Tag Archives: art

Odysseus’ Return from the Dead in the Vision of Tadeusz Kantor

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Symbol Reader

Cricoteca, the Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990), a Polish avant-guarde artist, stage designer and, above all, a celebrated theatre director, is a striking addition to the unique architecture of Krakow, Poland. I found their … Continue reading →

Posted in Tadeusz Kantor, The Theatre | Tagged anxiety, archetypes, art, Cricot 2, cricoteca, death, fear, Odysseus, reality of the lowest rank, symbolism, symbols, Tadeusz Kantor, theatre, War | 6 Comments

Turin like a Dream

Posted on August 12, 2018 by Symbol Reader

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears,” wrote Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities. Though Turin is not the first Italian city I have fallen in love with, what I experienced there had not happened to me before. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Turin, Uncategorized | Tagged 45th parallel, alchemical caves, alchemy, Angelic Fountain, Apis, archetypes, art, “White Magic”, black magic, black magic triangle, Castor, Church of the Great Mother of God, cities, coniunctio oppositorum, darkness, duality, Egyptian Museum of Turin, first capital of Italy, Frejus monument, Giorgio de Chirico, Holy Grail, isis, Italo Calvino, Italy, light, magic, Nietzsche, Nostradamus, occultism, Osiris, Palazzo Madama, Piazza Solferino, Piazza Statuto, Pillars of Hercules, Pollux, shroud of Turin, symbolism, symbols, Torino, Turin, union of opposites, white magic triangle | 7 Comments

Land Art by Andy Goldsworthy

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Symbol Reader

“I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in … Continue reading →

Posted in Andy Goldsworthy, Uncategorized | Tagged Andy Goldsworthy, archetypes, art, documentary, earth art, land art, Leaning Into the Wind, nature, stone, symbolism, symbols | 16 Comments

Thoughts on Harmony on the Equinox

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Symbol Reader

It was incredibly lucky that around the time of the Autumn Equinox I got to make a trip to Emma Kunz Centre, where this nineteenth-century-born Swiss healer and painter lived and worked. Quiet and secluded, it was an ideal place … Continue reading →

Posted in Emma Kunz, Uncategorized | Tagged art, Balance, Emma Kunz, Emma Kunz Centre, harmony, healing, mandala | 18 Comments

The Shattering Power of the Theatre

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Symbol Reader

I. “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be … Continue reading →

Posted in The Theatre, Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Greece, art, Birth of Tragedy, Dionysus, dithyramb, drama, Mahabharata, mask, Nietzsche, Peter Brook, Samuel Beckett, symbolism, symbols, theatre, tragedy | 11 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

Like the Rainbow on the Waterfall: the Mystical Aura of Consumption

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Symbol Reader

While the fourteenth century was ravaged by the Black Death, the nineteenth century belonged to tuberculosis, or the White Death, a disease much more insidious and widespread. John Keats died of it at the age of twenty-six, and so did … Continue reading →

Posted in Tuberculosis | Tagged art, consumption, Davos, death, disease, Edgar AllanPoe, Hans Castorp, illness, John Keats, life, literature, Magic Mountain, myth, Romanticism, sanatorium, symbolism, TB, Thomas Mann, Tuberculosis, White Death | 6 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

Ariadne Awakens

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“Enter the turret of your love, and lie close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns that beat and echo in the mind like sounds risen from sunken cities lost to fear; let in the light that … Continue reading →

Posted in Ariadne | Tagged Ancient Greece, archetypes, Ariadne, art, bull, C.G. Jung, Corona Borealis, depth psychology, Dionysos, Dionysus, Greek myth, Greek mythology, Libera, Minotaur, myth, Naxos, Picasso, Seven Sermons of the Dead, Statue of Liberty, symbolism, symbols, Theseus | 12 Comments

The Fateful Shipwreck of Antikythera

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” Ecclesiastes 1:7 I have had the opportunity recently to see a splendid exhibition that arrived in Basel, … Continue reading →