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The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-271 BCE) is best known for three doctrines: his materialist metaphysics of atoms, his teaching on the gods, and his theory of happiness as pleasure. Epicurus's doctrines were often misunderstood and misrepresented in antiquity, particularly his teaching on pleasure. For Epicurus, pleasure was not an unfettered, anything-goes morality, but a moderate enjoyment of the things of this world. The goal was to attain a freedom from disturbance. An unfettered hedonism, in fact, would cause disturbance, as would a too severe asceticism. On the gods, Epicurus taught that the gods were uninterested, even unaware, of human existence and life. They were not to be feared, but imitated. Their existence was the model of the undisturbed life of pleasure that was at the heart of Epicurean philosophy.
This bust, housed in the Capitoline Museums of Rome, in the Hall of Philosophers, is a copy of a Greek original that dated to the third century BCE, hence, not long after Epicurus's death.
Entry in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/epicur/
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There shadows that leek in both through the metaphysical realms to us that live in the physical plane... we let them fester, grow and gain control of our minds, our thoughts to the point where we allow them to become the Owner of how we live our lives - we get comfortable, they become a familiar friend that tempts in to darkness and solitude...
This is an image that really speaks volumes to not only me but I can imagine a whole lot of you right now and the timing of me posting this and sharing this with the world is well planned (although this should have gone out a week before the chaos we are now in) 😅 in these times of uncertainty I can definitely relate that my anxious monsters are finding their familiar ground in my mind no matter how much I try to convince myself that things will be ok... and I know that’s not healthy as an option either
However what I can offer is a piece of well used Disney based advice to you - and that is to just be more dory and “just keep swimming” - times are very tough, we can become drained, scared, and fearful of our own futures - however by finding happiness and joy in each day that comes forward to you in this time will help to refocus How your thoughts are used and being used... like for me at the moment I’m very grateful for the fact that yesterday I got to fully focus some of my time and energy into starting the Witcher (late to the game as always) and I’m hoping this time will give me a chance to find ever new inspiration...
Please let me know what you are happy for today - it could be anything - big or small but drop me a comment or a message to let me know! ☺️ Also a massive thank you to @asperjosh_photography for collaborating with me on this and also on a topic that is close to both of our hearts!
midnight - conversation
metropolis
Fujifilm X-E1 35mm f1.4 frames processed in DXO FilmPack 3 and Paintshop Pro x5. Thanks for the interest. :-D
Day Forty-eight, it's a Metaphysic Day. We went to the Auditorium Parco della Musica for a walk, again. This is a view of the public toilets.
365+1 Day of NEX-7 project
Gemaakt op 14 November 1989 met computerprogramma van CAVESOFT (H.D. Kuilman) in GW-Basic.
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plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/#MetTurComPhyDis
1.3 Metaphysical turn, comprehensive physics, Discourse
Upon arriving in the Netherlands, Descartes undertook work on two sorts of topics. In Summer, 1629, an impressive set of parhelia, or false suns, were observed near Rome. When Descartes heard of them, he set out to find an explanation. (He ultimately hypothesized that a large, solid ice-ring in the sky acts as a lens to form multiple images of the sun [6:355].) This work interrupted his investigations on another topic, which had engaged him for his first nine months in the Netherlands (1:44)—the topic of metaphysics, that is, the theory of the first principles of everything that there is. The metaphysical objects of investigation included the existence and nature of God and the soul (1:144, 182). However, these metaphysical investigations were not entirely divorced from problems such as the parhelia, for he claimed that through his investigations into God and the human self, he had been able “to discover the foundation of physics” (1:144). Subsequently, Descartes mentioned a little metaphysical treatise in Latin—presumably an early version of the Meditations—that he wrote upon first coming to the Netherlands (1:184, 350). And we know that Descartes later confided to Mersenne that the Meditations contained “all the principles of my physics” (3:233).
While working on the parhelia, Descartes conceived the idea for a very ambitious treatise. He wrote to Mersenne that he had decided not to explain “just one phenomenon” (the parhelia), but rather to compose a treatise in which he explained “all the phenomena of nature, that is to say, the whole of physics” (1:70). This work eventually became The World, which was to have had three parts: on light (a general treatise on visible, or material, nature), on man (a treatise of physiology), and on the soul. Only the first two survive (and perhaps only they were ever written), as the Treatise on Light and Treatise on Man. In these works, which Descartes decided to suppress upon learning of the condemnation of Galileo (1:270, 305), he offered a comprehensive vision of the universe as constituted from a bare form of matter having only length, breadth, and depth (three-dimensional volume) and carved up into particles with size and shape, which may be in motion or at rest, and which interact through laws of motion enforced by God (11:33–4). These works contained a description of the visible universe as a single physical system in which all its operations, from the formation of planets and the transmission of light from the sun, to the physiological processes of human and nonhuman animal bodies, can be explained through the mechanism of matter arranged into shapes and structures and moving according to three laws of motion. In fact, his explanations in the World and the subsequent Principles made little use of the three laws of motion in other than a qualitative manner. The laws sustained the notion that matter moves regularly (in a straight line) and that upon impact bits of matter alter their motions in regular ways—something that happens constantly in the full universe (the “plenum”) conceived by Descartes.
