The Seeing Eye- a parable ©

I am Seeing Eye an Ambassador-at-large. No big deal, I tell you. The Big Spirit sent me as with Appetite, another spirit,- you don’t see him unless you are spreading a feast. Over there you shall see my comrade who cannot get enough of anything to be heard. While man over there is blowing the thigh bone of an antelope, he is all shook up, But I am on my way to check out the caves in Dordogne France. For me art of man is a big deal. I almost wished I could have been a man for Lascaux was beyond belief. Ever since it is writ large across my Spirit world.
I watched this statue in marble, by Phidias and the Parthenon,- and I will be blowed if ever I could chisel my way around a block of stone. What beauty! what elan! I almost cried for vexation. Only if I were a man! Many of my fellow-spirits tried to say the carnage at Marathon, Salamis, burning of Persepolis was an error in judgment. Oh no the seeing eye shall not feel a thing except a work of art. It must come from somewhere, O man, you be godlike,- sacking of Rome or Constantinople is child’s play. But tell me, where have you hidden the key to your art? There is the village of Guernica and airmen like swarms of gnats go to it,-it is being pulverized! It is a sight, I admit. But Picasso,- but I don’t know the fellow, his canvass almost made my gorge rise. His rage almost became mine. Impossible I cannot feel but with my eye, -even with smoke and ashes flying around. I feel my eye smarting but where is art! it shall salve my eye. I shall not complain.
Ah now I see the entire earth going up in smoke. One big conflagration and nothing but tongues of fire,- united colors of Benetton as the fella said, white heat blue orange palette of floating tints surfing the shock waves again and again. No masterpiece more worthy of man I suppose I shall ever see. What the hell I just witnessed his art.
Benny

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Take Two : Paul Klee and Raphael

winter journey-Park of Idols( Esther Sanchez del Moral/pinterest)

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Less Is More

One day Miletus came home with a beautiful head of Hypnos. He showed it to his guardian, Iadmon. Aesop was present at that time. “Isn’t it beautiful! A head cast in bronze! The slant of that loose headband… Look at those eyelids heavy, almost drooping with sleep… The head tells it all.”
Iadmon scowled and said: “But what on earth one can use a mere head for? Either the piece should tell a story or must be of precious metal so it can be sold for a profit, if ever need arises”. Without much ado he walked towards his shop to direct his fellows who had brought in goods. As a parting shot he said, pointing to the sacks of barley being brought in: “Those are real! Each measure of barley sold is money in your pocket.”
The boy looked at Aesop as if to say that his guardian was impossible. “Let us leave him to his barley”, the boy said.
Aesop took the head of Hypnos and said: “My master is simple in matters of Art. He needs to be entertained or edified. If he has a head for business he could have one for art as well. He can forecast which goods will fetch more money and he knows to hold it till he can get a better price. He is not taken in by smart talk of the agents. Then having a head for business is enough for some. They have not developed from that stage. They are like those specimens you find in circus; they are born that way. Still, freak they are. This is how one is when one hasn’t cultivated beyond mere living”.
Miletus who trusted in his judgment and asked him whether it would have been better if the sculptor had cast the entire body as well.
“As you observed rightly in the beginning: the head conveyed all that was there to convey. We observe the head and can fill in parts left out by the sculptor. This is where my master cannot enter. Only the initiated can enter into the mysteries that Art has for such folks like you and me. The artist though dead still speaks to us. His art is the medium. Think how clever the sculptor of this piece is. He needed only a head to convey that moment one drifts into sleep, with such clarity.”
benny

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The Rabbi Benn Weiss Stories-2

An Armenian in Paris

Rabbi Benn Weiss followed me close as we made for the exit. ‘I love Art and I know what I like,’ he had said while staring at the canvasses long and hard.
We came out into the sunshine. He asked, ‘What makes Beauty? Is it what is unattainable?’
I nodded. My companion asked, ‘Beauty! Is it because it speaks truth?’
‘Oh yes!’ I said appreciatively, ‘Rabbi, you know the words beauty, art and truth already. Only I need to teach how these connect one another. Once you know how you could be a professional art critic if you want to.’
As we crossed the busy street to the Metro in front of an art store, my companion was for buying a few books to get himself started. ‘Forget books. Forget what that guide at the Gallery was telling you.’ I told him, ‘She was far out Rabbi, but she was a peach.’
Rabbi Benn Weiss glared at me at which I suddenly stopped short. Next moment I called out, ‘See that old lady!’
I told him that I was going to explain art using her as a living example.
My companion who had his eye full of Rubenesque ladies looked at me aghast. ‘See her back is curved and how she leans on her stick?’
‘Is that beauty?’ my friend was skeptical.
‘Why not?’ I asked, ‘Does beauty only reside in a fine form and youth?’ ‘Or does it in my perception of it?’
I was in the mood to explain. ‘Think Rabbi Weiss, I do not know her from Adam. How come I suddenly think of my grandmother who has been dead for ages?’
‘She was most precious to me.’ I felt a lump in my throat and said, ‘This old woman represents a kind of truth to me. Because she is not a trick played on my eye I take it, she is a real human being’.
‘So she stands for truth,’ the Rabbi nodded his head appreciatively.
Rabbi intoned, ’But she is an ugly truth. Old Age is real and makes scarecrows…’
I cut in, ’That is besides the point. My grandmother, dead grandmother represents Truth and she is unattainable’.
‘So dying makes one beautiful?’ the rabbi wanted to know.
Ignoring it I explained, ‘Yet this frail woman down on her last legs brought her image to me.’
I knew Rabbi Benn Weiss didn’t understand me. So I said the truth this old woman carried, went radical changes to impress upon me truth of something else.’
The rabbi said, ’I never knew your grandmother was so important to you.’
I nodded gravely and said, ’I carry that loss. She can no longer make me feel good with her smile and words. But that old decrepit woman out of the blue made me reach that higher sphere, is no longer an idea but real.’
‘Aha,’ the rabbi said with a smile, ‘the old woman represents Beauty in the way she could make her truth connected with something else.’
‘Not just something, but my grandmother!’
‘Yes, if you say so, if you say so.’ he said impressed, ‘why don’t you write to your parents for a change? You can sms them if you want to.’
I said my art of life made me unattainable. ‘My parents want me to be still connected. So would the bill collector’.
‘I want to be alone, as said by the burglar to the cop,’ intoned the rabbi.

