David Brooks
Across the street from my apartment building in Washington there’s a gigantic supermarket and a CVS. Above the supermarket there had been a large empty space with floor-to-ceiling windows. The space was recently taken by a ballet school, so now when I step outside in the evenings I see dozens of dancers framed against the windows, doing their exercises — gracefully and often in unison.It can be arrestingly beautiful. The unexpected beauty exposes the limitations of the normal, banal streetscape I take for granted every day. But it also reminds me of a worldview, which was more common in eras more romantic than our own.This is the view that beauty is a big, transformational thing, the proper goal of art and maybe civilization itself. This humanistic worldview holds that beauty conquers the deadening aspects of routine; it educates the emotions and connects us to the eternal.
By arousing the senses, beauty arouses thought and spirit. A person who has appreciated physical grace may have a finer sense of how to move with graciousness through the tribulations of life. A person who has appreciated the Pietà has a greater capacity for empathy, a more refined sense of the different forms of sadness and a wider awareness of the repertoire of emotions.John O’Donohue, a modern proponent of this humanistic viewpoint, writes in his book “Beauty: The Invisible Embrace”: “Some of our most wonderful memories are beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul. … Without beauty the search for truth, the desire for goodness and the love of order and unity would be sterile exploits.
Beauty brings warmth, elegance and grandeur.”The art critic Frederick Turner wrote that beauty “is the highest integrative level of understanding and the most comprehensive capacity for effective action. It enables us to go with, rather than against, the deepest tendency or theme of the universe.”By this philosophy, beauty incites spiritual longing.Today the word eros refers to sex, but to the Greeks it meant the fervent desire to reach excellence and deepen the voyage of life. This eros is a powerful longing. Whenever you see people doing art, whether they are amateurs at a swing dance class or a professional painter, you invariably see them trying to get better. “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart,” Vincent van Gogh wrote.Some people call eros the fierce longing for truth. “Making your unknown known is the important thing,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote. Mathematicians talk about their solutions in aesthetic terms, as beautiful or elegant.Others describe eros as a more spiritual or religious longing. They note that beauty is numinous and fleeting, a passing experience that enlarges the soul and gives us a glimpse of the sacred. As the painter Paul Klee put it, “Color links us with cosmic regions.These days we all like beautiful things. Everybody approves of art. But the culture does not attach as much emotional, intellectual or spiritual weight to beauty……...Article Continued
Monday, January 25, 2016
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Au Clair De La Lune
My Painting "Au Clair De La Lune"
Above, Inspired by the French Folk Song
Under the moonlight:
"My friend Pierrot
Lend me your pen
So I can write a note.
My candle is out,
I no longer have a light.
Open your door for me,
For the love of God!"
Under the moonlight:
Pierrot replied,
"I don't have a pen,
I'm in my bed.
Go to the neighbor's house,
I believe she's there,
Because in her kitchen,
Someone lit a match."
Under the moonlight:
Kind Rubin
Knocks at the brunette's door.
All of a sudden she replies,
"Who's knocking like that?"
He says in turn,
"Open your door,
For the god of love."
Under the moonlight:
Only a little can be seen,
The pen was looked for
A light was looked for,
Searching like this
I don't know what was found,
But I do know that the door
Was closed on them.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The Rhodora
The Rhodora
On being asked, whence is the flower.
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
-R. W. Emerson
Monday, September 21, 2015
La Napoule Art Foundation
Classical Painter Camie Salaz: ‘I Love Wonder’
“I love Beauty. I love Wonder, and I love Meaning.”
Artist Camie Isabella Salaz is a teacher, a devoted classicist, and (we’re please to announce) one of two artists selected to participate in La Napoule Art Foundation’s 2015 Grand Central Atelier (GCA) Artists in Residence.
Camie’s style demonstrates her love of storytelling and a rich education in the Classical tradition. She earned a BFA in drawing and painting from the Cornish College of Fine Art in Seattle and studied at The Water Street Atelier under Jacob Collins.
Camie generously agreed to answer a few questions about her technique, inspirations, and projects as she prepared for her Residency at the Château de La Napoule.
Romeo & Juliette
What factors and influences contributed to you choosing to work in the Classical tradition?
I love Beauty. I love Wonder, and I love Meaning, all of which are found in the many different styles of painting within our world’s 3,000-year history of the Classical painting tradition. I find that more modern styles of art (of the last 60 to 70 years) are sometimes lacking in these ideas and experiences.
You say on your website that you have a “dream of creating paintings as public works of art.” Can you explain why you feel this is important?
The paintings that have inspired me throughout my life are works of art I experienced in libraries, museums, parks, music halls, and other public spaces. They were often large in size and large in vision and seem, to me, to be created for the purpose of raising up humanity. So now it is my dream to also create such works in public spaces.
Psyche’s Mourning
You teach Classical painting at GCA. What do you find rewarding and/or challenging about teaching?
I teach privately and am currently giving workshops at the GCA.
The pursuit of mastering any craft requires, among other things, faith in the process and faith in one’s self. It can be challenging and heartbreaking when students are experiencing periods of doubt in their work and in themselves. But it is beyond rewarding when a student’s love of drawing and painting wins out over fears and difficulties and unrelenting perseverance begins to take root in an individual.
What’s the greatest thing about living with another artist (i.e, your husband, Kenneth Salaz)?
The greatest thing, for me, about living with another artist is sharing our love of Beauty, in nature, parenthood, friendship, and the arts. The greatest thing about living with my husband Kenneth is his conviction that we can have it all, do it all, together, beautifully, in this lifetime.
Roma
Do you have a particular project you will be working on during your residency?
See more examples of Camie’s work onher website. For information about LNAF Residencies, visit lnaf.org/residencies
Grand Central Atelier is a nonprofit arts organization that provides a “collaborative workspace for artists pursuing the methodology of historic ateliers to create drawing, painting and sculpture from life.” For more inforI am most excited about the architecture of the castle: how the waves break on the castle wall, the towers, the Mediterranean light that fills the hallways, the entryways and the windows. I am planning on doing interior and exterior studies of the architecture and stonework that will inspire atmospheres for my figure paintings for years to come.
mation, visit the GCA website.
I am so utterly excited!
La Napoule Chateau
Artists can apply for the residency each year, by contacting the Grand Central Atelier
Painting the surrounding Gardens and exterior castle walls of La Napoule Chateau.
Painting at La Napoule Chateau
My husband and I received the Artist in Residence at La Naupole in the South of France
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