After suppressing his World, Descartes decided to put forward, anonymously, a limited sample of his new philosophy, in the Discourse with its attached essays. The Discourse recounted Descartes' own life journey, explaining how he had come to the position of doubting his previous knowledge and seeking to begin afresh. It offered some initial results of his metaphysical investigations, including mind–body dualism. It did not, however, engage in the deep skepticism of the later Meditations, nor did it claim to establish, metaphysically, that the essence of matter is extension. This last conclusion was presented merely as a hypothesis whose fruitfulness could be tested and proven by way of its results, as contained in the attached essays on Dioptrics and Meteorology. The latter subject area comprised “atmospheric” phenomena. In his Meteorology, Descartes described his general hypothesis about the nature of matter, before continuing on to provide accounts of vapors, salt, winds, clouds, snow, rain, hail, lightning, the rainbow, coronas, and parhelia.
Descartes wrote in the Meteorology that he was working from the following “supposition” or hypothesis: “that the water, earth, air, and all other such bodies that surround us are composed of many small parts of various shapes and sizes, which are never so properly disposed nor so exactly joined together that there do not remain many intervals around them; and that these intervals are not empty but are filled with that extremely subtle matter through the mediation of which, I have said above, the action of light is communicated” (6:233). He presented a corpuscularian basis for his physics, which denied the atoms-and-void theory of ancient atomism and affirmed that all bodies are composed from one type of matter, which is infinitely divisible (6:239). In the World, he had presented his non-atomistic corpuscularism, but without denying void space outright and without affirming infinite divisibility (11:12–20).
In the Meteorology, he also proclaimed that his natural philosophy had no need for the “substantial forms” and “real qualities” that other philosophers “imagine to be in bodies” (6:239). He had taken the same position in the World, where he said that in conceiving his new “world” (i.e., his conception of the universe), “I do not use the qualities called heat, cold, moistness, and dryness, as the Philosophers do” (11:25). Indeed, Descartes claimed that he could explain these qualities themselves through matter in motion (11:26), a claim that he repeated in the Meteorology (6:235–6). In effect, he was denying the then-dominant scholastic Aristotelian ontology, which explained all natural bodies as comprised of a “prime matter” informed by a “substantial form,” and which explained qualities such as hot and cold as really inhering in bodies in a way that is “similar” to the qualities of hot and cold as we experience them tactually.
Unlike Descartes' purely extended matter, which can exist on its own having only size and shape, many scholastic Aristotelians held that prime matter cannot exist on its own. To form a substance, or something that can exist by itself, prime matter must be “informed” by a substantial form (a form that renders something into a substance). The four Aristotelian elements, earth, air, fire, and water, had substantial forms that combined the basic qualities of hot, cold, wet, and dry: earth is cold and dry; air is hot and wet; fire is hot and dry; and water is cold and wet. These elements can themselves then serve as “matter” to higher substantial forms, such as the form of a mineral, or a magnet, or a living thing. Whether in the case of earth or of a living rabbit, the “form” of a thing directs its characteristic activity. For earth, that activity is to approach the center to the universe; water has the same tendency, but not as strongly. For this reason, Aristotelians explained, the planet earth has formed at the center, with water on its surface. A new rabbit is formed when a male rabbit contributes, through its seed-matter, the “form” of rabbithood to the seed-matter of the female rabbit. This form then organizes that matter into the shape of a rabbit, including organizing and directing the activity of its various organs and physiological processes. The newborn rabbit's behavior is then guided by its rabbit-specific “sensitive soul,” which is the name for the substantial form of the rabbit. Other properties of the rabbit, such as the whiteness of its fur, are explained by the “real quality” of white inhering in each strand of hair.
Although in the World and Meteorology Descartes avoided outright denial of substantial forms and real qualities, it is clear that he intended to deny them (1:324; 2:200; 3:420, 500, 648). Two considerations help explain his tentative language: first, when he wrote these works, he was not yet prepared to release his metaphysics, which would support his hypothesis about matter and so rule out substantial forms (1:563); and, second, he was sensitive to the prudential value of not directly attacking the scholastic Aristotelian position (3:298), since it was the accepted position in university education (3:577) and was strongly supported by orthodox theologians, both Catholic and Protestant (1:85–6; 3:349).
After publication of the Discourse in 1637, Descartes received in his correspondence queries and challenges to various of the doctrines, including his account of the sequence of phenomena during heart-beat and the circulation of the blood; his avoidance of substantial forms and real qualities; his argument for a distinction between mind and body; and his view that natural philosophical hypotheses could be “proven” through the effects that they explain (6:76). Descartes' correspondence from the second half of the 1630s repays close study, among other things for his discussions of hypothesis-confirmation in science, his replies to objections concerning his metaphysics, and his explanation that he had left the most radical skeptical arguments out of this work, since it was written in French for a wide audience (1:350, 561).
In 1635, Descartes fathered a daughter named Francine. Her mother was Descartes' housekeeper, Helena Jans. They lived with Descartes part of the time in the latter 1630s, and Descartes was arranging for them to join him when he learned of Francine's untimely death in September 1640. Descartes subsequently contributed a dowry for Helena's marriage in 1644 (Watson 2007, 188).
