Here's my new piece of art, courtesy of Amazon and a 8X10 frame that I put the print in. It doesn't really have an up or down. I just like it oriented this way, though I might change my mind.
(I don't keep it on a rug. That was for a photography purpose. Normally it sits next to a bathroom sink where I can peruse it when I wash my hands, which is frequently, given the coronavirus scare the world is going through.)
I got the print, which admittedly isn't traditional, given its color, after reading a paragraph in Lesley Hazleton's book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto. I like how it reminds me that perfection is an abstract idea, not anything that actually exists
Here's the passage, which was in her "Imperfect Soul" chapter.
The great Zen Buddhist masters knew what those who seek perfection do not: it leaves us cold. A classic Zen exercise is the ensō, the circle hand-drawn in a single fluid brushstroke. It is close to perfect, but never there.
If perfection is what you want, you can produce it anytime by using a compass or computer, but the ensō defies such mechanistic precision; indeed, it is often incomplete, left slightly open as though in invitation to everything beyond it.
And each one is different, never the same circle twice. You can see the hairs of the brush in the drag of the ink on the paper; trace the fluidity of the moment when the stillness of meditation was released in one rapid stroke; sense the calm grace of the artist.
The beauty of the Zen circle lies precisely (or more precisely, imprecisely) in its imperfection. That is what speaks to us and draws us in.
A perfect circle is uninteresting, a closed system containing nothing, while an imperfect one vibrates with warmth. It invites us into the moment of its creation, into that single deep exhalation as the hand arced through the air, the brush over the paper.
It is open, human, fallible -- an expression, that is, of soul.
What a lovely piece of art! It is beautiful and serene. And definitely much more interesting than a circle.
Posted by: Sonia | March 12, 2020 at 08:07 AM
Rather than see the Endo as proof of imperfection, why not see it as proof of perfection? A different prefection.whatever that hand paints in each second is the perfect sum of conscious and unconscious forces that work by laws known and unknown perfectly.
What makes the computer perfect circle are the same forces that make the enzo. They are both the result of perfect forces working exactly according to laws, precisely the result of the forces that produce both.
Let's not call perfection imperfection. Let's understand the perfection.
Clearly the author is not an artist.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | March 12, 2020 at 09:00 AM