JOLLY DAYS

The Mobility of Thought

Remember Picasso? At one time considered the greatest artist in the world. His survival through World War II was celebrated by many a sign of a heartening survival of civilization itself. He was promoted by Life and became a rich reclusive celebrity. He was attacked by that Huffington dame in a book excoriated in the New York Review of Books. At his best he was inventive and amazing if not seminal like Matisse.

Picasso's energy and imaginative force carries his work still. He was given to aphorisms, some of which were recorded by Christian Zervos:

The picture is not thought out and determined beforehand, rather while it is being made it follows the mobility of thought. Finished, it changes further, according to the condition of him who looks at it. A picture lives its life like a living creature, undergoing changes that daily life imposes upon us. That is natural, since a picture lives on through him who looks at it.

We ourselves travel through time with the delusion that we are cohesive — our egos intact. But we know we are different with each tick of the clock — even if the day to day changes are invisible to gross scrutiny, we are aware over time how deeply we change. If we are wise and/or lucky, we grow, if not, we deteriorate, like any living thing; but our interior growth is to a great extent determined by our decisions — by what we make of our life and — with what degree of care we process our experience and thereby value our existence.

So it is the picture and ourselves that travels through time, intersecting and changing each the other in a quiet collision in space-time.