Redtree Times

Finis Terrae (Land’s End) — At Principle Gallery

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

–-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)

I employed this passage from Octavio Paz a few years back but felt that it conveyed the search for communion that I see in this painting, Finis Terrae (Land’s End). Currently at the Principle Gallery, it is one of those pieces that haunts me, lingering with me in a way that is always close at hand.

It was that way while I was painting it and in the short time I spent with it in the studio before made its way to the gallery. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It seemed to represent a search for something beyond that which one could experience with the five senses.

I struggled to identify what that thing might be and realized that the thing being sought was a sense of communion, a uniting with all from which we are comprised.

In this realization, I recognized that it presented a duality.  I could see in this painting the ache that comes in the search, the desire to know that which is unknowable, while at the same time feeling a sense of peace.

That comes from understanding that the search is both a question asked in futility and its own answer.

It’s this duality that keeps me coming back to this painting in my mind.

It is both question and answer. And neither. A communion of both.

Don’t know if that will make sense to anyone but me this morning. Can’t tell if this is evidence of my mind getting sharper in response the antibiotics or evidence that it is still a bit lost in the fog.

Here’s a bit of music that I shared along with the words from Paz in that earlier post. It is a short classical violin piece from contemporary composer John Harbison. This is Song 2 from his 1985 work, Songs of Solitude. It seems to work for me as I look once more at this painting.

A needed communion…