When Aesthetic Dominance Renders Us

At the moment, one of my projects includes "researching" (here meaning reading about and studying) Marc Chagall. One of my favorite works of art includes his America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago. If you're ever there, make sure to go see them. Here's a picture I took of a detail of it in 2016 - but imagine, there are two more panels on either side, encompassing an entire wall, top to bottom, side to side:

I'll have a CPL blog post up regarding Chagall soon, which can be found at: https://www.chipublib.org/author/felicia-edens/

But I'm writing now because I wanted to share this with you: the transcript of a part of a talk he gave in May of 1963.

"An exceptionally sharp eye might see that a genuine color or texture automatically comprises every possible technique as well as a moral and philosophical content. Any moral crisis is a crisis of color, texture, blood and the elements, of speech, vibration, etc..."

Precisely. And so the point, I think, is this: when art renders us naked (not nude, but naked) then perhaps there is an opening out and a reach for, if not a total grasping of, authenticity. In and on this very rare occasion, I don't think, morally, there is anything wrong, bad, or evil with following, or seizing that moment in whatever way possible, going to its end, or in any case, not letting go. 

Perhaps needless to say: I cannot say goodbye to the manifestations of the self which are dominated aesthetically by a personality, a persona. I'll provide a link, a point of connection.  But more importantly, however, is that I know what true moral and philosophical content consists of (though I cannot say what I know). I know that it assumes a kind of nakedness (a nakedness not to be ashamed of), and I know it is worth fighting for. I know it is precisely when aesthetic dominance renders us.

Anyway, back to Chagall...

- F

P.S. I'm thinking of the Weaver from Perdido Street Station.