Dead White, Beauty and Terror in the Art of Vincent Desiderio
Morning Meditations..
Vincent Desiderio is one of the world's greatest painters. His current show at New York's Marlborough Gallery
features a number of small works plus one very large one. "Dead White"
A vision of hell, it is informed by the artist's relentless study of history, philosophy, and culture.
To fully embrace it, one must accept, in Rilke's words, "both its beauty and its terror". His recent works
examine what he calls his "mental infestation". He is channeling some unknown entity that could be likened
to screams of souls from hell beyond the gates of death, both 'dead' and 'white'.
"The man whose dignity was proclaimed in the Renaissance, emphasized in the Age of Enlightenment, celebrated
by the Romantics, has died.." - Michel Foucault
"The end of Vir, heroicus sublimis (man, heroic and sublime) - We live in hellish times, we have
squandered our inheritance" - Vincent Desiderio
RUSKIN used his theory of the sublime, like the theory of beauty which it complements, to solve the problem
of the role of emotion in beauty and art.
"Anything which elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the contemplation of greatness of ally kind.... " - John Ruskin
Go to the Limits of Your Longing
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand. - Rainer Maria Rilke
The Romantic and Contemporary Sublime - Richard Rosebery
http://richardrosebery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/An-Outline-of-the-Romantic-Contemporary-Sublime.pdf
.
Vincent Desiderio is one of the world's greatest painters. His current show at New York's Marlborough Gallery
features a number of small works plus one very large one. "Dead White"
Click to viewA vision of hell, it is informed by the artist's relentless study of history, philosophy, and culture.
To fully embrace it, one must accept, in Rilke's words, "both its beauty and its terror". His recent works
examine what he calls his "mental infestation". He is channeling some unknown entity that could be likened
to screams of souls from hell beyond the gates of death, both 'dead' and 'white'.
"The man whose dignity was proclaimed in the Renaissance, emphasized in the Age of Enlightenment, celebrated
by the Romantics, has died.." - Michel Foucault
"The end of Vir, heroicus sublimis (man, heroic and sublime) - We live in hellish times, we have
squandered our inheritance" - Vincent Desiderio
RUSKIN used his theory of the sublime, like the theory of beauty which it complements, to solve the problem
of the role of emotion in beauty and art.
"Anything which elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the contemplation of greatness of ally kind.... " - John Ruskin
Go to the Limits of Your Longing
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand. - Rainer Maria Rilke
The Romantic and Contemporary Sublime - Richard Rosebery
http://richardrosebery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/An-Outline-of-the-Romantic-Contemporary-Sublime.pdf
.