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Whatever thoughts bounce in and out of our brains or tumble from the lips as speech all belong to their area of interest and purpose of expression. Once my dictionary fell open on the word “atomic,” meaning – not the “super-bomb” – but the least element within each area of enterprise. In visual art the least discernible parts are lines and shapes, and shapes in tones or colors. These can be as small as pen strokes or dots painted with a pointy brush. These “atomics” or “indivisibles” of picture-making are put in place by the artist with deliberation. They are visible to the viewer who may ponder why the artist chose them for their setting in his work.  The “indivisibles” are thus precisely determinable and also visibly and clearly separable. Areas of painted colors and lines of varied weight can be more than their material properties. We therefore have here a cube and cone and a dense gathering of furnishings – not as physical facts, but as sights we really see.   Whatever appears and unmistakably takes shape inside the picture plane is reality and truth, but such creation is real and true solely within the realm to which it is bound – that of “pictorial art.” Herein we are guided and helpfully instructed in two ways: One is that each path of learning and of progress belongs to its own domain. The second leads us to the just surmise that these truly separate paths will each likely go a rather parallel course. By their differences, and only through those differences, can the diverse disciplines make their indispensable and united contribution to the productivity of the vocations.  In a future essay I will try to tell what this can mean to the calling of art.   Feeling as EMOTION Live beings emote because they will to live. That is, they own a drive to outward action whose always purpose is to repair a deficit: when we are hungry we seek food, in peril -- safety. Along the path of labor on his pictures, an Artist learns the burden of emotion. For a work still incomplete is a wish not yet come true -- a short-fall to be mended. . . . and as RECEIVING Speaking of happiness emotes a need to reach a hearer -- perhaps a sharer. Happiness itself, however, enters the accepting heart as a near-celestial blessing and perfection of fulfillment. Emoting nothing, we partake wholly of a most liberal receiving. When art works render depths of grief and dire misadventure, they will not make happy. Yet, if they engage all our attention and whole participation, they afford fulfillment. We are not strong enough to endure for long this all-demanding state of being. The spirit wanders. Our attention must soon divide, and the lacks of our world require care.   |
Johannes
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| von Gumppenberg | Johannes Speaks |
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