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In the course of the Third Meditation, Descartes constructs an argument for the existence of God that starts from the fact that he has an idea of an infinite being. The argument is intricate. It invokes the metaphysical principle that “there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause” (7:40). This principle is put forward as something that is “manifest by the natural light” (7:40), which itself is described as a cognitive power whose results are indubitable (7:38), like clear and distinct perception (7:144). Descartes then applies that principle not to the mere existence of the idea of God as a state of mind, but to the content of that idea. Descartes characterizes that content as infinite, and he then argues that a content that represents infinity requires an infinite being as its cause. He concludes, therefore, that an infinite being, or God, must exist. He then equates an infinite being with a perfect being and asks whether a perfect being could be a deceiver. He concludes: “It is clear enough from this that he cannot be a deceiver, since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect” (7:52).
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In the textbooks of Aristotelian physics of Descartes' day, it was common to divide physics into “general” and “special.” General physics pertained to the basic Aristotelian principles for analyzing natural substances: form, matter, privation, cause, place, time, motion. Special physics concerned actually existing natural entities, divided into inanimate and animate. Inanimate physics further divided into celestial and terrestrial, in accordance with the Aristotelian belief that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that the earth was of a different nature than the heavens (including the moon, and everything beyond it). Inanimate terrestrial physics first covered the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), then the “mixed” bodies composed from them, including the various mineral kinds. Animate terrestrial physics concerned the various powers that Aristotelians ascribed to ensouled beings, where the soul is considered as a principle of life (possessing vital as well as mental or cognitive powers). In the simplest textbooks, the powers of the soul were divided into three groups: vegetative (including nutrition, growth, and reproduction), which pertained to both plants and animals; sensitive (including external senses, internal senses, appetite, and motion), which pertain to animals alone; and rational powers, pertaining to human beings alone. All the bodies in both inanimate and animate terrestrial physics were governed by a “form” or active principle, as described in Section 1.3.
Descartes' ambition was to provide replacements for all the main parts of Aristotelian physics. In his physics, there is only one matter and it has no active forms. Thus, he dissolved the boundary that had made the celestial and the terrestrial differ in kind. His one matter had only the properties of size, shape, position, and motion. The matter is infinitely divisible and it constitutes space; there is no void, hence no spatial container distinct from matter. The motions of matter are governed by three laws of motion, including a precursor to Newton's law of inertia (but without the notion of vector forces) and a law of impact. Descartes' matter possessed no “force” or active agency; the laws of motion were decreed by God and were sustained by his activity. Earth, air, fire, and water were simply four among many natural kinds, all distinguished simply by the characteristic sizes, shapes, positions, and motions of their parts.
Although Descartes nominally subscribed to the biblical story of creation, in his natural philosophy he presented the hypothesis that the universe began as a chaotic soup of particles in motion and that everything else was subsequently formed as a result of patterns that developed within this moving matter. Thus, he conceived that many suns formed, around which planets coalesced. On these planets, mountains and seas formed, as did metals, magnets, and atmospheric phenomena such as clouds and rain. The planets themselves are carried around the sun in their orbits by a fluid medium that rotates like a whirlpool or vortex. Objects fall to earth not because of any intrinsic “form” that directs them to the center of the universe, and also not because of a force of attraction or other downward-tending force. Rather, they are driven down by the whirling particles of the surrounding ether. Descartes insisted that all cases of apparent action at a distance, including magnetism, must be explained through the contact of particle on particle. He explained magnetism as the result of corkscrew-shaped particles that spew forth from the poles of the earth and flow from north to south or vice versa, causing magnetized needles to align with their flow (Princ. IV.133–83). To explain magnetic polarity, Descartes posited that the particles exiting from the south pole are threaded in one direction and those from the north are threaded oppositely (like the oppositely threaded spindles on bicycle pedals).
Two large Nana is Real pasteups that recently appeared on a wall in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. The top one I've seen around quite a bit "The angry girl always think she can do more than she can." But, this is the only version of the bottom sticker than I've seen so far in Harajuku. It says "Metaphysics Nana is Real" "Seoul" "Dimz" "10" and "Mint". If you know anymore about this art, feel free to add tags to the photo. Thanks.
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FIRE IN THE SKY is a 150 carat handcrafted red picture jasper pendant is created swirling and shaping antique brass toned copper wire by hand, adding red jasper chips and Swarovski crystals to enhance the natural beauty, shape and color of the stone. This large earthy stone displays beautiful shades of red resembling a firey sunset. The size and color of this pendant will make this your favorite piece of wearable art.
It measures 2 1/4" across and 2 1/2" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain or choker. A 19" adjustable brown cord is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Picture Jasper's healing effects:
Picture jasper helps bring forward our hidden thoughts, fears and hopes so that we may face them and work on them. It is a stone of harmony and helps us in business pursuits. It helps bring courage and wisdom into risky situations. It helps neutralize and withdraw negativity from our lives. Jasper in general has been called the supreme nurturer, reminding us there is more that surrounds us than ourselves, protect from negativity, helping to ground us, balances yin yang and assists us during astral travel. Helps to align and cleanse our Chakra's and Aura. It helps to balance the physical, emotional and intellectual bodies with the etheric energies. It is said to have been worn by priests and kings and used in a ceremonial way in Native American traditions. This stone increases determination in all pursuits and aids quick thinking. It also reminds one to be honest with oneself and to help others.
