Van Gogh- Prisoners Exercisng
Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.
–André Breton, Nadja (1928)
The words above from Andre Breton, widely renowned as being the founder of the Surrealist movement, have been lingering in my head lately.
I believe that’s mainly because I often refer to my work as being a search for some intangible thing– meaning or purpose. That sounds expansive, as though the search takes me to new and exciting places and planes of thought.
A real exploration for something new and remarkable.
But Breton’s words made me think that my search is, as he writes, an illusion and that much of what I do is revisiting themes, thoughts, and ideas that have been with me for a long time. I go over them time and time again trying to glean what might have went unrecognized when I first encountered them or were seen then forgotten.
It is not an expansive journey at all. It is likely more akin to a donkey endlessly walking the circular path around the grindstone it powers at a gristmill.
Or maybe to be more accurate, it is like the fevered circling by inmates Van Gogh portrayed in his 1890 painting shown at the top, which, by the way, was a copy of an earlier Gustave Doré print. The prisoners are no doubt dreaming of finding their way a better place or state of being. They probably go through a wide range of emotions as they are reflecting on their pasts, trying to figure out how they ended up there or where they will be in the future.
There is probably some pretty creative thinking going on there. Maybe the minds of those ever-circling inmates in prisons and asylums– or donkeys– are not far-removed from those of artists?
I can’t say. Nor can I say whether this endless circling masquerading as a search is good or bad. It is all I know so, for me, it feels appropriate. Built in.
Got to run. I have to try to find something new here this morning. Don’t know if it will feel more like a studio, prison or asylum. Doesn’t matter– it’s the same circle.
Here’s a song that feels appropriate this morning. This is Will It Go Round in Circles from the late Billy Preston.
Redtree Times 