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Author Topic:   Artlovesdawn and Van Gogh
Meili Zhiwei
Knowflake

Posts: 251
From:
Registered: Jul 2003

posted January 03, 2008 08:44 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Meili Zhiwei     Edit/Delete Message
Peace and Blessings Artlovesdawn,

Thank you for including me in the conversation. I enjoyed your comments and have some thoughts to share as well.

“If you look at Van Gogh's drawings he's a mess at drawing, every stroke is a struggle. In fact it's his constant struggle to make something beautiful where he was able to find his genius - through color.

“One thing I'm good at is I'm good at drawing, I'm good at doing it and good at reading pictures too. Maybe that is my 1st language.”

“I trust you Meili when you say you are a 3 on a scale. I find your words somewhat harsh and unflattering, but nevertheless I am interested in what you write, I am using them to goad myself.”

These three comments are very related. In every time and culture artists and poets have held a respectful, special and elevated position in the human communities. That is because these people have an ability to engage in moments of “emptiness” that is also fully Present. So, when you are painting or drawing, you can be empty of yourself and become the vehicle for everything around you. Absorb and transmit.

Your example of Van Gogh was very lovely. As his Mastery demonstrates, he did not let his inadequacies bar or block him from finding perfection. And his perfection was in fact the result of the perfect integration and union with his “faults” as well as his “strengths”.

We can imagine your art expression as a vertical line of string (say your own height ). The height of the line is your strengths and the depth of the line is your faults. When you have traveled the entire length of that line, top to bottom an interesting thing happens. You realize that the string line is actually infinite. As far as you travel up or down it has no end. Then, in your travels on the line, you come to realize that the string line is not actually straight at all, it is a gradual but giant circle of Unity.

We can call “Knowledge” the process and understanding during your exploration of the finite string line. We can first recognize perfection or true beauty (or the manifestation of Mastery) when the limited line is transcended and the Journey to discover the circle of infinity begins. Completing the circle of infinity is what we might call “Final Perfection”.

So, by nature, artists are looking at the lines of life. They visit and revisit them, striving for a single perfection from strengths. Van Gogh and his color. This single perfection is not discovered only through the work on the strengths however, it is discovered along with contemplation of the faults. Van Gogh and his drawings. When all the Knowledge of both aspects has been obtained, the faults are absorbed and transmuted into a Singular Perfection.


“When I say I'm good at Western-style expressive drawing I say it with that same an honest assessment, I say it with some pride but I feel it is basically an honest assessment, in art school I was always one of the top 2 in each class. And I judge myself against the world and history of art. Maybe I'm flattering myself but I don't think so, I think it is simply a talent I was given and it would be ungrateful of me to deny it.”

And this relates to your “trust” that I am a 3 When, with some degree of Certainty, you Know a thing about yourself, then you are likely to allow that another person might also be in a position of Knowing and Certainty. Again, this is the result of discipline in your art and the process self knowledge that you are forced to engage in so that your art becomes more and more purified, integrated and Unified. You judge yourself by a certain standard that is in the past and the present. It is a way to “double check” your conclusions so that you can have higher and higher goals as you experience your art.

“When I draw portraits of people it's important to me that the portraits flatter the person. If they don't I won't show it to them because I don't want to feed people's insecurities.”

This is a characteristic of a Saint. A Saint always strives to be the mirror that only reflects the beauty of life to the beholder. There are two other “types” of people, those below the Saint and those above the Saint (a Prophet). In these two cases, sometimes what is reflected is Beauty, sometimes ugly.

In the case of those below the Saints (like most of us), there is not sufficient mastery of Light and darkness aspects, so the mirror may reflect either...appropriately or inappropriately. The perfection of the picture will be hit and miss.

In the case of Prophets, there were times when the painting of life needed Light to achieve a certain Perfection and there were times when the painting of life needed shadow/darkness to achieve a Perfection. And the Prophet is the brush in the Hand of the Creator that paints with purpose and intention, and All Knowledge of Light and dark.

I will post a story that you might enjoy on the heels of this.

Many thanks once again.

Peace and Blessings
Meili

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Meili Zhiwei
Knowflake

Posts: 251
From:
Registered: Jul 2003

posted January 03, 2008 10:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Meili Zhiwei     Edit/Delete Message
Peace and Blessings,

A story from Hezrat Molana (AS), in two versions. The first is literal so that you can benefit from an exact meaning.

_______________________

The dry but exactly literal translation

The story of the contention between the Greeks and the Chinese in the art of painting and picturing.

The Chinese said, "We are the better artists"; the Greeks said, "The (superiority in) power and excellence belongs to us."
"I will put you to the test in this matter," said the Sultan, "(and see) which of you are approved in your claim."

The Chinese and the Greeks began to debate: the Greeks retired from the debate.
(Then) the Chinese said, "Hand over to us a particular room, and (let there be) one for you (as well)."

There were two rooms with door facing door: the Chinese took one, the Greeks the other.
The Chinese requested the King to give them a hundred colours: the King opened his treasury that they might receive that (which they sought).