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Castel del Monte (English: Castle of the Mount, Bari dialect: Castídde d'u Monte) is a 13th-century citadel and castle situated in Andria in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. It stands on a promontory, where it was constructed during the 1240s by the Emperor Frederick II, who had inherited the lands from his mother Constance of Sicily.
Because of its relatively small size, it was once considered to be no more than a "hunting lodge", but scholars now believe it originally had a curtain wall and did serve as a citadel. Frederick was responsible for the construction of many castles in Apulia, but Castel del Monte's geometric design was unique. The fortress is an octagonal prism with an octagonal tower at each corner. The towers were originally some 5 m higher than now, and they should perhaps include a third floor Both floors have eight rooms and an eight-sided courtyard occupies the castle's centre. Each of the main rooms have vaulted ceilings. Three of the corner towers contain staircases. The castle has two entrances, an unobtrusive service entrance and an ornate main entrance. Frederick's main entrance featured elements from classical design, and may have been influenced by Frederick's interest in Greco-Roman architecture.
The octagonal plan is unusual in castle design. Historians have debated the purpose of the building and it has been suggested that it was intended as a hunting lodge. Another theory is that the octagon is an intermediate symbol between a square (representing the earth) and a circle (representing the sky). Frederick II may have been inspired to build to this shape by either the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which he had seen during the Sixth Crusade, or by the Palace Chapel of Aachen Cathedral.
Brian Greene weaves a fugue of metaphysical harmony, jamming out a made-for-TV soliloquy for fundamental physics.
I caught the sparkle in his eye during his TED talk this year, now online.
“There are many universes (10^500), each with a different shape for the extra dimensions.”
“Our bubble is but one in a cosmic bubble bath of universes.”
But... but, isn’t this a bit, umm, irrelevant to the daily grind?
So I thought until I invested in a company that is taking advantage of this to transcend Moore’s Law. If we could engage parallel universes, perhaps we could outperform anything that could be built using just one. We could harness the refractive echoes of trillions of parallel universes entangled in a unified computation. I even named the U.S. investment vehicle for this Canadian company "Parallel Universes, Inc."
So far it seems to be working. Let’s pause on this sub point of Greene's logic with Oxford’s David Deutsch: “Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that would take a classical computer longer than the age of the universe.” And the only way to explain their behavior invokes parallel universes. More on this later.
Some more Greene gems from the TED talk:
“The central idea of string theory is quite straightforward. It says that if you examine any piece of matter ever more finely…you’d find little tiny vibrating filaments of energy, little tiny vibrating strings. And just like the strings on a violin that can vibrate in different patterns producing different musical notes, these little fundamental strings vibrate to produce different kinds of particles — electrons, quarks, neutrinos, photons — all other particles would unite into a single framework, and they would all arise from vibrating strings. It’s a compelling picture, a kind of cosmic symphony where all the richness that we see in the world around us emerges from the music that these little tiny strings can play.” (minute 7:00)
“Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.” (closing words at minute 20:00)
Greene argues for the anthropic principle — why is our universe so finely tuned to support the possibility of matter and life? Perhaps because we as observers, by definition, are in the universe where the parameters make our form of life possible. But there are many others.
A derivative theory, Gardner’s Selfish Biocosm hypothesis extends evolution across successive universes. His premise is that the anthropic qualities of our universe (life and intelligence-friendly physics) derive from “an enormously lengthy cosmic replication cycle in which… our cosmos duplicates itself and propagates one or more "baby universes." The hypothesis suggests that the cosmos is "selfish" in the same metaphorical sense that evolutionary theorist and ultra-Darwinist Richard Dawkins proposed that genes are "selfish." …The cosmos is "selfishly" focused upon the overarching objective of achieving its own replication.”
Gardner concludes with a nested spiral of evolutionary recapitulation:
“An implication of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis is that the emergence of life and ever more accomplished forms of intelligence is inextricably linked to the physical birth, evolution, and reproduction of the cosmos.”
Perhaps evolution is a conserved and resonant developmental homology at all scales of iteration.
Oil on canvas; 81 x 54 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
Oil on canvas; 61 x 50.2 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
Oil on canvas; 52 x 70 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt Whitman
Morning glory (also written as morning-glory[1]) is the common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics are in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera, some of which are:
Argyreia
Astripomoea
Calystegia
Convolvulus
Ipomoea
Lepistemon
Merremia
Operculina
Rivea
Stictocardia
Morning glory was first known in China for its medicinal uses, due to the laxative properties of its seeds.
Ancient Mesoamerican civilizations used the morning glory species Ipomoea alba to convert the latex from the Castilla elastica tree and also the guayule plant to produce bouncing rubber balls [2]. The sulfur in the morning glory's juice served to vulcanize the rubber, a process predating Charles Goodyear's discovery by at least 3,000 years.[3] Aztec priests in Mexico were also known to use the plant's hallucinogenic properties (see Rivea corymbosa).
