura is the chiaroscuro, the dark deep shadowy background with the intense lighted foreground, all figures nearly lined up on a plane. Also, the sudden development of the fleeting expression, such as the smile. And, now when I see paintings, I cannot help but see them in this new light. I used to go often to the Norton Simon in Pasadena and think the same thing... why weren't there smiling people in paintings? Then again, a smile is a little disturbing. It would seem a little psychotic if a smile were perpetually frozen in a painting since smiles are supposed to be fleeting.  Smiles are natural expressions of joy/menace/deceit...  Why, even Pepperidge Farms had to leave some goldfish unsmiley. So, why is it that people always want to capture people smiling in photos?

Jungles and Cities

Alfred Russell Wallace

Where to travel to...? I do not have the time or money to travel to any region in the world. Not many people have that luxury, but I was thinking about where I would like to visit in the future and I just realized how much I've changed. I used to dream about walking through deep jungles, looking for beetles for my bug collection and bird watching, kind of like Alfred Russell Wallace, not Darwin, but Wallace. Here is a man after my own heart, studying spiritualism and coming up with spectacular theories about the origins of life. Yet, he is not famous the way Darwin was. Why is that? Was it because of his interest in spiritualism? Did the scientific community reject his work because they thought he was just a bit loony? It is as if he were swept under the rug and became a mere footnote in the history of science. But... anyway, I admired Alfred Russell Wallace and thought I should like to travel as he did, through the jungles of the Amazon and through the Malay archipelago, coming up with all-encompassing theories about life. Certainly, I think that is where science fails today. It is completely disjointed and fragmented. No longer are scientists supposed to even think about theories. They are supposed to work on one minute problem for their entire career... for instance, one might spend one's life studying metabolic rates of emperor penguins or tortoises... And, this is problematic in the sense that one cannot see the forest for the trees. But that is exactly what modern man has become, a specialist in the worst sense, completely missing out on the entire problem because he is so focused on one small minute aspect of this entire universe.

What was I saying.... yes, I just figured that I no longer have the willingness to go through jungles. Suddenly, I think I can no longer endure such things as mosquitoes or humidity. Suddenly, visiting cities sounds more than attractive and being in a cool place is bliss. And, how in the world did this happen? What is it about getting older that makes me less willing to traipse through a jungle? Theoretically, I would love to visit Thailand or Bali or Vietnam, but every time I look at a map, my mind wanders to the cities of Europe where it is cooler and I can get a cup of coffee in an over-priced cafe in the middle of a busy sidewalk. I dream of walking through manicured gardens, looking at marble statues. But... then, what of the wild places? Have they fallen away to an irretrievable past?

Wishes

Divination board, Yoruba peoples, possibly Owo region, Nigeria, Late 19th to early 20th century, Wood
According to Wikimedia, "For serious problems, the Yoruba go to an ifa diviner to consult Orunmila, the god of fate. A numerical pattern is obtained and recorded on the divination board. The diviner then recites the verses related to the numerical pattern." Two things. First, that in many cultures, there is the link between numbers and destiny (for example, numerology, birth dates in astrology, certain numbers being cursed or divine, etc.) Second is the pattern. And is that not what physics seeks to find? Patterns? Formulas to predict an action, a mathematical relation to things in the universe. And that is essentially what physics has always sought to predict or divine: the future. I wish someone had put it to me that way years ago. I think I might have chosen to become a physicist. Instead, we were just taught the inane... parts of equations, waves, particles, etc., but never a mention of the real goal, the true reason behind it all. You see, even though we claim to be "modern," and we like to think that what divides us from periods in the past which were fraught with superstitious behavior, the fact is, we are all still searching for the same thing as someone a thousand years ago, asking the same questions. Where does our future lie? Our solution is to go about it in a scientific fashion. We will use those same numbers, but now we plug them into new equations and try to find new patterns. We have not changed all that much, have we? We think that if only we could determine all the variables, then we would finally not be troubled anymore about what lay ahead. But then, where would be the surprise, the fun?

It's a funny thing, in years past, I would imagine something or think, wouldn't it be funny if... and then maybe a little later, that exact thing would happen. It seems strange. When I was about ten, I used to play with the globe in my father's study and I would spin it around and think about the countries in the world. The countries were colored in yellow, pink, purple, and orange. I always thought the smaller countries looked more inviting than the larger ones. They seemed as if they would be more friendly places to visit because you could probably walk around them easily. (In those days, I had also a fantasy of walking everywhere. I even thought it would be fun to be a walking mail person because then I would get to walk in the sunshine and say hello to everyone instead of sitting in an office under florescent lights. I would be outside in the middle of the day while everyone else was locked away at work.) Anyway, the smaller countries seemed more walkable and I wanted to visit these little places and walk around picking wildflowers. One day, I was just spinning the globe and I thought, I'm going to stop the globe and wherever my finger lands, I am going to live there when I grow up. I landed in Hawaii. And, years later, here I am.

