Tag: inspiration
Morganatic-from Seamarks
The Sea came to us–from Seamarks
The Stone Steps of the Drama-from Seamarks
Thus spoke the Man of the Sea
The Secret Purpose–Seamarks continued
Los’s Bright Halls-The Exhibit-an artwork in progress
I finally got the art show up. I came down with a nasty cold as the time for hanging approached, and all the work of logistics, promotion, and “finishing” the paintings became a real grind.
But we had a nice opening last night. Many friends came showing their appreciation and support. Thanks to all.
In my next post I hope to give a more complete account about the experience of creating these works over the past 3 months.
Lets just say for now that I came to realize I bit off far more than I could chew, though I did this deliberately–as a sort of audacious challenge to myself.
There always looms the possibility that the painting was better left at an earlier stage, or that the work may not bear the test of time. At times I wondered if a painting might be veering perilously close to maudlin tripe, or the whole concept totally misguided.
But I really don’t worry about it. It’s best to have the courage to make a clear statement. I think age and experience has taught me to trust the process and to carry through despite such doubts about relevance, skill level or (in this case) my understanding of Blake’s gorgeously bombastic, prophetic poem.
These blog posts have been an integral part of this exhibit’s creation. Thanks to all who have been following and commenting.
Albion Asleep-an artwork in progress
My art show goes up in a week and now the most difficult part has arrived–the Artist’s Statement. But in this odious task, which I’ve always dreaded, I may have a small advantage. I’ve actually been working on it since I began this series, some three months ago. I only need glean the relevant bits from my blog posts and tidy them up. Right.
Blake saw Albion (universal Man) held in deadly sleep, in thrall to satanic, scientific-materialism that separated him from Jerusalem, his emanation, and the Heaven within himself.
The Gnostics taught that soul is imprisoned in matter; that Gnostic experience is a return to Divinity through overcoming the demonic forces (Archons) who hold humanity in bondage to dense spheres of matter. These teachings informed much of Blake’s work.
His work also reflects the Neoplatonic doctrine that acknowledges the primacy of the spiritual world and sees nature as the “vegetable glass” reflecting spiritual truths. Post-Cartesian science that recognizes only natural phenomenon perceived by the senses as sole measure of truth is the fundamental error which precipitated Jerusalem’s’s fall.
Jerusalem tells of Los’s struggles with Urizen (reasoning power) to re-establish harmony among the four Zoas (universal, four-fold man,) and the building of Golganooza, Los’s great city of art and science.
…and fourfold the great City of Golganooza: fourfold to the north ,
And toward the south fourfold & fourfold toward the east & west,
Each within the other toward the four points: that toward
Eden, and that toward the World of Generation.
The Zoa’s correspond with the four Buddha families who inhabit the vast edifice of spiritual architecture in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
…at the northern gate of one’s skull is Vajra, Dark green, snake headed, and holding a bell.
O you, the four female gatekeepers…
Perform the rites which obstruct the doors leading to rebirth from the intermediate state!
Like the Buddhist masters, Blake saw that salvation lay in the recognition that God, Angels and Demons reside in the mind. Christ’s resurrection was not a single event of time, unique to a single individual, but as expression of the universal Christ-spirit within. This interiorization of the mysteries is part of the evolution of consciousness and the realization of the Divine Human. For Blake, Jesus is imagination, and lamented “Abstract thought warring against imagination.” The tragic effects of Urizen’s reign were evident in the squalor and slavery of the London cityscape where was enacted the cosmic drama of spiritual redemption.
Los is the fiery, artistic genius whose task is to restore Jerusalem and re-establish harmony among conflicting aspects of Albion; an inner kingdom that has been usurped by the soul-denying power of Urizen. The soul divided into warring entities is a sign that Albion has fallen into a sleep that closes the doors of spiritual perception. Caretaker of archetypal images, and fluent in the language of correspondences, Los forges celestial links in his fiery furnace, and illuminates the inner, demonic specters that would banish Jerusalem forever.
Building Golganooza-an artwork in progress
Strange. For all my efforts to loosen up, I seem to be heading in a more classical direction. When solid form threatens to vanish in an atmospheric haze, I recall Blake’s admonition to delineate everything a solid line. William Turner advised enclosing all shapes with a glowing red line that can move easily from cool shadow into warm, brilliant light. Gauguin used this technique to unify his compositions and bind his luxuriant forms to the picture plane.
Here, I use it to construct Blake’s towering edifice of Golganooza, whose:
…stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections Enamell’d with love and kindness & the tiles engraven gold, Labour of merciful hands..
This Golganooza is built with primary colors on a scaffold of charcoal lines set along the Golden Mean proportion. The challenge is to integrate illusory depth with the shapes on the flat surface into a dynamic, interwoven whole. This is what makes it so complicated.
Painting doesn’t proceed only with big, creative leaps by the likes of a Picasso or Pollack. There is also a slow evolutionary process at work, and painting, like any other discipline, moves toward ever higher levels of complexity.
The dichotomy between abstraction and realism is a false one. It’s all abstract in a sense. What is bad is intellectual, materialist abstraction devoid of feeling and humanity–removed from art’s most exalted purpose:
To open Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity ever expanding in the Bosom of God: the Human Imagination!
-William Blake
A View from the Wheelhouse 