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This 230 carat handcrafted Amethyst Crystal Cluster pendant is created swirling and shaping nontarnish sterling silver plate wire by hand to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone. This natural deep violet crystal quartz cluster has beautiful sparkle crystals throughout.
It measures 1 1/4" across and 3" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" sterling silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Amethyst's healing effects:
Considered the Master Healing Stone. An extremely powerful and protective stone with a high spiritual vibration. It's one of the most spiritual stones, promoting love of the divine, selflessness, & spiritual wisdom. It activates the crown Chakra. It increases a sense of responsibility and self worth. Sleep with it and it facilitates out of body experiences and intuitive dreams. Amethyst aids in headaches, insomnia, alcohol recovery, blood, pain, stress ,tension, bruising, injuries, skin, respiratory, intestinal. It cleanses the aura. It balances and connects physical, mental & emotional bodies to the spiritual.
Oil on canvas; 95.9 x 70.5 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
Oil on canvas; 73 x 59.1 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
SANDPIPER is a handcrafted lace coral pendant that I created swirling and shaping silver plate wire by hand, adding sea shells and fresh water pearls to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the coral piece. This delicate-looking pendant would look great with your tropical wardrobe.
It measures 1" across and 2 1/2" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Coral's healing properties are mostly associated with Women, young children and the elderly. For women it is said to increase fertility and regulate menstruation. For young children, it is recommended to ease teething and to prevent epilepsy. For the elderly, it is used as a cure for arthritis. Coral is considered a representative of the warm energy of the Sun, and the southern direction.
Coral can be used to reconnect with nature and its variety of wonders. Coral also attracts love and prosperity, particularly red coral which is a "stone" of passion. Creativity and optimism are also qualities that Coral brings out. Emotionally Coral brings inner peace, strength and understanding of purpose. Physically Coral is used for general healing, blood and circulatory system issues, kidney, bladder, epilepsy, bone and bone marrow, eye problems and the respiratory system.
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Taken just after a drenching shower, in upland old-growth forest near the northern bluff of the Galien River. Looking generally southward.
To see the amazing, physical-metaphysical process of photosynthesis at its most rampant, stand in a woodland like this just after a summer rain. Everything glows green. The air crackles with oxygen.
The most important chemical formula in the world is
6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2
(Forgive the lack of subscripts. Apparently Flickr does not permit the appropriate HTML coding for them.)
There are some ecosystems (at midocean vents, for instance) that don't rely on this formula, but we and most of the rest of life certainly do. To put its chemical symbols and numerals into plain English: plants and other organisms using this type of photosynthesis take basic chemical compounds—carbon dioxide and water—and somehow transform them, as we animals certainly can't, into both free oxygen and food in the form of sugar.
Note my emphasizing the word "somehow." It's easy to slap that equation up on a blackboard or projection screen and just say, "That, my friends, is how photosynthesis works!" But to actually disambiguate the chain of arcane and convoluted chemical reactions that must take place in sequence, like the workings of a Rube Goldberg machine, is no easy job for either teacher or student.
When presenting horticulturally oriented botany at the adult-education level, I was told to cite the equation, and stop there. But in the upper-level, botany-for biology-majors course I taught in college, we went all the way down the rabbit hole.
But the more I did the latter, the more convinced I became that something important was missing in the textbook explication of chlorophyll, chloroplasts, light reactions, the Calvin Cycle, carbon fixation, RuBisCo, electron donors, ATP, Crassulacean Acid and C4 metabolisms, and all the other processes and paraphernalia of photosynthesis.
I think I've had this unsettled feeling because the historical-geologist side of me knows that direct and indirect fossil evidence suggests something rather arresting. This hyper-complicated process originated not long after—and maybe just after—the Late Heavy Bombardment. This cataclysmic infall of asteroids and meteorites occurred between 4.1 and 3.8 Ga ago, in the late Hadean eon and Eoarchean era.
Despite that truly hellish assault on the Earth's surface, the fossil evidence alluded to above points to something almost unbelievable: an early form of photosynthesis existed by 3.5, and maybe even as far back as 3.8 Ga. How did something as mind-bendingly elaborate as that start so early in the evolution of life, when our planet was populated only with the simplest unicellular microorganisms?
And the kind of oxygen-liberating photosynthesis cited in the formula above, the kind we depend on, was also operating no later than 3.0 Ga ago.
In contrast, plants developed much, much, later. If you have a broad definition of what it is to be a plant, they're a little less than 1.0 Ga old; but if you just restrict them to those that have evolved on land, they're about half of that. And trees—the forerunners of those shown in this image—didn't evolve till the Upper Devonian, about 0.38 Ga (380 Ma) ago.
So, while advanced multicellular life was a slow starter, it seems that Planet Earth was blessed with a remarkably potent and complex chemical pathway, no less magical for being explicable, at a very early date in its development.
Of course, this all begs the question of why. I've thought about this endlessly, and am now quite sure I've figured it out. Just as the Titan Prometheus brought fire to humankind, it was the Roman goddess Flora, descending from some Eoarchean proto-Olympus, who bestowed this priceless gift of life on our little world. I hope that the next edition of botany textbooks will point that out.
