THE MYSTERIES OF REALITY

Here are a few poignant thoughts from a speech entitled "On My Painting" the painter, Max Beckman gave in London, in1938.* Beckman was important in the style called "New Objectivism," a subset of the German Expressionists. His figures were realistic, somewhat distorted, and monumental scale, his canvases around 6'H x 10'W. His experiences in WWI, and later, fleeing the Nazis, gave his work a tortured, haunting beauty.

"What I want to show in my work is the idea which hides itself behind so-called reality. I am seeking the bridge which leads from the visible to the invisible... My aim is always to get hold of the magic of reality and to transfer this reality into painting - to make the invisible visible through reality. It may sound paradoxical, but it is, in fact, reality which forms the mystery of our existence..."

(And now, in the year 2010, 72 year later, Quantum Physics has shown us that reality is indeed, mysterious!)

"In my opinion, all important things in art... have always originated from the deepest feeling about the mystery of Being. Self-realization is the urge of all objective spirits. It is this Self, for which I am searching in my life and my art..."

"To transform height, width and depth into two dimensions is for me an experience full of magic in which I glimpse, for a moment, that fourth dimension which my whole being is seeking."

Seeking a spiritual experience seems to be one of the common motivations for the act of creating. It occurs to me that most of the time, the deep inspiration we seek, may actually come to us as we engage in the creative process, as opposed to beforehand.