Category Archives: Painting

Odilon Redon: Master of Life

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Symbol Reader

“Not only are we the products of multiple entangled ancestors, spanning vast ranges of the evolutionary field; we are not even individuals at all. Rather, we are walking assemblages: riotous communities of multi-species, multi-bodied beings, inside and outside of our … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, art, consciousness, creation, Darwin, entanglement, evolution, intelligence, life, metamorphosis, monsters, Oannes, Odilon Redon, Origines, painting, symbolism, symbols, transformation | 10 Comments

Painting the Sun

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Symbol Reader

I. “Turner’s favourite colour was yellow. He spent hours studying its myriad iterations, using more yellow pigments than any other … … Turner admired yellow’s optical power. Bright and warm, it jumps out at us from a distance and forces … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged archetypes, art, colour, insoluminant, light, lightness, luminance, luminosity, Monet, sun, symbolism, symbols, Turner | 7 Comments

The Salon de la Rose † Croix

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Symbol Reader

I. “A call to arms for the worship of beauty, the Salon de la Rose + Croix (R + C) was founded in Paris by … Joséphin Péladan. … The Salon aimed to transcend the mudane and material for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, art, Jean Moréas, Joséphin Péladan, painting, Salons de la Rose + Croix, symbolism, symbols | 10 Comments

Moon Art

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Symbol Reader

I saw an exhibition today devoted to the history of artists’ engagement with the Moon, from the Romantic era to the post-war period. My attention was captured by numerous works of art – some of them very atmospheric, as is … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged archetypes, art, exhibition, Kunsthaus Zurich, Marianne von Werefkin, painting, symbolism, symbols, the moon | 7 Comments

The Reality of Dreams in Henry Fuseli’s Art

Posted on December 1, 2018 by Symbol Reader

Henry Fuseli’s paintings fire up the soul. What is special about this eighteenth-century artist is that he never painted from “nature” but rather he chose to cast his eye inwards and look for inspiration in the fiery depths of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Henry Fuseli, Painting | Tagged archetypes, art, Carl Jung, dreams, Henry Füssli, Henry Fuseli, Leucothea, Leukothea, mysterium tremendum, myth, numinous, Odysseus, painting, reality, Rudolf Otto, symbolism, symbols, the collective unconscious, The Red Book | 19 Comments

Genesis in Motion

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Symbol Reader

According to the Book of Genesis (New American Standard Bible), “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged art, Balance, creation, dynamic, equilibrium, forces of nature, Genesis, gravity, matter, motion, movement, painting, Paul Klee, spirit, static, symbolism, symbols | 9 Comments

The Eternal Essence of the Floating World

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Symbol Reader

Lately, my thoughts have been spiraling around a deep need to focus, to cut off all the extraneous details by finding a focus of devoted dedication. In a painting by Vermeer that I have always loved and was lucky to … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting, Uncategorized | Tagged art, eternity, Lacemaker, moment, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, painting, Rilke, symbols, timelessness, Utogawa Hiroshige, Vermeer | 18 Comments

Icy Lechery: Art by Tamara de Lempicka

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“Was it true that, according to her final wishes, the ashes of the Polish-Russian artist Tamara de Lempicka were dropped from a helicopter by her daughter Kizette into the crater of the Mexican volcano Popocatépetl? What an Olympian, cataclysmic, magnificent … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting, Quotations | Tagged archetypes, art, eroticism, nude, painting, sensuality, sex, symbolism, symbols, Tamara de Lempicka | 10 Comments

Wordless Moments of Being

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Symbol Reader

Throughout my life I have been a collector of memorable moments. If I decide I want to capture a certain moment, I stop in my tracks and tell myself to register the impression. I do not have an eidetic sense, … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged art, Dasein, Faust, Goethe, Heidegger, painting, Peter Doig, while, wordless | 18 Comments

Esse Est Percipere (To Be Is to Perceive)

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Symbol Reader

1.“…he [William Blake] did everything he could to make his figures lose substance, to become transparent and indeterminate one from the other, to defy gravity, to be present but intangible, to glow without a definable surface, not to be reducible … Continue reading →