Redtree Times

When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy’s grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

–Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1821)

This is the first new painting from my October solo show at the West End Gallery that I am sharing here. I didn’t think it would be the first painting from the show to be shown, mainly since it is relatively small at 6 inches wide and 18 inches tall. There are much bigger pieces from the show, including the title painting, Guiding Light, that I could have shared here first. But it stood out to me this morning and it still does somewhat represent the title of the show with its prominent dropping sun.

You might see it as a rising sun and that’s fine. Art is subjective to our own personal interpretation. While I might see it one way and I am its creator, that doesn’t mean it must have only that meaning. Once I put it out in the open air it is on its own and it becomes what the viewer thinks it is.

But I am sharing my thoughts today, so we’ll call it a dropping sun at dusk. I felt that the passage at the top from the German philosopher Hegel truly fit what I was seeing in this painting. I saw it as being about the passage of time, the ending of a period of time, and the retrospection that comes after that time is gone. 

He is basically saying that we can only truly know and understand anything until it has fully run its course and is well beyond our efforts to bring it back to life. The Owl of Minerva that he employs here is an ancient symbol of wisdom. The owl flies when we gain the wisdom from any time or event only after it has completed the course of its existence. 

That makes sense to me. So often we lose understanding and insight when we are in the midst of the happenings of our time. We see and hear only bits and pieces of the truth along with a multitude of falsehoods, biased opinions, and myriad distractions. We are unable to see the full scope and perspective of events (or lives) while they are happening.

We can’t see them in their fullness until the arc of their being has been completed. Only then does there come clarity as time washes away the debris that obscured the truth while it existed.

Of course, sometimes this clarity is only gained after years, decades, and centuries. Sometimes eons and ages. 

In this painting, Dusk of Time, I see that clarity on a smaller scale in the reflection that sometimes comes at the end of the day, especially when that day has been an eventful one. Ideally, you can see the arc of the day and understand how it took shape and where it led you. Perhaps how you will go forward.

That’s a thumbnail explanation. There’s a lot of feeling in this smaller painting, much more that I can put down right now.

It just feels like it knows a story that it needs to share. I have a sense of the story and the truth it is telling me. But what that story is and what truth it reveals is up to whoever engages with it.