January 6, 2007
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ART WARS: Epiphany
Picture of NothingOn Kirk Varnedoe’s
2003 Mellon Lectures,
“Pictures of Nothing“–“Varnedoe’s lectures were ultimately
about faith, about his faith in
the
power of abstraction,
and abstraction as a kind of
anti-religious faith
in itself….”– The Washington PostRelated material:
The
more industrious scholars
will derive considerable pleasure
from
describing how the art-history
professors and journalists of the period
1945-75, along with so many students,
intellectuals, and art tourists
of every
sort, actually struggled to see the
paintings directly, in the old
pre-World War II way,
like Plato’s cave dwellers
watching the shadows, without
knowing what had projected them,
which
was the Word.”– Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word
“Concept (scholastics’ verbum mentis)–
theological analogy of Son’s procession
as Verbum Patris, 111-12″
– Index to Joyce and Aquinas,
by William T. Noon, S.J.,
Yale University Press 1957,
second printing 1963, page 162
“So did God cause the big bang?
Overcome by metaphysical lassitude,
I finally reach over to my bookshelf
for The Devil’s Bible.
Turning to Genesis I read:
‘In the beginning
there was nothing.
And God
said,
‘Let there be light!’
And there was still nothing,
but now you
could see it.’”– Jim Holt, Big-Bang Theology,
Slate‘s “High Concept” department
“Bang.”
“…Mondrian and Malevich
are not discussing canvas
or pigment or
graphite or
any other form of matter.
They are talking about
Being or
Mind or Spirit.
From their point of view,
the grid is a staircase
to
the Universal….”For properties of the
“nothing” represented
by the 3×3 grid, see
The Field of Reason.For religious material related
to the above and to Epiphany,
a holy day observed by some,
see Plato, Pegasus, and the
Evening Star and Shining Forth.
