The Artistic Eyes By Qiaofeng Zhong

For some reason, I have difficulty accessing my posts. So, although I see there are new comments it might be difficult for me to reply to them. Sorry about that!

---------------------------------------------

We talked a little bit about Lily and her artistic eyes in our last class. I am especially interested in that. To me, it seems that her artistic eyes give her a special ability--the ability to see the unity or wholeness in the world, if not of the world. This is revealed to us by several paragraphs, especially the following two paragraphs in chapter 9 (my chapters might be numbered a little bit differently though):
    
"And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

"Could loving, as people call it, make her and Mrs Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs Ramsay's knee."

I don't have anything too profound to say about it, but I am just interested in the relationship between her artistic eyes and her desire for or ability to recognize this unity. I was reminded of what Nietzsche said about the Dionysian artist in the Birth of Tragedy: the Dionysian artist cannot be artistic as the subjective "I", for he or she is merely a symbol or an eye of the primordial unity, this world-genius, this world-artist. 

I wonder if Lily belongs to that category and that is exactly why she is able to see everything as a whole. Whenever she becomes artistic, there's something more than her that is trying to express itself through her, which might be the Dionysian primal unity, the world-genius. This is to some extent supported by the fact that she cannot express her artistic inspirations as soon as she exits that artistic state--she can only express the whole she sees when she picks up her brush as if it is the brush that is doing the art, not the subjective Lily. The subjective Lily can never be an artist. She is artistic because she sees and embraces that eternally creative unity, and she desires this unity even more as an artist.

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshFebruary 28, 2021 at 8:38 PM

    Very interesting, Mr. Zhong. Do you think this quest for unity/intimacy is a general characteristic of Lily, or could it be her mood at this moment? -- for instance, is she being described in these sentences, or are we being indirectly given her present thoughts about herself? I'm very curious if you find this characteristic consistently in her. Your later comments also deserve pursuing: someone who is entirely consumed by her own subjectivity cannot be an artist?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some ramblings on the poetic -- Miz Eustice Poetry seems to be borne of and to live more in the realm of imagination than reason if the mind can be so generally categorized. Or perhaps it should be said that it is some mixture of heart and brain. I’m not sure. Sometimes I think it's divine.   I’m not sure where else its strange greatness could come from. I’m not even sure how to describe what poetry is. It is not just its form, its sounds, it is more than the sum of its parts. I read somewhere once that poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.   Poetry is not like reason, it is not a power exercised by the will. Perhaps one can will oneself to write poetry, but not great poetry. It is more within the general grasp to reason correctly than to make something beautiful. I can only imagine what it is like to do such a thing. Creation seems mysterious, and there is something almost seraphic in it—something invisible and intangible and temperamental that rises from within in an o...
Read more

Some Post-Discussion Reflections on Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death –” by Ms. Bucher

Image
   Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and Chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity – Photo: “Because I could not stop for Death –” fanart found on Etsy   Some music that may set the mood: Igor Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola .
Read more

Genealogy Reflections in “The Bear" (Bucher)

  Gen ealogy Reflections in “The Bear” by Ms. Bucher   We have spent much time in class stumbling over the genealogy in Go Down, Moses . When trying hard to follow the twisted, obscure genealogy, it is clear that the McClaslin family tree is a complicated double helix of both white and black branches. But the power of the family dynamic becomes even more powerful the moment that Issac McClaslin, grandson of patriarch Lucius Quintus Carothers McClaslin, pushes away his inheritance of the plantation. The question brought up in class many times still plagues me: Why does he reject his rightful ownership of the family land? Possible reasons come to mind easily: He may not want the responsibility for the care and support of all the people, both black and white, that live and work the land. He has been raised in large part by Sam Fathers who taught him to love nature, the wild, and the liberty of a life unfettered by any interest in social or economic expectations. And he needs to b...
Read more