The Gods in Art…
“The greatest mystery is not that we should be tossed by chance amongst the profusion of matter and the welter of the stars; it is, rather, that within this prison we are able to darw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”- Andre Malraux: The Walnut Trees of Altenburg
At the end of the Middle Ages, with the waning of religious fervor, sculptors strove less for the spiritual beauty of their subjects and more for the aesthetic beauty of their statues. Saint mary the Egyptian is robed in a single, long cascade of stylized hair. Image:http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_l%27%C3%89gyptienne
…To escape this absurdity, Malraux decided long ago, man must defy his fate. Though the human condition be basically intolerable- blind life quickly staggering toward death- man can nevertheless be great. Against all odds, he must assert dignity and heroism. One way to do so is in action- politics or war. Another, more lasting way is in the creation of “images powerful enough to deny our nothingness” -art. Malraux explained this in The Voices of Silence. “True arts and cultures relate man to duration, sometimes to eternity, and make him something other than the most favored denizen of a universe founded on absurdity,” he wrote. “Each of the masterpieces is a purification of the world, but their common message is that of their existence and the victory of each individual artist over his servitude, spreading like ripples on the sea of time, implementing art’s eternal victory over the human situation. All art is a revolt against man’s fate.” Elsewhere he said, “Art is an antidestiny.”
Saint Paul glories in a beard of elaborate curls….Image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/magika2000/7496767272/sizes/m/in/photostream/
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