to the young people & the union members & the old people & the vets & etc who crack nuts & who i hope i might have been one had this been then

FABLE

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel;
And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’

Bun replied,
‘You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things
and weather
Must be taken in together,

To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson

art fecundity

I have just recently come across the work
of William Gorge, whose work is clearly
the result of the mating of the work of
Arie Zonneveld and the work of Frances Gearhart.

dutchman in california?

just over a year ago i happened across a website for an artist who was new to me: arie zonneveld.

but i found the site incredibly frustrating because all you got were thumbnails, and most of those without the color.

then clive received a wonderful gift from gerrie in the netherlands -- larger zonneveld images! then i realized even more had been put on youtube! (also from gerrie?)

but the thing that struck me was so improbable i still don't understand it. why does this artist's work look like he came from california?!!

i had never even really considered the fact that there was a "california look," but somehow zonneveld's work reminded me of the work of three california artist of that same time: william rice, frances gearhart, and pedro de lemos.

this strikes me as so uncanny; even when painting in oils, there is a similarity. the choices of scene and the layout, the choices of manners of portraying trees, skies, shadows.

look at all of these flowers!

can you even pick out whose is whose?

even the choices of what flowers to paint; both places no doubt have poppies... but cactus flowers??!

gearhart and de lemos both studied with arthur wesley dow, and rice studied with howard pyle; i wouldn't be surprised if zonneveld had never heard of any of them.

are the landscapes similar, or the trees? was the look by then so ubiquitous that regional differences had evaporated?

no!

and thus we are left with another mystery. but what would life be without regular mystery?

because it's there

The sacred places and pilgrimage traditions of Japan have been conditioned by geographical and topographical features as much as by religious and cultural factors. Over 80% of the Japanese country- side is hilly or mountainous terrain. This physical condition gave birth in ancient times to a unique and enduring tradition of religious beliefs and practices focused on mountains. While never systematized, this tradition was so wide spread that Japanese scholars have termed it sangaku shinko, meaning 'mountain beliefs' or 'mountain creed'.

Sangaku shinko should not however, be thought of in the narrow sense of mountain worship, but rather understood to have a broader meaning which includes the mythology, folk beliefs, rituals, shamanistic practices, and shrine structures that are associated with the religious use of particular mountains.

H. Byron Earhart, a scholar of Japanese religion, writes that "Most of the mountains whose sacred character is attested by archaeological evidence are also prominent in the earliest written records of Japan. In these writ- ings mountains play a religious role in the cosmogony and theogony of the formal mythology and are prominent as dwelling places of the gods, as burial sites, and as sacred sites of great beauty. In the two court compilations which represent the earliest writings in Japan, mountains appear in almost every imaginable religious guise". 1

in the west, needless to say, the dynamic is different. in the eastern depictions of even their holiest mountain, it hides, it doesn't loom. it sneaks into the picture rather than dominating it. even when the portrait is of that mountain particularly, one must work to find it. one would be hard pressed to find an alternate display. in paintings, the west's mountain's are bullies, and like any bully, they're 'asking for it.' 'take me down,' they seem to challenge.

and in the west we only very rarely find the mountains themselves sacred. 2 we worship 'on the mountain,' or, ' at the mountain,' or 'in the mountains,' ... but that's different. perhaps the western opinion of god is that she's blatantly before you, whereas in the east one must search, and then to find?

and then perhaps also the societal imperatives about individuality come into play? self, or group? is part of the japanese pattern of asymmetry simply another way of indicating the sweep, not the center?

Shingon in particular, founded by the sage Kukai (774-835), placed emphasis on sacred mountains as the ideal sites for religious prac- tice and the attainment of Bud- dhahood. Ascents of the mount- ains were conceived of as metaphorical ascents on the path of spiritual enlightenment, with each stage in the climb representing a stage in the passage through the realms of existence formulated by Buddhism.

During the Heian period (793-1185) Buddhist temples were increasingly built on the sides and summits of many Shinto sacred mountains. It was believed that the native Shinto kami of these mountains were in reality manifestations of Buddhist divinities thus pilgrimage to the mountains was believed to bring favors from both the Shinto and Buddhist divinities simultaneously. 1

am i suggesting that there is not meant to be an aspect of holiness in these western images of mountains? no, not at all. nor do i mean to suggest that every japanese printmaker was a saint (or whatever). these western prints and paintings were all completed in the wake of the wall of japan's influence. i'm just saying that i find these all very interesting questions, ones which i hope you will help to explore.

Yarigatake: The Matterhorn of Japan

The first person to stand on the summit of the 3180m Mt Yari was the priest and mountain ascetic Banryu in the late Edo Period (19th century).

This was the first recorded ascent of the peak which is now revered by climbers across the country, and it occurred in July 1828; some 37 years before Wimper became the first person to climb the Matterhorn.

Then in 1880 an Englishman named Gowland reached the summit before dubbing the mountain panorama that lay before him “the Japanese Alps.”

It was this name which would later be popularised by Walter Weston, another Englishman, who first summited in 1892. Weston spread news of Mt Yari to the climbing fraternity around the world.

