Dreaming your dreams
I don't know why, but I have always been so fascinated by nature. I'm not just talking about lightning storms, sunsets, moonlight and the like. I'm talking about the mundane things. Trees, clouds, rocks, mountains, all of it. It's not a scientific interest -- I understand the basics of all of the little things that go into the biology, morphology, geology, etc. of those things. What captures me is the inability I have to grasp the almost spiritual, all-encompassing significance of all such things. I can imagine someone reading that and immediately cocking one eyebrow, wondering to themselves, "Oh great, here comes some weird pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo." But that's not where I am going with this.
For the sake of argument, though, keep your eyebrow cocked. Because I'm not done yet. ; )
I remember one time when I was at the Kimball Museum of Art in Fort Worth, with Rebecca and family, and I was wandering the halls of the museum's private collection. It had samples of all of the more recent greats, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, etc. Now I have always been a great fan of the impressionist era, but I had always had a distinct lack of appreciation for the periods following that. Or more correctly, I could perhaps artistically appreciate the works, but, well, was somewhat less than "captivated" by them. (To this day, I don't really have much of a care for Picasso, Kahlo, Warhol, and other more modern and contemporary artists.) Interestingly enough, I was dumbfounded by a particular painting by Mondrian, of all people. The piece, Composition No. 7 (Facade), was just incredible to me. Even now, I couldn't tell you what it is that amazes me so much about the piece except to say that it is the same feeling that I get when I go to the park at night and stare upward at the trees in the sky.
There you go, finally something worthy of cocking your eyebrow at.
Earlier tonight, I went on a walk to the park. I sat out there, staring up at the trees, and I was truly baffled. Not so long ago, I had an assignment in my computer sculpting class to make a CG tree in Maya. I made a tree based on what I thought a tree was made of. I remember talking to several classmates about it, and we all agreed rather definatively that the "essence" of a tree was quite well-defined and in fact well-duplicateable even by a computer algorithm. Of course, my tree sucked, more out of lack of time and energy than anything else. But in the end, studying the trees silhouetted against the sky at the park, I was struck with a feeling that it would be impossible for me to ever capture the image that was before me. I wanted to find a camera, to try and get a piece of it to hold forever, just to figure out the essence of the view. I couldn't understand the purity of the sight. There was no color, no volume to anything. It was all just form.
When I found on the internet an image of the Mondrian painting to link to above, I was incredibly surprised to read the text beneath the image. I never before had really heard anyone's commentary on his work at all, much less his comments during the time of that particular painting:
"People generally think my work rather vague," he wrote in January 1914, around the time he painted Composition No. 7 (Facade). "I make complexes of lines and colors on a flat plane in order to express universal beauty in plastic terms . . . . Nature (or the visible) inspires me . . . but I want to approach truth as closely as possible; I therefore abstract everything until I attain the essential of things (though still their outward essential!) . . . . I am sure that, precisely by not attempting to express anything definite, one expresses what is most definite of all: truth (the all-embracing)."
Still cocking your eyebrow? Talk about eerie. Mondrian was indeed trying to capture the very essence of what I was feeling while looking at those trees. And the crazy part was that he was successful. Somehow, through merely a set of lines, colors, and shapes, he was able to instill the very same sense of awe that nature did. And it was intentional. That just baffles me.
But I realize that it is the desire to have that very ability that drives me. In school, I have forever studied computer graphics that one day I might be able to take advantage of the vast technological resources available to create new realities that, given the constraints of the real world, might be impossible. Through travelling and photography, I have forever sought new vistas of nature, to grasp the beauty and awe-inspiring power that exists throughout the universe. I want to create impossible things that gain their impact through essence, rather than substance.
Go ahead, say what you will. But perhaps this realization is the artist somewhere inside me finally having a voice to speak out. I would say this falls somewhat short of an epiphany, as I have always on various levels understood what it was that drove me.
But to be able to put it into some sort of words.... Wow! : )
For the sake of argument, though, keep your eyebrow cocked. Because I'm not done yet. ; )
I remember one time when I was at the Kimball Museum of Art in Fort Worth, with Rebecca and family, and I was wandering the halls of the museum's private collection. It had samples of all of the more recent greats, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, etc. Now I have always been a great fan of the impressionist era, but I had always had a distinct lack of appreciation for the periods following that. Or more correctly, I could perhaps artistically appreciate the works, but, well, was somewhat less than "captivated" by them. (To this day, I don't really have much of a care for Picasso, Kahlo, Warhol, and other more modern and contemporary artists.) Interestingly enough, I was dumbfounded by a particular painting by Mondrian, of all people. The piece, Composition No. 7 (Facade), was just incredible to me. Even now, I couldn't tell you what it is that amazes me so much about the piece except to say that it is the same feeling that I get when I go to the park at night and stare upward at the trees in the sky.
There you go, finally something worthy of cocking your eyebrow at.
Earlier tonight, I went on a walk to the park. I sat out there, staring up at the trees, and I was truly baffled. Not so long ago, I had an assignment in my computer sculpting class to make a CG tree in Maya. I made a tree based on what I thought a tree was made of. I remember talking to several classmates about it, and we all agreed rather definatively that the "essence" of a tree was quite well-defined and in fact well-duplicateable even by a computer algorithm. Of course, my tree sucked, more out of lack of time and energy than anything else. But in the end, studying the trees silhouetted against the sky at the park, I was struck with a feeling that it would be impossible for me to ever capture the image that was before me. I wanted to find a camera, to try and get a piece of it to hold forever, just to figure out the essence of the view. I couldn't understand the purity of the sight. There was no color, no volume to anything. It was all just form.
When I found on the internet an image of the Mondrian painting to link to above, I was incredibly surprised to read the text beneath the image. I never before had really heard anyone's commentary on his work at all, much less his comments during the time of that particular painting:
"People generally think my work rather vague," he wrote in January 1914, around the time he painted Composition No. 7 (Facade). "I make complexes of lines and colors on a flat plane in order to express universal beauty in plastic terms . . . . Nature (or the visible) inspires me . . . but I want to approach truth as closely as possible; I therefore abstract everything until I attain the essential of things (though still their outward essential!) . . . . I am sure that, precisely by not attempting to express anything definite, one expresses what is most definite of all: truth (the all-embracing)."
Still cocking your eyebrow? Talk about eerie. Mondrian was indeed trying to capture the very essence of what I was feeling while looking at those trees. And the crazy part was that he was successful. Somehow, through merely a set of lines, colors, and shapes, he was able to instill the very same sense of awe that nature did. And it was intentional. That just baffles me.
But I realize that it is the desire to have that very ability that drives me. In school, I have forever studied computer graphics that one day I might be able to take advantage of the vast technological resources available to create new realities that, given the constraints of the real world, might be impossible. Through travelling and photography, I have forever sought new vistas of nature, to grasp the beauty and awe-inspiring power that exists throughout the universe. I want to create impossible things that gain their impact through essence, rather than substance.
Go ahead, say what you will. But perhaps this realization is the artist somewhere inside me finally having a voice to speak out. I would say this falls somewhat short of an epiphany, as I have always on various levels understood what it was that drove me.
But to be able to put it into some sort of words.... Wow! : )