theskepticsoul

[theskepticsoul]

Here my friend and i have talked about philosophical skepticism and its relevance in modern world. Check it out. Would love your feedback.

[theskepticsoul]

Girl and Death by Edvard Munch, 1894

Edvard Munch and his constant reminder of death has a special place in the ocean of art, which lurks deep beneath where no pessimism can reach. I am talking about the man who created The Scream. His traumatic masterpieces of symbolism and expressionism grips its viewers unlike anything. His paintings show everyday tragedy, jealousy,anxiety and mental illness. But right now i want to draw your attention towards this painting. It seems rather simple at first sight, a girl embracing death which is shown as a skeleton. But i always try to find,in a piece of art, some things that i am missing in my life. I want to talk about those things and in the meantime, try to shine some light on how this paiting brings it to surface. Girl here represents love . A naked women evokes a sort of desire but here it tries to draw a far more complex response than any pornographic imagery. It represents, like many ancient greek art, innocence and purity of mind that is rather a lot to ask from homo sapiens. The girl is seen embracing a skeleton. It makes you think about love and death instantly. We are so afraid of death and uncertainity, loss and pain, that we seek safety and comfort in love, attempting to make it more permanent than it actually is. The world tries to tell us that we will never lose love, through fairy tales of couples of who "lived happily ever after". This idea stifles the very aspects of love that enabled it to thrive in the first place— uncertainty, unpredictability, excitement, and passion. Without these key ingredients, complacency and ingratitude are likely to grow in its stead. We try to manipulate love according to our needs for safety and security, we ignore the possibility of any pain and suffering. I despise this kind of superficial connection. The acknowledgement that love is transient like life and as vulnerable as death will give love what it needs to thrive. The purity and sensuality of naked girl represents this love. She has come to terms with this dark truth and embraces love with death in mind. Birth and love lead to oblivion one day, and ignoring it will do us more harm than good.

Instead of trying to rant more on this issue, I will leave you with a quote from Abraham Maslow,

“The confrontation with death—and the reprieve from it—makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful, that I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, to let myself be overwhelmed by it…. Death and its ever-present possibility makes love, passionate love more possible.”

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Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet, 1873.

Impression,Sunrise was painted by Claude Monet in 1873. It depicts the sunrise in French harbor of Le Havre in 1873.This painting is said to have started the impressionism movement. It might look less subtle with its short brush strokes but it never intended to be in the first place. Here Monet captured an atmospheric condition by painting vivid , adjacent and contrasting colours. It emphasizes the light itself and subjects are given less importance. The flickering light from sun in the early morning pierces through fog and reflected on the water. We see two silhoutted figures on the boat. The painting tries to capture the light from sun as it travels. The blotch of orange in the sky gives us more of a feel for nature. The seascape and horizon meets with no actual separation depicting the serenity of this moment in time. As my eyes wandered from left to right, i sense nothing but the vastness of time and shortness of human life. Maybe i am seeing things that are not there, maybe the illuminated atmosphere is what is missing from my life. I don't know, i am a human being whose sense of perception can be deceived through the use of few brush strokes. But whatever that is , i tend to be grounded in reality and maybe Monet actually tries to send this message across instead of working on the details and subtlety of his paintngs. So in my opinion(which doesn't matter as no one else's opinion matter),this painting eerily produces a realist portrayal of nature and its relationship with humans. A moment or experience, far away from the cacophony of what lies ahead.

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[theskepticsoul]

Dawn of Realization

I woke up today at 4 am after a restless night of changing positions and ocassional pondering over weird scenarios with a frantic inner monologue as they unfold. The pessimist in me went on a ramapage but only after looking at my cracked window. Looking at it i thought, how fragile it is, like our lives. We could easily be damaged, whether it is through our personal relationships, or a loss of a beloved being from our lives. Even small things have a lasting impact on our thinking and affects our concentration to do other things. I thought about my life and its many cracks which is still yearning for light to enter and shine its darkest corners. Somewhere out there in the world there are people who are completely shattered and may have lost all hope for any light. I wonder what those people feel who beg to live for a day or two. Those who are already born with cracks. These cracks may never mend but it has made it possible for some light to enter. Hardships and unbearable moments are a part of this chaos called life. I wonder who or what is going to fix these cracks. But it's also possible that you won't ever grow into the person you hoped to become without these cracks. I guess i'll have to wait. It is all there is to life; wait. Wait for that glimmer of light. Sometimes i ask myself, is it even worth it? You always have a fear of unknown and death. You never know who or whats going to hurt you and take you to a certain despair and anguish state, a lostness of the human condition. Who or whats gonna make you happy, though it happens rarely(in my life).The inexorable passage of time does not care about your good or bad moments, it just passes and takes you along. It is the human desire and hope which form a basis for human struggle and suffering.In the famous words of William Irvine, it is desire which animates life, 'Banish desire from the world and you get a world of frozen beings who have no reason to live and no reason to die.' Hopes and desires are personal aspects of human life, and it is these desires that tell us to wait a little longer. But for now i am just waiting at my balcony for that sun to rise.

[theskepticsoul]

I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain, undefinable something.

— Haruki Murakami, The Unvisited

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Sunset by Aykut Aydoğdu, 2018.

