Piet Mondrian, The Gray Tree (1911, oil on canvas, approx. 31" x 42")
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"The winter solstice has always been celebrated in China as the resting time of the year -- a custom that survives in the time of rest observed at the new year. In winter the life energy, symbolized by thunder, the Arousing, is still underground. Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be strengthened by rest, so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely. This principle, i.e., of allowing energy that is renewing itself to be reinforced by rest, applies to all similar situations. The return of health after illness, the return of understanding after an estrangement: everything must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return may lead to a flowering."
~ The I Ching, Wilhelm-Baynes translation
Happy Solstice!
3 comments:
That's one of my favorites of ole Piet.
Happy short day to you too.
The Gray Tree awes me even in photographic reproductions. Makes me kinda sad that Mondrian turned to the thousand variations of the primary-color grid. Eh... bygones.
Happy holidays to you & yours. Looking forward to seeing more of your 2008 line.
I guess we are taking it for granted that "somebody had to do it"
Those cats were painting in some mind expanding times. Mondrian would have been even better if color movies had been introduced 20 years later.
He was good, if a little swamped by the whole mind expansion change thing.
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