benny

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Islamic Art-woman

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Art and Life

It was Oscar Wilde who set out to show purpose of art and life are entirely different things. Art according to him has no moral duty to make life nobler or meaningful anymore than life lived in a certain manner can redeem artists to create masterpieces . Far from art imitating life Wilde holds that art sets the aesthetic principles by which people perceive life. What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. “there may have been fogs for centuries in London”, people have only “seen” the “wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the gas lamps and turning houses into shadows” because “poets and painters have taught [people] the loveliness of such effects”. “They did not exist”, asserts Wilde, “till Art had invented them.( Decay of Lying )” Do we not conjure up the starry sky of Van Gogh when we see the night sky? Emotional impact of the Dutch artist is a supreme example of art that can extend our vision and for me it is a good thing to accept every day life seen at an altered state, as it were. It does not make my aches and pains any less than that are, a natural ageing body heir to. I can at least console myself that I live among the greatest, the best and loveliest tokens of the feast of life though being dyspeptic I may not touch anything other than dry bread and lentil soup.
This evening I listened to Puccini’s Tosca and I could not help thinking how the music could transport me as easily to an altered state as though I was hearing it for the first time! It is a tale of revenge and lust in which Baron Scarpia lusts for Tosca and in the heart of intrigue is the lover of Tosca who is condemned to die before a firing squad. The hapless man looking at the stars fading off one by one as the dawn breaks, sings an exquisite aria E lustevan stele. It brought me memories of a film Le Jour sa Leve that had moved me intensely. Gabin a working class hero is cornered in his claustrophobic room in which every object takes on a special significance. The cigarette and smoke spiral that goes up is harbinger of doom. It is only matter of hours before the police are going to shoot him dead. Whenever I see it in my mind’s eye I recall the music from opera as though it belongs there.
Aesthetics of art has ability to alter the tenor of life where man’s responses to his environment can be made more intense since his resources are drawn from secret recesses to which reality has no clue whatsoever.
Benny

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On Aesthetics ©

Beauty is in the beholder’ eyes it is said. This implies personal preference and it is evident from various cultural artifacts left to us. Evolutionary Aesthetics is a hold- all for such preferences where some have tended to see a conflict of nature versus nurture.
Aesthetic preference is something that ultimately varies from person to person. Whether it is culturally taught or branded into our genetic makeup, preferences for beauty, style, and other characteristics of aesthetics can all be linked back to preferences. Broadly, scholars define aesthetics as “critical reflection on art, culture and nature.”(Zangwill Nick-1998/Aesthetic judgment) and in this short essay I shall keep my focus on the core value that must give all that philosophical ideas expressed from Aristotle down to James Joyce a basis. Truth is one world much maligned and yet as human beings we cannot swear by any thing else. For a simple illustration when a President takes office the oath is administerd to him on a Bible wherein he is required to uphold truth. But if he told truth away will he not jeopardize the national security? As a statesman said truth must be protected by a tissue of lies. Nations managing their fortunes not having the foggiest notions about their bearings sail through the mists of uncertainty and must steer clear of others. They cannot afford to tell truth. Instead their captains signal to one another hoping to gain some advantage. They emphazise on relative truth, which is fit neither here, above nor below. Yet it somehow works. Why? Our middle state cannot handle Truth the absolute quality that we ascribe to God.
Betwixt and Between

