Pick a color and go

Previously, I spoke about music which is a form of art the essence of which we mistakenly consider to be sound.  Likewise, art — that is the visual arts — is a form of art the essence of which has nothing whatsoever to do with the human eye . . . at least not the ones on either side of our noses.

Close your eyes and you will “see” what I mean. Shapes and patterns, shadow and light, figures and faces, moving waves, networks of neon colors hovering across the parquet floor, last year’s dead leaves huddled in a corner of the marble balcony, the tips of bare tree branches burning in the sunset.

Now I will tell you a very important Horizontal Idea:  The art of art is the deliberate turning of the mind to the things of light.  We must have the light even before the shadows, the white canvas of open expansion before the mountains, the girl at the well, the grass.

Fortunately, we are children of the sun and we quite naturally turn to it.  In Horizontology it is called tropos.  We turn to the light just as does the lizard, the bird, the bear cub and the buttercup… but only if we are left to our own devices.

More often than not, we are distracted, plugged in, hypnotized or otherwise disenfranchised so that we cannot or simply do not turn to that which our nature desires.  Other false desires are set up to distract and dissuade us.

You must lie down.  Do not watch the screen.  Do not turn on the radio.  Do not visit the Colosseum.  It is only death.

And as far as museums go, well…my eyes cannot help but to contemplate the walls on which the paintings are hung. If I were you, I would go to The Louvre and pick a window and gaze out at the endless miles of art.