Then, years and years ago, one odd day, I was talking to my friend R-- and we were talking about what we would do with our lives and I said, if only I could paint, then I wouldn't have to get a real job... (what a goal..!!)

So... what I mean is, do we make these things happen? I'm certainly not a planner. I don't plan out my life very well at all. In fact, I would say, life happens, opportunities come up, people... arrive. Is that the way of the world? Or is this at some level one's subconscious driving our decisions, however small, towards some direction that we may have wished for long ago?

Teaching, A Most Noble Endeavor... or not.

A few months ago, I had considered teaching art on the side, to fill the time when things were slow. So, I told J about it. And she said, well, DON'T do it. Just don't do it. O...K.... and why would that be? She said that people just sign up for "art" lessons so they don't have to buy your work. What??? Yes, apparently, our friend G-- used to offer lessons to these older women and they would just copy what he painted. Well, they didn't copy it. They would just sort of copy it and then he would "fix" it and voila, by the end of several lessons, they would have a genuine G-- painting. They would hang it up in their homes, tell their friends about it being a G-- painting, and probably brag that they paid thousands for it at the gallery. What a load of... All this, just $20 a class!! Personally, I think he even undercharged them for the class, but it was a way to keep himself busy while he was trying to establish himself. See how artists are exploited? There is just no justice. I see all the time posts for the "opportunity to build your portfolio" which should read "artists are saps and should give their work away for nothing."

The Lines of Fate

Destiny by John William Waterhouse


I have a weakness for things related to the supernatural. Maybe it's not healthy, maybe it's wrong, maybe it's superstitious... or maybe it's because it's real. I was reading Jung the other day and in one of his essays, he told of this "vision" that deeply disturbed him:

"In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low lying lands between the north sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realised that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilisation, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood . . . two weeks passed; then the vision recurred . . . even more vividly than before, and the blood was more emphasised. An inner voice spoke. "Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it." Soon afterwards [June 1914] I had a thrice repeated dream that in the middle of summer an Arctic cold wave descended and turned the land to ice . . . the entire region totally deserted by human beings. All living things were killed by frost."

This vision he had was in October of 1913, World War I broke out in August 1914. When war broke out, he finally realized that this dream was a foretelling of this event, of the death of millions of people. He thus conceives of this idea of the "collective unconscious," and that mankind is capable of accessing this connection through dreams. BUT... why does he not then go further and say that these types of dreams are actual prophecies? What I mean is, if people can have prophetic visions, then it follows that future events are already set to occur, that the future is already fated. This, of course, follows a linear view of time, that there exists a past, a present, and a future (as an aside, most language has evolved along this line of thought). However, if we believe in the changeability of the future, then we would have to accept the version of the universe that is split into an infinite number of universes, otherwise known as multiverses or metaverses. By exercising free will and choosing one path over another, there suddenly exists another existence. And, each choice, compounded with millions upon millions of souls... Still, even in this scenario, the existence of prophetic dreams is possible. For instance, what if it were possible to see sometimes these various universes; what if there are people amongst us that possess this gift? The unfortunate thing is that in our modern world, we do not allow for such things. We are comfortable with just one possibility, but alas, one that is not fated. We want to think we are not destined to live out life along a certain path, yet we are also not willing to accept the existence of the multiverse. These dreams and prophecies, even lines of fate inscribed on the hand are deemed the ravings of madmen. Maybe that is why Jung came up with the collective unconscious, because the collective unconscious deals with the present condition of mankind as a whole and not the existence of a predetermined (or completely infinite pre-existing) future... avoiding altogether opening this can of worms.

I'm Not Really a Conspiracist.

One thing that we need to grasp is the duality of this world. What I mean is that as much as we may wish it, we cannot have good without evil....

I wrote this sentence about a month ago and I've lost my train of thought, but here it is, here it is... the world as we live it is a bunch of lies. Like I've said before, I'm not really a conspiracy theorist. I don't really believe that everything is a conspiracy, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, well, damn it, then it IS a duck. Take for instance what it means when one says American Dream. One would picture a house, a family consisting of a young couple, 2.5 kids, and a dog, preferably golden retriever (certainly not a pit bull), nice manicured lawn, etc. AND, it is not just any house, but it is a Cape Cod. Now, what the hell is a Cape Cod? Well, let me tell you. It is the house that every single five year old draws when you tell him/her to draw a house. All across this United States, ask ANY child to draw a house and you will get a Cape Cod. So ingrained is this American ideal that all children (city children, country children, California children, Hawaii children, and of course New England children) will draw the same freaking house. If you don't think that is in any way bizarre... It also happens to be the house that was miraculously mass-produced in the late 1940's in New York. Of course, it wasn't invented back then (it was actually brought over from England in the 17th century), no, but it was the first house that allowed the "masses" (meaning all of the people who really had no chance in hell of ever becoming a home-owner unless through government intervention via FHA or VA) to become homeowners and THUS to BECOME middle class. By the very definition of homeownership, one enters the middle class. Think about this... the government actually created a middle class by allowing mass production of housing. It spawned satellite industries (such as real estate companies, mortgage lenders, home inspectors, pest control companies, etc.) and it created an unsustainable consumer-driven economy. AND, we are ALL supposed to strive towards this ONE goal. Why? I think it is so that we become so preoccupied with the attainment of all of these material things that we cease to think. When one has a house and garden and "toys," there is no anger, no injustice to right, no rebellion, no revolution. We have become mere drones. Then years pass, nothing significant is done with one's life and people only then may wonder, what was it all about anyway? Oh, but wait, the government doesn't want you to think.

