"The mortals are the human beings. They are called mortals because they can die. To die means to be capable of death as death. Only man dies, and indeed continually, as long as he remains on Earth, under the Sky, before the Divinities. " (Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking)
Snow like Blood
I've photographed this statue of Christ in front of a small Catholic church in town a number of times. Each mini-shoot has been inadvertent. Yet each image turned into something worthwhile and different.
In this case, I was simply interested in recording all the freshly fallen snow partially concealing the statue. The result? The first image makes Christ appear to be carrying the cross himself (Road to Calvary), even though this is a Crucifixion scene. The second--closeup of the pierced feet--transforms melting snow into dripping blood.
Dreamworld
Unlike my previous blogging experiments, I've made a conscious effort to limit nunc aut nunquam to my creative pursuits, both personal and professional. Of course, I don't exist in a vacuum, which means that I occasionally mention music that inspires me, present a bit of pertinent theory (philosophy), or record personal observations on Nature and travel, as long as the latter directly relates to the blog's objectives.
Initially, I assumed that doing so would be difficult for someone like me who is used to political commentary and historic debate. Yet as weeks, then months flew by, I realized that I was wrong. In fact, I began to consider the possibility of consistently choosing metaphor over rational argument, embracing aesthetics over politics, finding the eternal in the everyday. This will be my small contribution to reinstating the archaic--which has been suppressed far too long--to its rightful place.
Imitating Nature
"We will have achieved much for the study of aesthetics when we come, not merely to a logical understanding, but also to the immediately certain apprehension of the fact that the further development of art is bound up with the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, just as reproduction depends upon the duality of the sexes, their continuing strife and only periodically occurring reconciliation. We take these names from the Greeks who gave a clear voice to the profound secret teachings of their contemplative art, not in ideas, but in the powerfully clear forms of their divine world."
"With those two gods of art, Apollo and Dionysus, we link our recognition that in the Greek world there exists a huge contrast, in origins and purposes, between visual (plastic) arts, the Apollonian, and the non-visual art of music, the Dionysian. Both very different drives go hand in hand, for the most part in open conflict with each other and simultaneously provoking each other all the time to new and more powerful offspring, in order to perpetuate for themselves the contest of opposites which the common word 'Art' only seems to bridge, until they finally, through a marvelous metaphysical act, seem to pair up with each other and, as this pair, produce Attic tragedy, just as much a Dionysian as an Apollonian work of art."
"In order to get closer to these two instinctual drives, let us think of them next as the separate artistic worlds of dreams and of intoxication, physiological phenomena between which we can observe an opposition corresponding to the one between the Apollonian and the Dionysian."
(Friedrich Nietzsche, excerpt from The Birth of Tragedy)
Russian Sphinx
Alexander Blok's Scythians (1918) is, or should be, the single most precise ideological poem for any Russian. In the century since its creation, its significance has grown, and as of late, it's left me particularly restless.
The photograph below is meant to illustration the following excerpt, in which the poet addresses Europe:
O Ancient World, before your culture dies,
Whilst failing life within you breathes and sinks,
Pause and be wise, as Oedipus was wise,
And solve the age-old riddle of the Sphinx.
That Sphinx is Russia. Grieving and exulting,
And weeping black and bloody tears enough,
She stares at you, adoring and insulting,
With love that turns to hate, and hate—to love.
(Tr. Alex Miller)
О старый мир! Пока ты не погиб,
Пока томишься мукой сладкой,
Остановись, премудрый, как Эдип,
Пред Сфинксом с древнею загадкой!
Россия - Сфинкс! Ликуя и скорбя,
И обливаясь черной кровью,
Она глядит, глядит, глядит в тебя
И с ненавистью, и с любовью!
(Александр Блок, СКИФЫ)