Zeus was once traveling accompanied by his daughter Athena. He was struck by the beauty of a sculpture and asked whose work it was. The goddess of Wisdom said,” Phidias.” Admiring it for a while he asked his daughter,” You are perfection in wisdom. Why can’t you then do some thing like that- a work of beauty?”
Athena laughed,” I, a goddess- work? Why waste my time?” The eagle which always accompanied the goddess whispered in Zeus’ ear, “ If she were to work it would mean her godly wisdom lacked something.”
“ Oh?”
“ That means she wouldn’t be perfect. Would it not?” the winged bird asked. Zeus could understand.
The sculptor was after all a mortal trying to achieve perfection in some area as best as he could. The bird looked at the sculpture with a critical eye and said,” Look at that index finger of the discuss-thrower. Shorter by a hairbreadth, – it would have been just perfect!”
Zeus snapped,” Phidias made it for his kind and for the praise of gods!”
benny

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Art and Truth

In one of my earliest posts I had given an anecdote on Matisse. A woman acquaintance of the artist called on him and after looking at the finished work she observed that he made her arm too long. She relied on her eyes. Whereas he had presented as what she represented to him. Both relied on their subjective feelings. At a moral plane of Truth there must be a common centre to which the sitter, the artist and the woman were trying to rest their conclusions as to their reality. The sitter has an opinion of herself and so has the viewer whether it is her portrait or the real. With such differing viewpoints is it necessary for Matisse to represent his sitter in any other way than what she represents to him?

How does the artist make his perception clear to others? He would probe beneath her physical appearance and place her on two dimensional plane: he delineates a higher truth in terms of line, color, texture and composition. Had it been her exact copy that was intended an artist might as well relied on photography for the purpose. An artist destroys the illusion of physical reality which is ephemeral so he may bring out the inner reality as perceived by him. A Scientist who from evidences arrive at a theory is in search of truth. An artist merely uses the two dimensional plane to describe a mood that whether it a live model or a landscape transcends the visual symbols he employs. There is an inner logic and truth which is outside the reality he is looking at.

benny

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On Art

ART AND NATURE ©

One evening Xeno called out Aesop who was walking along the jagged rocks, which the sea had over the years sharpened to a keen edge. Aesop stopped on his tracks. Xeno approached him. He had his lyre with him. He apologized about his behavior in the House of Glaucus. “I was drunk, I suppose.” Xeno admitted.
Aesop asked him why he still insisted on carrying the lyre.   “You are a philosopher and not a musician.” Aesop said.
“Yes, I am a philosopher. Well Heracles, the philosopher you know him, don’t you?
Aesop nodded. “ Heracles always carries a wedge of rock. An object.”
“What is his object?”
Xeno explained,” If he can speak of mysteries of nature my lyre, also an object can speak. See Aesop I create discord as you say playing so badly. Think, I aim to show with my bad playing the discord that man in his pursuit of power causes.”
For emphasis Xeno struck the lyre wildly and the discordant notes set the nerves of Aesop on edge.
“No one who hears you will catch the point you are trying to make. They will only close their ears to shut out that jarring sound.” Aesop said.
“How is that Heracles could succeed with a stone, whereas I cannot, though we both are using an object to illustrate our arguments?”
Aesop thought about it for a while.  He said: “One can learn lessons from nature, however lowly a thing it may be; whereas what you deal with is art. No amount of words shall come to help you if your art is bad.”
benny

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An Armenian In Paris

Rabbi Benn Weiss followed me close as we made for the exit. “ I love Art and I know what I like.” he had said while staring at the canvasses long and hard.
We came out. He asked, “What makes Beauty? Is it what is unattainable?” I nodded. “Is it because it speaks truth?”
“Oh yes!” I said appreciatively, ”Rabbi, you will be a professional art critic if you stick around long enough. I am going to teach you.”
As we crossed the busy street to the Metro in front of an art store, my companion was for buying a few books to get himself started. “Forget books. Forget what that guide at the Gallery was telling you.” I told him, ”She was far out Rabbi, but she was a peach.”
Rabbi Benn Weiss glared at me at which I suddenly stopped short. Next moment I called out, “See that old lady! See her back is curved and how she leans on her stick?”
“Is that beauty?” my friend was skeptical.
“Why not?” I asked, “Does beauty only reside in a fine form and youth?” “Or does it in my perception of it?”
I was in the mood to explain. “ Think Rabbi Weiss, I do not know her from Adam. How come I suddenly think of my grandmother who has been dead for ages?”
“ She was the most precious thing to me,” I felt a lump in my throat,” she is unattainable. Yet this frail woman down on her last legs brought her image to me. If it isn’t beauty I am ready to listen you for a change.”
“Yes, if you say so, if you say so.” he said impressed, ”why don’t you write to your parents for a change? They’ve almost given you for lost.”
* Beauty is truth. Isn’t what sets us off on a train of thoughts- it could be a frail old or young thing, be connected somewhere? In our mind’s eye. We see a seashell and we think of Botticelli’s birth of Venus. That shell may be dirty on account of being trampled under many. Yet it becomes connected in our mind with a work of art; does it really matter the circumstances of the seashell as much what it represents? It still wears a kind of beauty that has acquired its sheen by our experience. Being old or a baby must thus possess beauty that we can only by our experience really appreciate. Truth of experience.
There are many theories on Aesthetics but without this basic truth it falls apart.
benny

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