#O196-7: Release that Dream

Posted in abstract, Landscape, Oil Paintings, PaintingsTagged , , , , , ,

I went away, and all my paintings were lined up for slaughter. Then something happened to me. Late at night I fell to my knees in a foreign room – and when I returned they had all become beautiful, beyond my adjusted beliefs.

Fernando Pessoa wrote prose that make me long for a homeland I never knew:

I’ve lived certain moments of respite in the presence of Nature, moments sculpted out of tender isolation, that will always be like medals for me. In these moments I forgot all of my life’s goals, all of the paths I wanted to follow. An immense spiritual tranquility fell into the blue lap of my aspirations and allowed me to enjoy being nothing. But I’ve probably never enjoyed an incorruptible moment, free of any underlying spirit of failure and gloom.

Pessoa, Fernando. The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Modern Classics)

#O196

Pessoa continues:

In all my moments of spiritual liberation there was a dormant sorrow, vaguely blooming in gardens beyond the walls of my consciousness, and the scent and the very colour of those sad flowers intuitively passed through the stone walls, whose far side (where the roses bloomed) never ceased being a hazy near side in the obscure mystery of who I am, in the drowsiness of my daily existence.

#O197

In the beautiful book “The Poetry of Zen“, the thirteenth century sage Ch’ih-chueh is quoted as saying:

The failure of the Zen path comes from teachers without deep attainment, just setting forth sayings and showing off knowledge to capture students, and from students with no great aspiration just following popular fads and current customs, content to sink themselves in the domain of intellectual knowledge and verbiage…The ‘teachers’ and ‘students’ bewitch each other.

Another sage (Yueh-lin) is quoted as having observed with regards to talking about Zen:

Ninety percent accuracy is not as good as silence

Alphaville sang this poem:

Hello today 
Open your eyes 
The snow is falling just like leaves 
Aquarian warriors rebuild the ship 
Mr rainbow is gone

Hello my love 
Here's to your heart 
Unfold the lillies in the deep 
The season's over, the shores are sealed

Now ashen roses rain on the fields 
Innocent dreamers, look what you've done 
Now it's time for the phoenix to fly 
Hello today

Wake to the dawn 
To meet the guardians of the isles 
The valient captains will rule the seas till the comets return 
Hello my love 
Here's to your heart 
Release that dream into the world

Join in the air race, leaving tonight 
How does it feel to follow the light 
Beautiful dreamer, it's up to you 
If we glide through the glamour of love

We believe in our dreams 
Reaching out for above 
We believe in our dreams 
Reaching out for love

Songwriters: Bernard Lloyd / Marian Gold / Ricky Echolette
Fantastic Dream lyrics © Rolf Budde Musikverlag Gmbh

 

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you are happy and content.

11 thoughts on “#O196-7: Release that Dream”

  1. It’s good to have you back!

    This way that you’re painting these pictures above makes one aware of the edges. Perhaps that wasn’t intentional, maybe yes, maybe no — but I like it. I love the edges of a painting. Bonnard taught me to look at the edges. Something interesting can be happening there too.

    How wonderful that you return to beauty.

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    1. Thanks Aletha. Yes, if by edges you are referring here to the sides of the picture and not the normal edges between objects in a painting – then yes, I am quite purposefully leaving part of the board and previous painting exposed. I found it works best if the under-surface is the color of wood (something like Raw Umber).
      I saw this in the beautiful paintings of John Felsing and was immediately attracted to it. For me, those unfinished edges emphasize that the painting is just a human gesture and that it is after all a flat surface you are looking at. Any idea of a factory produced photo-image is destroyed. Some may not like that, the fact that there is something unfinished in it, something the author left unsaid so that it would not be taken away and hung somewhere.

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      1. I did mean the edges of the whole picture — and I’ve just looked up John Felsing — beautiful. It’s good to find these kindred spirits whose ideas become something you can transform into your own life.

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  2. Can’t tell you how many times I have revised (or flip-flopped if you prefer) my opinion about one of my paintings without ever having touched it. It usually goes back and forth that way until it doesn’t. Then I know it’s finished.

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    1. Well said Alli. I find it is often a reflection of my state of being, or more specifically, my level of self-confidence. But it is of course a fragile balance between arrogance and self confidence. 🙂 Thanks for visiting!

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  3. Fritz what a great post, so very enjoyable!
    I read your comment about the unfinished edges …… that is, so zen, so beautiful.
    So wabi sabi I smiled and got a bit excited. The whole zen approach, contemplative art and wabi sabi appeal to me. A lot more than the regular, standard Western traditional art way. Unfinished, impermanent, imperfect IS beauty. cheers, Debi

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      1. your approach…. just reminds me so much of wabi sabi (at least my own interpretation, that is) I’m sure that the zen monks have a much stricter take on it than I do. lol

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