Descent and the Linden Tree

The heavenly bodies floating in the firmament are all connected, by gravitational forces that link them one to the other to attract and repel. Earthbound though we are, we are free to move about its surface, like filings on a magnet.

Isamu Noguchi

A Sculptor’s World, 1968.

The half century from 1880 to 1930 was a springtime of bricolage and do-it-yourselfery in France, and this was true to some extent of the plastic arts too, since not everyone had a camera, and it’s total dominance over visual memory had not quite arrived. Only a tiny number of people today try to draw what they have seen or what has happened to them, compared to the hordes of those for whom the camera is an everyday tool.

Robert Hughes, Shock of the New

It feels like my conscience is being pricked? Like “Instagram is cool beans, but you need to draw!”

[Postcard]

Moraine Lake
Yosemite National Park
July 17, 1922

A placid lake, rimmed with a rich evergreen forest, beyond which rise tremendous mountains, snowy and still - such is our home for four days - a period of rest and relaxation after strenuous miles on steep Sierra trails. The remoteness of these lovely places - the leisure of toil behind us as the even greater beauty to come as we approach the climax on the great range and the spirit of comradeship and sympathy of ideals among the members of this party - the simple food and the glorious pagan activity - it is all a delicious procession of unearthly experiences discounting civilization and chronological time.
Precious beyond telling are these crystal days - they form great foundation domes firmly supporting our ideal lives and filling us to the depths with their qualities of stable, permanent beauty.
“Are they not mine, sayeth the Lord, the everlasting hills!!”
Any “news” in the ordinary sense would be an insipid blur of thought - I would much rather send you some little hint of mood - something that echoes, though ever so slightly, the primal song of the wilderness - the whisper of silver winds in the lonely forest - the hollow chant of falling waters.

AA

[To Virginia Rose Best, who would later be Ansel Adams’ wife. ‘Ansel Adams; Letters and Images 1916 - 1984.’ Little, Brown and Company. Ed. Mary Street Alinder and Andrea Gray Stillman.]

Found a two-volume encyclopedia of Homosexuality in the reference room yesterday. There were so many beautiful, significant names, marking important histories that are, as of now, much too marginal….The history isn’t known and taught and recorded to the extent I think it probably should be, and it’s something that keeps resurfacing in my thoughts, ever since last fall with Dr. George. I’m not a historian; one could tell us far more eloquently why it is so important to discover and be familiar with what already has been, but I think I know this at least, two volumes is too small.

Watchman, Tell Us of the Night

Watchman, tell us of the night,
what its signs of promise are.
Traveler, o’er yon mountain’s height,
see that glory-beaming star.
Watchman, does its beauteous ray
aught of joy or hope foretell?
Traveler, yes; it brings the day,
promised day of Israel.

Watchman, tell us of the night;
higher yet that star ascends.
Traveler, blessedness and light,
peace and truth its course portends.
Watchman, will its beams alone
gild the spot that gave them birth?
Traveler, ages are its own;
see, it bursts o’er all the earth.

Watchman, tell us of the night,
for the morning seems to dawn.
Traveler, darkness takes its flight,
doubt and terror are withdrawn.
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease;
hie thee to thy quiet home.
Traveler, lo! the Prince of Peace,
lo! the Son of God is come!

John Bowring, 1825