#/media/File:Wall_painting_-_Flora_-_Stabiae_(villa_di_Arianna)_-_Napoli_MAN_8834.jpg){kind=link}
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, go to my Wonders of an Old-Growth Forest album.
This reminds me of one of my favourite metaphysical poems
MY Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high ;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.
As lines, so love's oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.
The definition of love, Andrew Marvell
Oil on canvas; 40 x 70 cm.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
art noir - sensitive assassin
metropolis
Fujifilm X-E1 35mm f1.4 frame processed in DXO FilmPack 3 and Paintshop Pro x6. Thanks for the interest. :-D
Acrylic on Museum Board. One of a series of paintings that I did inspired by "Inner Chapters", the writings of Chuang Tsu. In one of the stories he describes the flight of a legendary giant bird, and how it is mocked and belittled by the smaller birds of the surrounding area as it soars away from the earth into the heavens. The story culminates with the line, "...This is the difference between Great and Small." I probably read this story in my high school years, and it has stayed with me ever since.
Balthasar de Monconys (1611-1665) was a French physicist and judge, born in Lyon. In 1618, Monconys' parents sent him to a Jesuit boarding school in Salamanca, Spain, as a plague had broken out in Lyon. Monconys was deeply interested in metaphysics and mysticism, and studied the teachings of Pythagoras, Zoroastrism, and Greek and Arab alchemists. From a young age, he dreamed of travelling to India and China. However, he returned to Lyon after finishing his studies. At the age of thirty-four years old he was finally able to leave behind the safety of his library and the theoretical speculation of the laboratory, and become a tireless traveller in Europe and the East.
Monconys travelled to Portugal, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Istanbul and the Middle East with the son of the Duke of Luynes. Even in his very first journey to Portugal, it is obvious that in each city Monconys is very soon able to connect with mathematicians, clergymen, surgeons, engineers, chemists, physicians and princes, to visit their laboratories and to collect “secrets and experiences”.
After Portugal, Monconys travelled to Italy, and finally departed to the East, to study the ancient religions and denominations, and meet the gymnosophists. In 1647-48 he was in Egypt. Seeking the Zoroasters and followers of Hermes Trismegistus, he reached Mount Sinai. In Egypt, the 17th century European was lost in a labyrinth of small and winding streetlets, and discovered different cults and religions, the diversity of ethnicities and their customs: Turks, Kopts, Jews, Arabs, Mauritans, Maronites, Armenians, and Dervishes. He followed several superstitious suggestions and discovered marvellous books of astronomy in Hebrew, Persian and Arabic. Later on, after his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he crossed Asia Minor and reached Istanbul, from where he planned to travel to Persia. For once more in his life however, the plague forced him to change his course; he left for Izmir, and returned to Lyon in 1649.
Fron 1663 to 1665 Monconys travelled incessantly between Paris, London, the Netherlands and Germany. He visited princes and philosophers, libraries and laboratories, and maintained frequent correspondence with several scientists. Finally, after consequent asthma attacks he passed away before his travel notes could be published.
His travel journal (1665-1666) was edited and published by his son and by his Jesuit friend J. Berchet. The journal is enriched by drawings which testify to the wide scope of Monconys' interests. Monconys collected a vast corpus of material which includes medical recipes, chemistry forms, material connected to the esoteric sciences, mathematical puzzles, questions of Algebra and Geometry, zoological observations, mechanical applications, descriptions of natural phenomena, chemistry experiments, various machines and devices, medical matters, the philosopher's stone, astronomical measurements, magnifying lenses, thermometres, hydraulic devices, drinks, hydrometres, microscopes, architectural constructions and even matters connected to hygiene or the preparation of liquors.
The third volume includes a hundred and sixty-five medical, chemical and physics experiments with their outcomes as well as a sonnet on the battle of Marathon. There are five detailed indexes for the classification of the material. At the same time, this three-volume work permits the construction of a list of names (more than two hundred and fifty) of scholars, physicians, alchemists, astrologists, mathematicians, empirical scientists and other researches. From Monconys' text and correspondence a highly interesting network emerges, as it is possible for specialists of all disciplines to reconstruct the contacts between scientists and scholars of Western Europe, for a period spanning more than a decade in the mid-17th century.
Monconys' work is written in a monotonous style, but nevertheless possesses a perennial charm, as it is a combination of a travel journal and a laboratory scientist's workbook. The drawings accompanying the text make up a corpus of material unique in travel literature.
Written by Ioli Vingopoulou
Fransız asıllı fizikçi ve yargıç Balthasar de Monconys (1611-1665) (okunuş: Baltazar dö Monkoni) Lyon şehrinde doğar. Yaşadığı kentte 1618 yılında veba salgını baş gösterince, ailesi onu Salamanka şehrine bir Cizvit yatılı okuluna gönderir. Metafizik ve gizemcilik (mistisizm) için yoğun ilgi duyan Monconys, Pythagoras öğretilerini, Zerdüştlüğü, hatta Yunan ve Arap simyacıların eserlerini okur. Daha küçük yaştan beri Hindistan ve Çin'e kadar ulaşmayı düşlemesine karşın eğitimini tamamladıktan sonra Lyon'a geri döner ve nihayet 34 yaşındayken kütüphane güvenliğini ve teorik laboratuvar bilgilerini terkedip kararlı bir biçimde Avrupa ve Doğu'ya seyahat etmeye başlar.
