Tag Archives: Ludwig van Beethoven

Bodies in Motion, Body at Rest

“Many philosophers have existed only in their own minds, but I think I may well be the first to exist only in other people’s.”
—Kathleen Stock [May 19, 2023]

I have lately been thinking about things well over my head, even more than usual. Perhaps it has something to do with reading Ronald Blythe’s The Age of Illusion, about England in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s hard to choose a favorite quote, but here are a few:

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Diving for Bonnard and Laughing with Kahlo and Vargas

Recently, we ventured from the West Side to the East Side, where most often never the twain shall meet, to see an exhibit of paintings by Pierre Bonnard. I took to heart Bonnard’s comment that “The painting will not exist if the viewer does not do half the work.” I suspect he likely didn’t mean by this that I would take a bit of one of the paintings and insert a bit of Rodney Smith’s Collin Walking Hands, yet it expressed, for me, the exhilaration of diving into Bonnard with both hands, feet in the air.

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