David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


16 November 2009

Original Frame

.
Because this post has been held back, I've had this image on screen for the last two weeks. At once full (The Great Openness) and empty (The Great Openness), in that time it has appeared to this projector to fill fuller and flow emptier. Profounder & funnier.



The image accompanied an article by Michaela Boland in The Australian, Family portraits reunited with rescued gilt frames,
31 October 2009. It begins
WHEN John McPhee stumbled across a pair of colonial gilt frames in an antique shop in Inverloch, southeast of Melbourne, he suspected they were valuable.

The then deputy director of the National Gallery of Victoria asked the gallery to buy them, which it did, for $600.

But it took another 12 years and some clever detective work for the frames to be reunited with the portraits they were originally made for. That happened yesterday at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

"It is very rare you can put a painting back in its original frame," said McPhee, a curator and art valuer who thought the frames could be attached to paintings at the NGV but never imagined they would be reunited with their original paintings.

( full article here )

Why does bL find this all so profound and funny?

1. National Portrait Gallery/HA HA

2. Original Frame/HA HA

3. Original Face/HA HA

4. LOGOS/HA HA


Cease practice based
On intellectual understanding,
Pursuing words and
Following after speech.
Learn the backward
Step that turns
Your light inward
To illuminate within.
Body and mind of themselves
Will drop away
And your original face will be manifest.
— Dogen

You cannot describe it or draw it,
You cannot praise it enough or perceive it.
No place can be found in which
To put the Original Face;
It will not disappear even
When the universe is destroyed.

— Mumon


Picture Your Original Frame

detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something . . .

LOGOS/HA HA