Ronin, 1968 - James Turrell*
Charlie Rose interviewed artist James Turrell last night.
His art is awesome. I seriously could listen to him discuss light for hours.
Seeing light with your eyes closed. That is so contemplative.
TURRELL: Some people will go to the Grand Canyon and feel diminished by the experience, but I feel there are ways that you can be brought to that experience that can be just the opposite. You can actually perceive the cosmos and feel intimately a part of it, so that it doesn’t diminish you and your position in it, but you feel a part of it in a way that is powerful or empowering. - InterviewI know!
*Among Turrell's early works and simplest constructions is Ronin. A single fluorescent bulb was placed at the intersection of two perpendicular walls. This act was confounding and wonderful, creating the illusion of a shroud, of depth, and of open space—all with a single white light. - Source
Totally! makes me think of the Teresa's Interior Castle. From Fray Diego De Yepes description which he wrote about 9 years after her death in a letter: "This holy Mother," he writes, "had been desirous of obtaining some insight into the beauty of a soul in grace. Just at that time she was commanded to write a treatise on prayer, about which she knew a great deal from experience. On the eve of the festival of the Most Holy Trinity she was thinking what subject she should choose for this treatise, when God, Who disposes all things in due form and order, granted this desire of hers, and gave her a subject. He showed her a most beautiful crystal globe, made in the shape of a castle, and containing seven mansions, in the seventh and innermost of which was the King of Glory, in the greatest splendour, illumining and beautifying them all. The nearer one got to the centre, the stronger was the light; outside the palace limits everything was foul, dark and infested with toads, vipers and other venomous creatures.
ReplyDeleteI love that image too.
Delete+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteI only get modern art when it's explained to me.
Which is why I could listen to this guy for hours.
DeleteOtherwise I'd never get it.