The Nature of Man

Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Sin of Adam and Eve, The Fall of Man, Fresco at the Vatican, Sistine Chapel
But then, what exactly is evil? Is it really so easy and clear to define? Or is it simply a point of view? Evil is intentional. After all, predators kill prey for food, but we could never rightly say they are evil. Are humans inherently good or evil? Is evil made or born? Is good made or born? According to the Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang Ming, man is inherently good. He says, "when it [the mind] sees a child fall into a well it naturally knows what commiseration is. This is intuitive knowledge of good, and is not attained through external investigation. If the thing manifested emanates from the intuitive faculty, it is the more free from the obscuration of selfish purpose. This is what is meant by saying that the mind is filled with commiseration, and that love cannot be exhausted. . . ."

But, when we compare this philosophy to Christian theology, it is the complete opposite... man is a sinner because of original sin. Man is corrupt, selfish, and depraved, saved only by divine Grace.

What is interesting is that both philosophies (religion, philosophy, so closely linked...can we not call one the other and the other one?) speak of the passions of men. In Eastern thought, man is born whole, good, upright then corrupted by passions (from Wang Yang Ming):

"The mind is one. In case it has not been corrupted by the passions of men, it is called an upright mind. If corrupted by human aims and passions, it is called a selfish mind. When a selfish mind is rectified it is an upright mind; and when an upright mind loses its rightness it becomes a selfish mind. Originally there were not two minds. A selfish mind is due to selfish desire; an upright mind is natural law (is true to nature). . . .Someone said "All men have natural endowment (mind), and the mind is the embodiment of heaven-given principles (natural law). Why then do some devote themselves to virtue and others to vice? The mind of the evil man has lost its original nature. . . .There are no crises and problems beyond those of passion and change. Are not pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy passions of men? Seeing, hearing, talking, working, wealth and honor, poverty and lowliness, sorrow and difficulty, death and life, all are vicissitudes of life. All are included in the passions and feelings of men. These need only to be in a state of perfect equilibrium and harmony, which, in turn, depends upon being watchful over one's self. . . ."

So accordingly, evil is the result of not being watchful over one's self, yielding to the temptations that so readily present themselves in life whereas in Christian thought, evil is something we are born with and have to remove from our very souls by divine Grace... divine intervention?... that we will absolutely be doomed to evil... it's such a pessimistic view.

Good vs Evil

Peter Paul Rubens, 1618, Head of Medusa

Nearly an entire month has passed in the blink of an eye; I did not mean to neglect writing, but some things needed addressing, dotted my i's and crossed my t's, all that good stuff that makes up life. I'm trying not to be sarcastic, though it's difficult not to be. I've been thinking about good versus evil. J has kept two constant friends in her life, through decades of turmoil, through thick and thin. She admits to not being able to philosophize with either, to not really confiding in either, but they've been her friends now for decades. Her oldest friend, let's call her Bambi, is pure innocence, naive today as the day she was born... happy-go-lucky in life, not particularly well-to-do. Then there is her other long-time friend, let's call her Medusa. Medusa has been married at least six times (all for money), was at one point a "madame," and is now quite wealthy from her dead husbands. Based on this, J believes that evil wins out in the end; all the scheming and plotting of Medusa, after all, has netted her a fortune, while the carefree, good-hearted Bambi lives a most ordinary life. But, this is where we disagree. From my point of view, I think Medusa is most miserable. She spent her entire life, deceiving people, telling lie upon lie until she can no longer recognize truth from fiction... certainly there must be some psychosis there? She trusts no one, not even her own children. She desires adoration from the "common people." She desires things and has spent her entire life feeling as if it were never enough... maybe just a little more. Bambi, on the other hand, lives in complete bliss. Life takes care of her; she wants nothing and so never feels that she needs anything. She has spent her entire life... well, happy, I suppose. Most people, of course, are neither extremes. I asked J why she is friends with either one since she confides in neither. She says she keeps Medusa around to remind her who not to be and Bambi... ignorance is bliss.