falling upon a landscape, a short narrative
Where is it that I am falling?
Maybe I first find myself rolling down the grass in the world of Constable. I explore his science of landscape and his laws of nature. I jump into his lake and see my reflection in his crystal clear waters. I feel the breezy waters touching my skin. Such serenity overrules me. I float among his swans and run among his cows. I dry myself curling in his soft grass and become part of the smoothness of his greenery. I am lost in the magic of his narrative. I am part of his musical structure. I am in his serenity of mind that my soul is stable, and then I am pulled out…
I find myself in the works of Monet, floating around the lightness of his brushstroke. I become part of his silky pink lilies dancing around his quiet pond. I feel their light touch upon my curves and become one with them. I jump on his bridge and roll from side to side, covering myself in his moist moss. I feel the beauty of nature, and I become drunk from it. The surroundings become blurry, and I become one with the surroundings. I am embodied by his structure, captivated by his greens, allured by his beauty…
Maybe I fall in the far ends of Tanguy. I am being lost in his deep, mystical, blurry world. I spot his forms from far away and roll towards them. As I pass among them, they pull and entangle me; I feel alienated. They embody me, liquidate me, trap me. His ambience overrules me, and I become lost in the dimness of his canvas. I feel the gloom of his narrative so much that it suffocates me. I jump and roll, but there is nowhere to go; I fade into his infinite landscape of greys…
I get to find myself in the endless corridor of Da Silva. I pull myself out of the far end of her canvas. I become dizzy by her shapes, the placement of each square, so symmetrical yet so chaotic. Each is divided by a sharp line that traps me. I twist and turn to escape. I roll downhill the lines to her foreground. I get to trace my shape upon her checkered pattern, and so I feel dazed upon her composition. I see my round black shape blend with the chaos of composition intertwined among her lines. Strain is filling up her narrative of her landscape; strain is filling up my shape…
I save myself in the softness of Rothko. I become absorbed by his red and burgundy landscapes, which are scarcely of any surface. I feel myself rest upon the softness of his colour. Red is no longer an intense colour but a calming noise. I put myself to rest. I see a new way of creating space on the canvas, "A way of creating space, which gives you back your space". I am absorbed by his calmness of mind, his silent structure. I lie down and glare at the infinity of red…
And maybe I even save myself on the words of Mallarme. Where I can make myself stand on his words, find myself on his “si, c’etait, le nombre, ce serait”. I float around his landscape of words. I become a letter and then another letter; I bounce around his peculiar format and play among his space. I occupy a seat in what he calls an observed reality. The words allow air and lightness upon them. A space is created that is not so far flat on the surface, but rather deep into the universe where a word is a feeling, a word is a landscape…
And then I bounce back to my place. I slip under the curves and lines, twist and turn, elongate myself, shape myself and transform myself upon the narrative of the canvas. But I am there. I fall into the world of a narrative; I am in the mystical landscape of the painting. I am in the landscape that I take delight in. A delight from the simplicity of the inner human mind that releases itself upon the new dimension of the canvas.
The making of a new world, so challenging yet so apparent.
Is it that we hope to absorb ourselves into a new dimension of creation?
Is it that the birth of landscape painting opened room for a myriad of possibilities in human imagination?
“It is to create something out of nothing.”
A creation of a new landscape upon the four edges of a plane is to be called a living thing. Landscape painting introduced itself as revolutionary to the pleasure of reflection as it adapts the uniqueness of understanding upon an aesthetic experience. The creation of a landscape is what someone would describe as a determinative concept, yet it brings the freedom of play and the freedom of imagination to an immediate opportunity that guides us to emotionally pursue and submit. For the artist, it means to raise himself to the question, beyond anything that is known, and get lost in the curiosity of the extent of his being. What it means to put the mind into place, put the imagination into shape, where man is no longer of any object of science but of art.
The landscape painting becomes a home for human ideas and feelings. It imitates human nature and allows for the inner movements of the soul to take necessity upon the four edges of the canvas. It becomes no longer an imitation of anything else but an imitation of the soul. A space where the painter saves himself and can sit to rest from all suffering. A space where he can find liberation in his ideas, where the creation from his “nothing” is more than sufficient to his reality that is “something”.
The creation of the landscape is a difficult task. It is a task of play between painting formal qualities and inner understanding, where the painter is against the challenge of the canvas: that is, to create a narrative upon a flat surface enclosed by four edges. It is to create new laws of nature, his own laws of nature. Create gravity where there is none. Create space where there is none. Create a figure where there is none. Create a life where there is none.
I sit to wonder where my dot gets to be. It has now travelled from the worlds of Constable to Monet, Tanguy, Da Silva, Rothko, and Mallarme to occupy its seat on the left-up corner of my canvas. It gets to fall all the way down from the upper part of the composition to the bottom, creating its own source of gravity. I allow myself to be the dot and fall among the narrative of the painting. I become part of a landscape and illustrate a new sensation of the being. Play among the lines, jump up and down, interlace myself. I imagine myself where I want to be. Find my own laws of nature that I get to be part of. It is not only nature but myself in it. I choose my gravity, my feeling. I am the red, the yellow, the blue that finds harmony in the nature of the canvas. That sees all that is hoped to be seen in the landscape of painting.
And that there is the ending of the landscape. Where I get to fall and stand stable on the magic of painting. Where I get to create a space that gives me back my space.