Monconys, Luynes dükünün oğluyla birlikte Portekiz, İngiltere, Almanya, İtalya, Alçak Ülkeler (Hollanda), İstanbul ve Orta Doğu'ya seyahat eder. Daha ilk yolculuğundan (Portekiz'de) uğradığı her şehirde kısa zamanda matematikçi, rahip, cerrah, mühendis, kimyager, doktor ve prens gibi çeşit çeşit insanlarla bağ kurup laboratuvarlarını ziyaret ederek "sır ve tecrübeler" derler. Yazdığı metinde bu süreci izlemekteyiz. Portekiz'den sonra ilk kez olarak İtalya'ya gider ve nihayet çeşitli dogmaları, eski dinleri ve "gymnosophist"leri (çıplak bilgeler) incelemek üzere Doğu'ya doğru yola çıkar. 1647-48 yıllarında Mısır'da bulunmaktadır; Zerdüştçüler ve Hermes-Thot (Hermes Trismegistus) müritleriyle karşılaşmak için Sina dağına kadar ulaşır. Mısır'da 17. yüzyılın bu Batı Avrupalısı daracık sokakların oluşturduğu labirent içinde yitip, türk, kıptî, yahudî, arap, moritanyalı, maruni, ermeni, derviş gibi binbir çeşit dogma ve mezhep, milliyet ve kültürel adet keşfeder. Batıl inançlara uyar, ibranice farsça yada arapça dillerinde yazılmış şahane gökbilim kitapları keşfeder. Kutsal Yerlere hacılık ziyaretinin ardından Anadolu'yu boydan boya geçip İstanbul'a varır. Buradan İran'a gitmeyi planlar. Ancak veba salgını bir kez daha onu kaçmaya zorlar; İzmir'e geçip oradan 1649 yılında Lyon'a döner.
Monconys 1663'ten 1665'e kadar hiç ara vermeden Paris, Londra, Hollanda ve Almanya arasında mekik dokuyup prens ve filozoflarla konuşur, çeşitli kütüphane ve laboratuvarları ziyaret eder ve birçok bilim adamıyla yoğun bir mektuplaşma sürdürür. Ancak sonunda üstüste geçirdiği astım krizlerinden sonra seyahat notlarının kitap olarak basılmış halini göremeden ölür.
Sözkonusu yayın (1665-1666) Monconys'nin oğlu ve dostu Cizvit rahip J. Berchet tarafından hazırlanmıştır. Monconys'nin geniş bir ilgi alanına sahip oluşu günlüğünü tamamlayan desenlerle kanıtlanmaktadır. Derlemiş olduğu çeşitli ve zengin malzeme içinde: ilâç reçeteleri, kimyasal formüller, gizli ilimlerle ilgili malzeme, matematik bilmeceleri, cebir ve geometri problemleri, zoolojiye (hayvan bilimi) ilişkin gözlemler, mekanik uygulamalar, doğa fenomenleri betimlemeleri, kimyasal deneyler, makineler, tıp konuları, felsefe taşı, astronomi ölçümleri, büyüteçler, termometreler, su tesisatıyla ilgili cihazlar, içkiler, hidrometreler, mikroskoplar, mimarî yapılar, hijyen ve likör yapımı gibi konular var.
Kitabın üçüncü cildinde işlenen konular arasında 165 tane fizik kimya ve tıp deneyi ve sonuçları, ve Maraton muharebesi hakkında bir sone yer almaktadır. Bu içeriğin sınıflanması için kitaba beş tane ayrı çözümlemeli dizin eklenmiştir. Aynı zamanda, Monconys'nin üç ciltlik eserinden upuzun bir isimler katalogu da (250'den fazla isim) elde edilebilir. Bu isimler yazar ve düşünür, doktor, simyacı, astrolog, matematikçi, deneyci ve çeşitli uzman araştırmacılara aittir. Monconys'nin metninden ve mektuplaşmalarından, 17. yüzyıl ortalarında özellikle batı Avrupa'da, 20 yıldan fazla bir süre için, tüm bilim uzmanlarının yeniden birleştirebileceği son derece ilginç bir bilimler arası ilişki ağı ortaya çıkmaktadır.
Monconys'nin yazış uslubu tekdüze olmakla birlikte, bir laboratuvar araştırmacısının seyahat günlüğü ile gözlem defterini bir arada bulundurması açısından eşsiz bir cazibeye sahiptir. Metne eşlik eden desenler seyahat edebiyatı yayınlarında rastlanan ender türden bir malzeme oluşturmaktadır.
Yazan: İoli Vingopoulou
russellmoreton.blogspot.co.uk/
Christopher Wilmarth ; Poetics/Duality of Light and gravity
Other Architecture
Constructing Metaphysical Space
Wilmarth's art reveals his essential concern with the mystical and physical properties of light, especially the ways in which light evokes reverie and generates sensations of space and containment.