Every morning, by (his) bounty, the colours were dispensed from the treasury to the Chinese.

The Greeks said, " No tints and colours are proper for our work, (nothing is needed) except to remove the rust."

They shut the door and went on burnishing: they became clear and pure like the sky.
There is a way from many-colouredness to colourlessness colour is like the clouds, and colourlessness is a moon.

Whatsoever light and splendour you see in the clouds, know that it comes from the stars and the moon and the sun.

When the Chinese had finished their work, they were beating drums for joy.

The King entered and saw the pictures there: that (sight), as he encountered it, was robbing him of his wits.

After that, he came towards the Greeks: they removed the intervening curtain.

The reflexion of those (Chinese) pictures and works (of art) struck upon these walls which had been made pure (from stain).

All that he had seen there (in the Chinese room) seemed more beautiful here: 'twas snatching the eye from the socket.

The Greeks, O father, are the Sufis: (they are) without (independent of) study and books and erudition,

But they have burnished their breasts (and made them) pure from greed and cupidity and avarice and hatreds.

That purity of the mirror is, beyond doubt, the heart which receives images innumerable.
That Moses (the perfect saint) holds in his bosom the formless infinite form of the Unseen (reflected) from the mirror of his heart.

Although that form is not contained in Heaven, nor in the
empyrean nor in the sphere of the stars, nor (in the earth which rests) on the Fish,
Because (all) those are bounded and numbered-(yet is it contained in the heart): know that the mirror of the heart hath no bound.

Here the understanding becomes silent or (else) it leads into error, because the heart is with Him (God), or indeed the heart is He.

The reflexion of every image shines unto everlasting from the heart alone, both with plurality and without.

Unto everlasting every new image that falls on it (the heart) is appearing therein without any imperfection.

They that burnish (their hearts) have escaped from (mere) scent and colour: they behold Beauty at every moment without tarrying.

They have relinquished the form and husk of knowledge, they have raised the banner of the eye of certainty.

Thought is gone, and they have gained light: they have gained the throat (core and essence) and the sea (ultimate source) of gnosis.

Death, of which all these (others) are sore afraid, this people (the perfect Sufis) are holding in derision.

None gains the victory over their hearts: the hurt falls on the oyster-shell, not on the pearl.

Though they have let go grammar (nahw) and jurisprudence (fiqh), yet they have taken up (instead) mystical self-effacement (mahw) and spiritual poverty (faqr)

Ever since the forms of the Eight Paradises have shone forth, they have found the tablets of their (the Sufis') hearts receptive.

(They receive) a hundred impressions from the empyrean and the starry sphere and the void: what impressions? Nay, 'tis the very sight of God.

--Masnavi, Book I: 3466-99, translated by Nicholson, 1926

___________________

The poetic version by Coleman Barks with the very beginning of the poem as well.

The Prophet said, “There are some who see Me
by the same Light in which I am seeing them.
Our natures are ONE.
Without reference to any strands
of lineage, without reference to texts or traditions,
we drink the Life-Water together.”
Here's a story
about that hidden mystery:
The Chinese and the Greeks
were arguing as to who were the better artists.
The King said,
“We'll settle this matter with a debate.”
The Chinese began talking,
but the Greeks wouldn't say anything.
They left.
The Chinese suggested then
that they each be given a room to work on
with their artistry, two rooms facing each other
and divided by a curtain.
The Chinese asked the King
for a hundred colors, all the variations,
and each morning they came to where
the dyes were kept and took them all.
The Greeks took no colors.
“They're not part of our work,”
They went to their room
and began cleaning and polishing the walls. All day
every day they made those walls as pure and clear
as an open sky.
There is a way that leads from all-colors
to colorlessness. Know that the magnificent variety
of the clouds and the weather comes from
the total simplicity of the sun and the moon.

The Chinese finished, and they were so happy.
They beat the drums in the joy of completion.

The King entered their room,
astonished by the gorgeous color and detail.

The Greeks then pulled the curtain dividing the rooms.
The Chinese figures and images shimmeringly reflected
on the clear Greek walls. They lived there,
even more beautifully, and always
changing in the light.

The Greek art is the Sufi way.
They don't study books of philosophical thought.

They make their loving clearer and clearer.
No wantings, no anger. In that purity
they receive and reflect the images of every moment,
from here, from the stars, from the void.

They take them in
as though they were seeing
with the Lighted Clarity
that sees them.

Mathnawi, I, 3462-3485, 3499
Coleman Barks
Delicious Laughter
Maypop, June 1990
(Based on Nicholson's translation of the Mathnawi, IV, 2683-2696.)


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NosiS
Moderator

Posts: 532
From: )
Registered: Apr 2004

posted January 04, 2008 12:16 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for NosiS     Edit/Delete Message

I've read most of this and I will read the rest tomorrow.

I just thought I'd add a geometrical fact that Rudolf Steiner introduced to me:
that a line is, simply, a circle with an infinite diameter.

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