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.
The header to this blog refers to an historian's "inner wound". 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.
Judeo-Christian mythoLOGOS/HA HA has many such breaches and wounds, each requiring identification, acceptance and application of the correct salve.
In the beginning was the Word... Historians are the trustee re-porters of the word.
Logos : the Speaking into Being of the World.
Nennius, lisps the Word : I have lispingly put together
LOGOS/HA HA
And the Word was made flesh : on the Cross, Christ the Logos is five times wounded : his hands, his feet and his side are pierced. The Five Wounds of Christ. In this depiction of the Crucifixion by Jean the Black, Jesus the Labelled - INRI - points to the wound in his side. As God is His Witness, so also two angels, mother Mary and 'brother' James.
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
A few pages forward in that volume (The Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg, before 1349, collection of The Met, New York), the illuminator depicts that side wound...
...aureola-like, mandorla-like (below), vulva-like too, surrounded by the Instruments of the Passion.
We are new to that wound image, so add it here to the heap as we recall also that the inside of the breach of this 1995 two panel broken-word LOGOS (below) is also painted red. From its first exhibition, the cover of the 1995 cataLOGOS/HA HA :
It is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW :
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is
First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is
First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is
First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is
First there is a mountain
- Donovan
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
Sun and moon
Figure with mountain
and passing clouds
] distant laughter (
Noel Hourigan, photo by Jenny Long
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Today is the last day of PETER TYNDALL : SINCLAIR+GALLERY at Castlemaine Art Museum.
Heartfelt thanks to all of CAM’s dedicated staff and volunteers : to director Naomi Cass who proposed this exhibition, to Jenny Long invaluable curator consultant, Nell Fraser, Sarah Frazer, Anna Schwann, Deb Peart, Libby English, Noel Hourigan, James McArdle, to Giles Fielke and Memo.
Best wishes to Gabrielle Martin whose own Sinclair Gallery exhibition opens on 29 July.
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Who are You: Australian PortraitureNational Gallery of Victoria | The Ian Potter Centre:
NGV Australia 23 Jun - 1 Aug 2022
Self-portrait
see : First catch your self.
A proverbial warning against overconfidence, often thought to have originated in a recipe for hare soup in Mrs Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) or Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1851). It does not appear in either book, although Mrs Glasse’s book does have the instruction ‘Take your hare when it is cased [=skinned].’ In more general terms, this appears to be a common formulation. The Spirit of Farmers’ Museum (1801) has: ‘How to dress a dolphin, first catch a dolphin.’
A source from a much earlier period, the medieval Latin treatise De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, traditionally attributed to the lawyer Henry of Bratton, has the sentence, ‘It is commonly said that one must first catch the deer, and afterwards, when he has been caught, skin him.’
The self is an individual as the object of its own reflective consciousness. Since the self is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference ...
Self – individuality, from one's own perspective. To each person, self is that ...
memo : A memorandum (abbrev.: memo; from the Latin memorandum est, "It must be remembered") is a written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviated "memo," these messages are usually brief and are designed to be easily and quickly understood.
Rex writes :
... Equally, in Who Are You, in an insightful and quite moving selection, the curators include John Nixon’s Self Portrait (Non-Objective Composition) (Yellow Cross) (1990) at the entrance to the fourth room of the show. It’s a cross that now serves, of course, as something of a memorial to Nixon, who died in 2020. In fact, we would suggest, after an initial avant-garde moment inspired by Communism and the Russian Suprematists, sometime in the early ’90s Nixon pursued an equally radical “immanence”: his work is not any more about changing the world but preserving it. The one-day shows, the artist-run spaces, the collaborations, the incessant productivity: Nixon’s practice operates as much as anything as a kind of diary that sought to record or better embody the circumstances in which it was originally made and exhibited. It was just the little art world that gathered around it: Melbourne in the ’90s, 2000s, and 2010s. The different dispositions of similar-looking objects were the attempt to hold together a fragile and precarious moment in time, of which Nixon was the centre. And it is exactly in this sense that Nixon’s works are self-portraits or autobiographical, the very image of his life. He just is his work.
But again—and this is perhaps the real memorial that Nixon’s work now represents—the function of art as a record of its time, its place, its people, as any kind of image of who we are, is coming to an end. The true equivalent to Nixon’s work today—think here of someone like Peter Tyndall—is keeping a blog, posting on Instagram or tweeting with its potentially limitless subscribers.
see also : self-portrait as
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
photo courtesy : Theatre of the Archives of Resistance
LET THE RIVERS FLOW Save The Franklin - 1982
Daylesford Embroidered Banners Project
LET ALL THE RIVERS FLOW
Theatre of the Admittances of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
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Special comments : Vasubandhu, Treatise on Buddha Nature
"All non-Buddhists, in their various ways, conceive of and grasp a self in those things that lack self; namely the five aggregates (form, sensation, perception, volition, consciousness). Yet these things differ from what one grasps as the mark* of self; therefore, they are eternally lacking in self.
*substance, permanence, independence
However, with the wisdom of Thusness, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas realize the perfection of not-self in all things. Because this perfection of not-self and that which is seen as the mark of not-self** are not different, the Tathagata says that this mark of the eternal not-self is the true, essential nature of all things. It is because of this that the perfection of not-self is called True Being."
**insubstantiality, impermanence, dependence on causes and conditions
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Theatre of the Actors of Regard
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
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