The Architecture of Natural Light : Henry Plummer
EVANESCENCE
Orchestration of light to mutate through time
Intensity and integrity of Wilmarth's practice/vision.
PROCESSION
Choreography of light/moving eye
VEILS OF GLASS
Refraction of light/diaphanous film
Wilmarth made possibly his strongest, most beautiful works on paper, exploring a new level of expression while retaining continuity with past work.
ATOMIZATION
Sifting of light/through a porous screen
These drawings also contain allusions to the human presence. Their haunting, foreboding quality is prefigured in the grave, austere tones of some of the glass and steel structures.
CANALIZATION
Channelling of light/through a hollow mass
The duality of light and shadow and contrasts between abstraction and representation continue to be central concerns in his final drawings.
ATMOSPHERIC SILENCE
Suffusion of light with a unified mood
Wilmarth's sculptures from the early 1980's are influenced by the poetry of Stephane Mallarme.To affirm Mallarme's emphasis on the spiritual, the artist used a simple ovoid form, evoking a multitude of symbols, including the human head. These ovoids were made of blown glass, which Wilmarth viewed as "frozen breath". The artist pursued this figurative impulse into the mid 1980s, combining the anthropomorphic ovoid shapes with the larger abstract forms of his earlier sculpture.
LUMINESCENCE
Materialization of light in physical matter
Wilmarth composed with planes of delicate colour and light, placing plates of blackened steel behind translucent sheets of etched glass imbued with a luminous, greenish cast.
"He employed a painterly technique that emphasized the tactility and fichness of his materials, which like an alchemist he persistently sought to transform. He continually examined the concept of duality: contrasts between light and shadow, transparency and opacity, heaviness and weightlessness, materiality and ethereality, form and spirit are repeatedly presented; the synthesis of geometric with organic forms, the range between abstraction and representation are constantly explored."
Laura Rosenstock, catalogue essay.
Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting. After studying art in Athens and Florence, de Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. His early style was influenced by Arnold Böcklin’s and Max Klinger’s paintings, which juxtapose the fantastic with the commonplace. By 1910 de Chirico was living in Florence, where he began painting a unique series of landscapes that included The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910), in which the long, sinister, and illogical shadows cast by unseen objects onto empty city spaces contrast starkly with bright, clear light that is rendered in brooding green tonalities. Moving to Paris in 1911, de Chirico gained the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire with his ambiguously ominous scenes of deserted piazzas. In these works, such as The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), classical statues, dark arcades, and small, isolated figures are overpowered by their own shadows and by severe, oppressive architecture.
In 1915 de Chirico was conscripted into the Italian army and stationed at Ferrara, Italy. There, he was able to continue making art and practiced a modification of his earlier manner, marked by more compact groupings of incongruous objects. Diagnosed with a nervous condition, he was admitted into a military hospital, where he met Carlo Carrà in 1917; together the two artists developed the style they named Metaphysical painting. In de Chirico’s paintings of this period, such as the Grand Metaphysical Interior (1917) and The Seer (1915), the colors are brighter, and dressmakers’ mannequins, compasses, biscuits, and paintings on easels assume a mysterious significance within enigmatic landscapes or interiors.
The element of mystery in de Chirico’s paintings dwindled after 1919, when he became interested in the technical methods of the Italian classical tradition. He eventually began painting in a more realistic and academic style, and by the 1930s he had broken with his avant-garde colleagues and disclaimed his earlier works. De Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings exercised a profound influence on the painters of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s.
when I moved into my new flat, I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that the previous owners, a really sweet couple, left these two plants for me to be taken care of... so far, these guys are doing well and probably the conversation is floating between them, when I'm not around ;)
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
LUMINOSITY is a fascinating 130 carat handcrafted labradorite pendant that I created swirling and shaping antique bronze toned copper wire by hand, adding peridot, lapis lazuli and topaz chips to enhance the natural beauty, shape and colors of the stone. This labradorite is one of the most vivid of my labradorites. It is a rare labradorite as it flashes many different colors such as a beautiful royal blue, bright yellow, orange and lime green when viewed from different angles in the light. This stone is truly a beautiful gift from Mother Nature. The combination of the elegant, swirly antique bronze wire setting, together with the earthy and dramatic gemstone creates a very versatile piece of wearable art that can be worn with a party dress or your favorite casual jeans. Stylish Care More pendants are sure to add a touch of natural drama to your fashion wardrobe
It measures 1 1/2" across and 3" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" antique bronze chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Labradorite's healing effects:
Labradorite (also called Spectrolite sometimes) is a considered by mystics to be a stone of transformation. It is said to clear, balance and protect the aura. It is purported to help provide clarity and insight into your destiny, as well as attract success. It is used in metaphysics for dream recall, and finding ways to use dreams in daily life. Mystically, energies of stress and anxiety are reduced by labradorite. It helps to stimulate the imagination, enhancing intuition, psychic abilities, strength of will, strengthens and protects the aura. Helps us to understand the destiny that we have chosen.
Physical: Labradorite is said to increase intuition, psychic development, esoteric wisdom, help with subconscious issues, and provide mental illumination. Labradorite is associated with the solar plexus and brow chakras.