Although not renowned for his mountain-climbing prowess, the well-known author Ryunosuke Akutagawa [Rashomon] has also climbed Mt Yarigatake.

On the 12th August 1909 the 17 year old Akutagawa reached the top together with 3 classmates. You can read about his exploits in the mountains in works such as “Diary of my Mt Yari Ascent” and “Mt Yari Journal.” 1

Recreational hiking in Japan is relatively new in the nation's long history: the mountains were con- sidered foreboding and inhospi- table, the realm of mountain priests and the gods, until a pair of Englishmen, William Gowland and Walter Weston, climbed them in the late 19th century.

Gowland dubbed the region "The Japan Alps" while Weston's lectures and books introduced the region to Japanese and foreigners alike. 2

Banryu scaled Yari-ga-take and other major peaks as part of his religious devotion. 3

a statue of him stands today.

before break dancing

from THE TALES OF ISE (Ise Monogatari)

In the past, there was a prince known as Prince Koretaka. He had a palace at a place called Minase, on the far side of Yamazaki. Every year when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, he went to that palace. On those occasions he always took along a person who was the director of the right imperial stables. It was long ago and I have forgotten his name.

Not enthusiastic about hunting, they just drank saké continuously and turned to composing poems in Japanese. The cherry blossoms at the Nagisa residence in Katano, where they often hunted, were especially beautiful. They dismounted under the trees, and breaking off blossoms to decorate themselves, everyone, of high, middle, and low rank, composed poems. The director of the stables composed this:

If only this world
were without cherry blossoms
then would our hearts
be at ease
in springtime.

Another person composed this:

It is because they fall soon
that the cherry blossoms
are so admired.
What can stay long
in this fleeting world?

When they left the trees to return to Minase, it already was dark. The prince's attendants came from the fields with servants bringing the saké. Seeking out a good place to drink it, they came to a place called Amanokawa. The director of the stables gave the prince a cup of saké. The prince said, “When you hand me the cup, compose a poem on coming to the banks of Amanokawa after hunting at Katano.” The director of the stables composed this and handed it to him:

I've spent the day hunting
and now will seek lodging
from the Weaver Maid
for I have come
to the River of Heaven.

The prince recited this over and over but could not come up with a response. Ki no Aritsune was attending the prince. He responded:

She who waits patiently
for a lord who comes
but once a year
will not, I am sure,
lodge any other.

They went back to Minase, and the prince entered his palace. They drank and conversed until deep in the night, and then the prince prepared to sleep, somewhat drunk. As the moon of the eleventh day of the month began to sink behind the mountains, the director of the stables composed this:

How can the moon
hide itself
before we are satisfied?
I wish the mountain rim would flee
so the moon might stay in view.

In place of the prince, Ki no Aritsune replied:

I wish the peaks
one and all
might be leveled:
if there were no mountain rims
the moon would not hide.

Narihira (Ariwara no Narihira) (825–80)

translation by Lewis Cook and Jamie Newhard

the new math

we've already looked at dow's moment of epiphany, the realization that what he had been looking for was the book of hokusai prints right there in his hands. let's look a little closer:

dow has now met ernest fenollosa, and is studying with him at any possibility.

"In May, Fenollosa, with a certain flair he had for the dramatic, opened a door and showed Dow two magnificent screens by Okio. Dow looked at them in silence for a space and then exclaimed, 'Why can't I do that?' (The subject was a pine covered with snow.)

To this question Fenollosa replied, 'You can do it if you dare, but you don't dare.'

Dow instantly replied, 'I will dare!'

This pleased the Orientalist and he exclaimed, 'You will, you will, and I dare you to do it.'"

clearly, this was a moment of discovery for dow, of synthesis and excitement. he began seeing in a new way, one that, from his own perspective, returned to the basics in art, what all cultures had at some time done, the essential line, with everything extraneous removed.

the clarity of his vision was such that he went on to formulate, and to develop ways of teaching these insights to others, work that some say became more important than making art itself. he is credited for having changed the way art is regarded and taught in this country radically, and his methods were the staple of american art education for many years.

•

okay -- so we have a moment of person discovery, life-altering, piercing and pervasive. so.... um.... -- what about all these other guys??! was it worldwide epiphany-itis?

i went to the jung pages and apparently the descriptive phrase i wanted to use, 'collective unconscious,' doesn't actually mean what i have always taken it to mean, so that won't work, unless i am allowed to redefine (or expand its definitions) the concept to what i always thought it meant and what fits in rather well here, namely that there is some mysterious (until science figures it out) connection of every human's mind that rises and falls with the tide and explains how one idea can occur in many places at the same time.

spontaneous combustion?

wasn't this the stuff of impressionism, anyway? the release of detail in pursuit of truth?

artists throughout the west were paring down, simplifying, following ideas they had imbibed from the japanese prints; did each and every one of them feel themselves to be a solitary traveler?

it's such an interesting phenomenon-- i wish i knew the name for it.

when things change, we each want to name it, to own it, and to think we know the reason why.