Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,—
Oh, better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.
What value can be placed on beauty? Teasdale suggests that the memory of lovely things is more precious than material wealth.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knells is rung;
By forms unseen their dirges sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall while repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!
Buttercups and daisies—
Oh the pretty flowers,
Coming ere the springtime
To tell of sunny hours.
While the trees are leafless
While the fields are bare,
Buttercups and daisies
Spring up here and there.
Ere the snowdrop peepeth,
Ere the crocus bold,
Ere the early primrose
Opes its paly gold,
Somewhere on a sunny bank
Buttercups are bright;
Somewhere ‘mong the frozen grass
Peeps the daisy white.
Little hard-flowers
Like to children poor,
Playing in their sturdy health
By their mother’s door:
Purple with the north wind,
Yet alert and bold;
Fearing not and caring not,
Though they be a-cold.
What to them is weather!
What are stormy showers!
Buttercups and daisies
Are these human flowers!
He who gave them hardship
And a life of care,
Gave them likewise hardy strength,
And patient hearts, to bear.
Welcome yellow buttercups,
Welcome daisies white,
Ye are in my spirit
Visioned, a delight!
Coming ere the springtime
Of sunny hours to tell—
Speaking to our hearts of Him
Who doeth all things well.
“The great literary artist Dostoevsky once wrote that beauty would save the world. That may be truer than ever today, says philosophy professor Alice Ramos, because, while many people have given up on truth and goodness, they remain fascinated by beauty, even if it is only the cosmetic attractiveness of movie stars. This means, she told an audience in Rome, ‘that beauty may be a privileged route to both the true and the good, and thus that art could be of singular importance in helping the modern world.’ In this interview with MercatorNet, Professor Ramos explains how art lost its classical relationship with the true and the good, and how important it is for artists to make those connections again.”
A simple ring with a single stone,
To the vulgar eye no stone of price:
Whisper the right word, that alone—
Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice,
And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)
Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole
Through the power in a pearl.
A woman (’tis I this time that say)
With little worth the world counts worthy praise
Utter the true word—out and away
Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze,
Creation’s lord, of heaven and earth
Lord whole and sole—by a minute’s birth—
Through the love in a girl!
Lo I the man, whose muse whilome did mask,
(As time her taught), in lowly shepherd’s weeds,
Am now enforced a far unfitter task,
For trumpets stern, to change mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose praises having slept in silence long,
Me, all too mean, the Muse areeds
To blazon broad amongst her learnéd throng:
Fierce wars and faithfull loves shall moralize my song.
I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
Not borne on morning wings
Of majesty, but I have set My Feet
Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat
That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod
There do I dwell, in weakness and in power:
Not broken or divided, saith our God!
In your straight garden plot I come to flower:
About your porch My Vine
Meek, fruitful, doth entwine;
Waits, at the threshold, Love’s appointed hour.
I come in little things,
Saith the Lord:
Yea! on the glancing wings
Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet
Of furred and gentle beasts. I come to meet
Your hard and wayward heart. In brown eyes
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest
On every nest
Where feathery Patience is content to brood
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprize
Of motherhood—
There doth My Godhead rest.
I come in little things,
Saith the Lord:
My starry wings
I do forsake,
Love’s highway of humility to take.
Meekly I fit My stature to your need.
In beggar’s part
About your gates I shall not cease to plead—
As man, to speak with man—
Till by such art
I shall achieve My Immemorial Plan.
Pass the low lintel of the human heart.
‘Immanence’ is defined as the state of being within a given domain. In philosophy and metaphysics, the word can refer to the belief that the Divine Spirit is seen to be manifest in the natural world. It is sometimes contrasted with ‘transcendence’—the idea that God exists outside the natural world. Many believe, as I do, that the Bible makes clear a beautiful and mysterious relationship between the two.
“[I]n the past, an artist’s handling of paint, the energy of his brushstrokes or the subtlety of his touch, had been prized, but generally in the larger context of the effect thus achieved… Here then was an aspect of painting that still appeared to be unexplored—the sheer handling of paint regardless of any ulterior motive or purpose… Most of all it was the American artist Jackson Pollock who aroused interest with his novel ways of applying paint… Becoming impatient of conventional methods, he put his canvas on the floor and dripped, poured or threw his paint to form surprising configurations… The resulting tangle of lines satisfies two opposing standards of twentieth-century art: the longing for childlike simplicity and spontaneity that evokes the memory of childish scrawls at the time of life before children even start to form images and, at the opposite end, the sophisticated interest in the problems of ‘pure painting.’”
Ernst H. Gombrich, “Chapter 28: The Triumph of Modernism,” The Story of Art, 15th edition
“In some respects [Cubism] represents a return to what we have called the Egyptian principles, in which an object was drawn from the angle from which its characteristic form came out most clearly. The scroll and one peg are seen from the side as we imagine them when we think of a violin. The sound-holes, on the other hand, are seen as from the front—they would not be visible from the side… Despite this apparent jumble of disconnected forms… the picture does not look really messy. The reason is that the artist has considered his picture out of more or less uniform parts so that the whole presents an appearance of consistency comparable to such works of primitive art as the American totem pole…
“Critics considered it an insult to their intelligence to believe that a violin ‘looks like that.’ But there never was any question of an insult. If anything, the artist paid them a compliment. He assumed they knew what a violin was like, and they they do not come to his picture to receive this elementary information. He invited them to share with him in this sophisticated game of building up the idea of a tangible solid object out of the few flat fragments on his canvas. We know that artists of all periods have tried to put forth their solution of the essential paradox of painting, which is that it represents depth on a surface. Cubism was an attempt not to gloss over this paradox but rather to exploit it for new effects.”
Ernst H. Gombrich, “Chapter 27: Experimental Art,” The Story of Art, 15th edition
“It is clear that Van Gogh was not mainly concerned with correct representation. He used colors and forms to convey what he felt about the things he painted, and what he wished others to feel. He did not care much for what he called ‘stereoscopic reality,’ that is to say, the photographically exact picture of nature. He would exaggerate and even change the appearance of things if this suited his aim… [He] took the momentous step of deliberately abandoning the aim of painting as an ‘imitation of nature’… Van Gogh felt that by surrendering to visual impressions, and by exploring nothing but the optical qualities of light and color, art was in danger of losing that intensity and passion through which alone the artist can express his feeling to his fellow men.”
E.H. Gombrich, “Chapter 26: In Search of New Standards,” The Story of Art, 15th edition