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Visitors by Joe Baran

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People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?

-Jean-Paul Sartre

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End of the Journey by Friedrich Kunath, 2019.

[theskepticsoul]

Time Transfixed by Reńe Magritte, 1938.

This painting took a hidden feeling of mine and brought it to light. Reńe Magritte's Time transfixed talks to you like your imaginary friend(lets be honest guys) who knows you inside out and tells you harsh truths without ever judging you. Looking at the painting, our attention goes straight to the locomotive charging out of fireplace. It disturbs the mundanity of the scene and took us by surprise. The painting also emphasizes the clock placed over the fireplace in front of a mirror and in between two candles. Through the combonation of these odd objects, Magritte captures our vacillated and lost selves. The one which yearns to be a part of the crowd, to get emotional fulfilment socially. But at a certain point, wants to be left alone with his/her gloomy thoughts. The picture seems like a real motion event in which the locomotive may charge through the fireplace at any moment and disturbs the placidity of the room. But at the time It is stopped. It enters our consciousness and urges us to think about our banal but hidden feeling. It tries to redeem those moments when you are unwelcome and do not want any intrusion of any kind even after having many friends. It also depicts our desire to capture and eternalise delightful moments with someone before they become memories. This is the level of contradiction this picture tries to capture. The reflection of left candlestick is visible, but it's not the same for right one. This represents our two contrasting feelings. We carry this dilemma our whole lives and in the way we get misunderstood by people. Its quite interesting how Magritte uses locomotive and clock to bring these feelings to the surface, but only through these candles we see their faces. The mirror does not reflect the rest of the room and tries to focus our attention to these candles. Every object carries a sense of purpose, it only depends on the viewer to extract these purposes. This painting assures us about the normality of our feelings and tells us its not our fault.

[theskepticsoul]

Little Death by Glenn Brown, 2000.

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https://youtu.be/BQeMxWjpr-Y

I have been listening to this song for 5 years now. I don't really ever listened to much of Coldplay, but this song is very atypical of them. The video sits almost perfectly with the song. The use of inverted colours catches the eeriness of the song along with the scenery. Chris Martin's distorted vocals contributes to the desperation and sort of fear and anxiety. The song tries to tell us that there is always an eerie darkness lurking around us, no matter what you do and where you are in your life. And it is this 'on the horizon' darkness that makes us vulnerable to giving up everything. But the line 'leave a light on' tells us to hold onto our emotions and feelings amidst crisis, one day everything would be past for you and you will move on, but only if you do not extinguish this flare of hope inside you. The part between 2:20 and 2:50 is so mesmerizing that it takes me to a trance-like state. This song is not perfect nor is it very good technically but whenever i listen to it, i feel happily sad and what more can i ask for(beacause this sadness will last forever).

[theskepticsoul]

The ancient Chinese parable of a farmer as told by Alan Watts

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”

The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

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Cardiff Docks by Lionel Walden, 1894

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The Place Beyond the Pines, 2012

Dir. Derek Cianfrance

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Apotheosis of War, Vasily Vereshchagin in 1871.

Vasily Vereshchagin depicted war atrocities in many of his paintings. He illustrated many wars including the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-88, 1857 Indian War of Independence titled ‘Blowing from Guns in British India'. His painting “The State Procession of the Prince of Wales into Jaipur.” , inside Kolkata's Victoria Memorial is the third largest painting in the world. Vasily always depicted real side of war despite the rising propaganda of obscuring failures and highlighting glories. Due to this, he experienced opposition from Russian Empire, some countries of western Europe and British rule in India. He painted 'Apotheosis of War' in 1871. The painting depicts a pyramid of human skulls on the background of the ruined city and denuded trees among the red hot plain. Flocks of hungry birds of prey fluttering over the pyramid, picking at their remains. Death and destruction are conveyed with extreme detail through skulls. The denuded trees represent a civilisation without humanity. The leaves of kindness and compassion have fallen. The ravens symbolises irrationality. People driven by their self interest and insatiable thirst for power, iniate wars that leads to people becoming victim of their insanity. In the background, we can see ruined remains of a fortress, conveying grief and destruction that war brings on their families. Vasily used yellow and light brown colour for the barren plain and background, juxtaposing the horrors of war. Contrasting the dull plain, clear blue sky and shining sun only emphasizes the dreadness of the picture and present us a world where we don't want to live in. Vasily not only portrays the abhorrent nature of mass death but also emphasizes a single lost life. The pyramid of skulls shows a fragile social and political strucure built on the foundation of mistrust, self interest and hate.

Vasily is trying to show the realistic picture of war to poets and prophets who dreamt of a utopia in which war will not exist and peace will reign on earth. It can be misunderstood by some as glorification of war, but he condemns the war by showing us its brutal nature. He tries to show that men are dynamic creatures who can't live contended merely with peace. These men don't think about the post calamities of war but are guided by their accumulated energy filled with ignorance and hate. The tendency of modern wars becoming global is pretty disturbing to us. The fact that radical difference in policies and abhorrent political ideologies of countries cannot always be settled by mere discussion, puts us as a civilisation into a bleak and uncertain future. I do not know how many wars could be prevented by art, but i do know that any stable, lasting peace depends on creating societies with a richness of opportunity and variety that can meet human needs.