The sense of the wondrous with its mischievous predilection for the outlandish, the preposterous, the gratuitously anarchic haunts minds of a very peculiar sensibility but of no other identifiable denominator. Even the giant amoeba is more discerning in identifying the pools and ponds whose surface it will subsume - there are eligibility criteria defined by tolerance or intolerance to certain conditions: level of salinity, average exposure to sunlight, net disturbance of the surface water, presence of other biota within the body of water, depth, surface tension, etc. The sense of the wondrous needs only one condition - a sensibility that in the not so distant past was associated with those likely to succumb to TB: an vivid mind and a tendency to wander in search of what Rilke might have termed 'invisible honey'.
This quirk, this imp of the fantastic does not just settle on the surface of the pool, however. It sinks into the entire being, infusing every aspect of the mind and its myriad venues of expression and perception. Why is it, a friend once asked me, that when I look at the scales on a male pine cone I see the many eyes of a forest goddess? Why does it happen to me and not to my brother or father? Why does it not even happen to my mother? They only see a pine cone...And how come you can understand?
I could have answered that it cannot be so unique, especially for artists, poets and dreamers. Leonardo da Vinci in his book on painting suggests artists try staring at cracks in walls to conjure up images of landscapes. I am not implying in any way that those possessed of this sense are necessarily creative individuals. There's only one denominator - a very peculiar species of sensibility. So peculiar, in fact, it is unlikely to be coveted. On the contrary, I think the general feeling of people who have this special sense is that they are somewhat badly put together. We do not live in a world that encourages imagination in people who are older than 5. Being described as a dreamer would only pass as a compliment in certain restricted circles. And, then one has to admit it does not pay off in social life, and even less in the wild, to walk around floating in your own thoughts like an errant Kongming lantern riding an ocean breeze.
I recall I was around 7 years old. My parents and I had just been to mass at St John's Cathedral in Valletta (the one that houses Caravaggio's greatest masterpiece - The Beheading of St John). I was perturbed by a thought but I do not know now where the thought had come from. Was it something the priest had said during the homily? Or did the thought crop up before, possibly many days before that mass at St John's?
I do not know but I remember what was bothering me. Infinity. The thought had occurred to me that matter, having extension, must necessarily be bounded in space. So I thought, does matter fall off abruptly at some arbitrary point? Or does it continue extending forever in what to my mind felt like an immense and oppressive prison of matter within matter?
I remember looking into a shop window opposite the church, seeing the reflection of my sullen face and that of my parents laughing about something and asking myself - where does it end? And why are they laughing? Don't they realize where they are?
I wish I could talk to that child now. To explain to him that both space and matter, which are different things, can be bounded without 'falling off' (I know he would understand, he was smart:)) I would want to tell him that there's nothing truly oppressive in infinite extension as the range of human experience would never allow us to cover a distance whereby eternal recurrence becomes manifest - for as long as we exist and travel and explore the world around us, things will always keep surprising us with their novelty. Fortunately, we are mortal. And so is the planet and the Sun out there and those specks of light, the stars. We are all mortal.
But most importantly, I would like to tell him to look in the shop window again and close his eyes and breathe. It's OK, boy. Just a little sadness, a little panic, it will go.
It is this reason I painted this painting a couple of weeks ago, as a means to talk to that little child whose heart is it here in my chest, the heart of a hopeless dreamer...
This quirk, this imp of the fantastic does not just settle on the surface of the pool, however. It sinks into the entire being, infusing every aspect of the mind and its myriad venues of expression and perception. Why is it, a friend once asked me, that when I look at the scales on a male pine cone I see the many eyes of a forest goddess? Why does it happen to me and not to my brother or father? Why does it not even happen to my mother? They only see a pine cone...And how come you can understand?
I could have answered that it cannot be so unique, especially for artists, poets and dreamers. Leonardo da Vinci in his book on painting suggests artists try staring at cracks in walls to conjure up images of landscapes. I am not implying in any way that those possessed of this sense are necessarily creative individuals. There's only one denominator - a very peculiar species of sensibility. So peculiar, in fact, it is unlikely to be coveted. On the contrary, I think the general feeling of people who have this special sense is that they are somewhat badly put together. We do not live in a world that encourages imagination in people who are older than 5. Being described as a dreamer would only pass as a compliment in certain restricted circles. And, then one has to admit it does not pay off in social life, and even less in the wild, to walk around floating in your own thoughts like an errant Kongming lantern riding an ocean breeze.
I recall I was around 7 years old. My parents and I had just been to mass at St John's Cathedral in Valletta (the one that houses Caravaggio's greatest masterpiece - The Beheading of St John). I was perturbed by a thought but I do not know now where the thought had come from. Was it something the priest had said during the homily? Or did the thought crop up before, possibly many days before that mass at St John's?
I do not know but I remember what was bothering me. Infinity. The thought had occurred to me that matter, having extension, must necessarily be bounded in space. So I thought, does matter fall off abruptly at some arbitrary point? Or does it continue extending forever in what to my mind felt like an immense and oppressive prison of matter within matter?
I remember looking into a shop window opposite the church, seeing the reflection of my sullen face and that of my parents laughing about something and asking myself - where does it end? And why are they laughing? Don't they realize where they are?
I wish I could talk to that child now. To explain to him that both space and matter, which are different things, can be bounded without 'falling off' (I know he would understand, he was smart:)) I would want to tell him that there's nothing truly oppressive in infinite extension as the range of human experience would never allow us to cover a distance whereby eternal recurrence becomes manifest - for as long as we exist and travel and explore the world around us, things will always keep surprising us with their novelty. Fortunately, we are mortal. And so is the planet and the Sun out there and those specks of light, the stars. We are all mortal.
But most importantly, I would like to tell him to look in the shop window again and close his eyes and breathe. It's OK, boy. Just a little sadness, a little panic, it will go.
It is this reason I painted this painting a couple of weeks ago, as a means to talk to that little child whose heart is it here in my chest, the heart of a hopeless dreamer...
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| Reflection * |
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