Art

Fr. Longenecker from Standing on my Head touches on some aspects of art in this poem, which I liked:

A Secret Language
By Fr. Dwight Longenecker


We wrestle with the mystery of words,
hammering from the vast inchoate
universe, the pointed spears and sharp swords
with which we marshal the inarticulate
chaos of the soul. With precision
we discuss, dissect and delineate;
then define and decide. Each decision
is set in stone—not open to debate.

But beneath the dogma something rebels.
We sense lost treasure buried in a field,
or secret meanings glimmering like jewels
in the dark caverns of the soul. They yield
their bright reward only to those who mine
with the pick and spade of symbol and sign.
In this underground struggle we soon learn:
only the work and liturgy of art
can unlock the secret language of the heart.

Section 13

Whiny Lawyerville

Lawyers of Fortune

Shakedown artists

Hucksters

Professional Complaining Class

Highly paid grievance-mongers

Complaining Left

Self-serving lawyers and ethnocrats

Tarkovsky Tuesday

"Who has not written about Raphael and his Sistine Madonna? The idea of man, who had attained at last his own personality in flesh and blood, who had discovered the world and God in himself and around him after centuries of worshipping the medieval Lord, on whom his gaze had been fixed so steadily as to sap his moral strength -- all of this is said to have found its perfect, coherent and ultimate embodiment in that canvas by the genius of Urbino. In a way, perhaps, it has. For the Virgin Mary, in the artist's representation is an ordinary citizen, whose psychological state as reflected in the canvas has its foundation in real life: she is fearful of the fate of her son, given for people in sacrifice. Even though it is in the name of their salvation, he himself is being surrendered in the fight against the temptation to defend him from them.

All of this is indeed vividly written into the picture -- from my point of view, too vividly, for the artist's thought is there for the reading: all too unambiguous and well-defined. One is irritated by the painter's sickly allegorical tendentiousness hanging over the form and overshadowing all the purely painterly qualities of the picture. The artist has concentrated his will on clarity of thought, on the intellectual concept of his work, and paid the price: the painting is flabby and insipid."

--Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

Medium: 2B Pencil and maybe another

Max Monday

View of Genoa - Max Beckmann

NachtGarten - Max Beckmann

Priests in the Pulpit

What's the grand global total of times in the last 43 years that a priest said in the homily, without preceding his words with any qualifier, something to the effect of: "The use of artificial contraception is a mortal sin. Mortal sin is an offense of grave matter committed with full knowledge and consent, and if a soul dies in it, that soul goes directly to hell after going to God." And then, of course, speaking of God's mercy and the creation of every soul for Heaven.

What, maybe a thousand? Maybe that's being generous?

You have to think, Padre, something like ninety whatever percent of the parish's couples are contracepting, and you spend your priesthood's homilies on the most profound articulations, and then you die - and oh, I didn't mention anything about artificial contraception being a mortal sin, not once; whoops.

Maybe you think it will be taken as stating the obvious in order to be controversial, or something. But the real reason is that you want your parishioners to like you.

And yeah, there's a ton of hypocritical hand-wringers on the web who would read the above words that run, "...and if a soul dies in it, that soul goes directly to hell after going to God." and say, "But that's not for us to decide! Who knows if a soul that practiced artificial contraception went to hell or not; we're not to be that soul's judge and blah blah blah..."

Yes, pantheist, yes; and that means that Pastors shouldn't pastor their flocks. Sin is not sin just because it makes a person miserable.

Word & Question

Leave all gardens unguarded, all woods yielding,
but put a circuit round the gutted mall:
a last surveyor, turning, in the night,
like one to watch a ship that's done with sail days,
now yarded in the weedy dark - hulled, unpraised,
waiting to be water-sealed, out of star-sight.

One witness, pert, this official vacancy
beside the zoning fence, make midnight strides,
that none may have the fun of breaking panes,
and wrest from demolitioners their first dig-in,
ruining what projected contract ruin
stands, as stood for years, now its fallow claim:

Beams to be bitten, walls to give way
to further sight; the roof no more a roof.
Rain, birds, air and light, making of the refuse-
the sudden letting of the elements,
water down the sliced front in many singing threads-
a song of a momentary end to use.

Whatever palpitates is for plough's harrowing.
Even hectic creatures as we, draw the stars
together of infinity, size them to suit
the rotting pages of an earthbound book.
How much more our pulsing lots, for plough, who look
in at zones, up at slate, map out routes;

our lots brought low: all world's a homeless sea.
Vast messengers above our heads wage war,
we trust through breakage, though not seeing far.
Cling to waking anguish, relinquish bed's drowse,
for the home of your heart is a falling house:
turn out - leap from the grave in your own heart.


Word: Turning

Question: What is the one thing needful? (At least I think that was the question.)


Was it love at first sight?


Word and Question


Alternate words for lines: Hoisted for yarded, and 'Have him witness' for 'One witness, pert'.

Medium: Pencil crayons and there might be 2B and 2H pencils

Government Priorities

hikoo

Condolence flowers,
arranged in jars with water,
soon will wilt and die.



Tobacco blooms done:
bulked wombs, with fine seed, where bees
crawled dutifully.

Furball

Zing goes the kitten - zat!
"Why don't you want to play with me
twenty four seven?"

Two Icons

My iconography instructor has chided me for not showing my icons to more people. So here are two recently completed ones. When you show someone the icon you have painted and tell that person about it, you are not simply showing; you are evangelizing, in whatever "small" way - make no mistake. And who am I to block that from happening due to a false modesty?

They are rather shoddy photos of the Archangel Michael the Great Taxiarch, and Christ the Pantocrator. Click to enlarge.

Max Monday

Here's a documentary on Max Beckmann which I found here. It's a BBC documentary, so some groans and eye rolls are to be expected. But for simply getting a big boatload of Beckmann, it's enjoyable to watch.
















Update: Though it may be true that Beckmann sought to "compete" with the likes of Picasso and Matisse, when the host says that Beckmann rethought his original position on their work, it is not true. He despised their work to the end of his days.

Medium: Pencil 2B and I'm pretty sure 5B

Medium: Pencils HB and 2B