Thursday, March 23, 2006

Sacred Art: Transcendence through Vision

We often believe that language is the epitome of humanity's success in comparison to the rest of the natural kingdom. That language is the foundation that allows for us to reason, and that it is within language that the potential of the human race lies.

As a speaker of English and only English, I find myself somewhat distraught by my perception of the world around me. The things I see, the images I experience are limited by only what I can express through language. When I gaze out at the sea, I perceive only the sea, some body of water. But, I know inherently that there is much more to the body of water then just the word I used to describe it. It fills you with emotion, invokes fantasies and fears, represents so many things that are simply not expressed through language. You can sit down and describe the ocean all you want to someone who has never seen it, but you can't truly understand what the ocean is till you've seen it for yourself. And it never gets too old to watch it and gaze into the horizon, wondering and admiring. And, thus, I feel that language is fundamentally flawed, that we rely too much on our verbal expressions to one another that we ignore a multitude of other sensations that, while there, we don't pay enough attention to. We become too dependent on our logic and reasoning that we fail to see the beauty in the world around us, and fail to perceive something greater then we are.

It is with this that I present to you several links to fine pieces of art, works done by individuals who see past the veil that language draws over our eyes and captures a world that only few can perceive. I hope you enjoy these links as much as I have.

Mystical Landscapes @ VictoriaChristian.com

Lysergide's gallery @ Mateo.net

Mythic Naturalism

Artist at DeviantArt

Just a small fraction of what's out there, but figured some of you will enjoy.