Rembrandt: A Time of Refinement

The word refinement sometimes has a sense of something stuffy, chilly, or too delicate to touch, and yet in the world of design, refinement relates to that part of designing that brings things to a point of moving towards a better understanding and completing a clearer picture. 

In essence it is the act of taking a sketch or an outline of an idea and refining it to bring it to a different level of completeness and quality by allowing the parts that were nebulous to be clarified. This act of refining is an interesting point for as we know there are many ways that “things” can be filled in! As had been said, “How creative do we want to get?”

Yet even as Michelangelo seemingly alluded to by his thoughts of “allowing the form within to come out” (“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” Michelangelo )( see my earlier blog on Michelangelo), there would seem to be a pattern of fulfillment in design that comes by means without the struggle and without the fighting, almost as if it just begins to appear!

Many times we think that this place of non-struggle is a place that one gets to when one has been filled with all the knowledge of the masters and teachers, and that being filled, now one can create with the ease of say, Rembrandt!

Rembrandt Vin Rijn was born in 1606 at a time in history known as the Renaissance Era,  a point of the beginning awakening of certain ones from a darker period of time, that also included such prior masters of design and creative endeavors as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Rembrandt it is told was 14 years of age by the time he started studying art and painting, moving into apprenticeships with the teachers of his era. By the time he was in his early twenties he had surpassed his teachers in his ability and skill with the deftness of his touches to the canvas, and actually began accepting students to teach.

Was this just another anomaly of talent that far outweighed his teachers in the Netherlands? Was this one that like the Great Ones before him, had been blessed by the Gods to excel before the throne of the accomplishments of mankind? Was he, as is sometimes stated, a self-made man?

Or perhaps as it might have been, that Rembrandt was given by his teachers and the ones before him, a sense of an outline, a sketch of a design, from which he chose to allow the refinement of a greater design to fill in the space!

If that was the case, then it would have taken a choice on his part and an effort to execute…not in a struggling kind of way, but mayhaps in way of seeing and hearing something that was not commonly known, but given to him to interpret individually. That something is always challenged by the world standards as we each of us has experienced in our own lives. We may never know for sure if that is what he heard, yet nature has a way of giving and receiving that comes from the core of things, and for each individual that would mean something personal and different, though always in relation to a part of a greater design. A little too wild?  Hmmm.

Rembrandt’s life was filled with challenges that were pretty large as compared to most. Three of his 4 children died in infancy, and soon after his wife died.  After a time he finally married again, only to lose his second wife to an early death, and still later, his son who passed away before him. By the end of his life, he had filed for bankruptcy and had lost most all of his material wealth. He died by 1669 at the age of 63.

Rembrandt is known to have been a prodigious painter and artist. Of the 2300 works that are assigned to his hands at this point, 600 are paintings, 300 are etchings, and 1400 are drawings. He also taught other artists all his life.

This was seemingly a man who moved with a larger sense of purpose than what the world wanted to give to him. He allowed his life to be filled in, not by the world’s standards, but in a way of hearing and seeing his talents reach their own level of fulfillment, in a sense, allowing that space to be refined from within, clearly bringing his sense of purpose closer to the reality of his capacity to create.

If we begin to hear and see that each of us have that same opportunity, then is there some way that we can we begin to recognize the sketches of our own lives and times? How could we begin to allow the fulfillment of our own levels of accomplishment, not by what the world thinks we need to do, but by allowing the same essence of Nature that the Great Ones did, from the very Source of our core? 

Wouldn’t that be the point of what we are here to do?

Your comments are appreciated! Stay tuned!

Web Museum Rembrandt, http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rembrandt/ nov 2010

Rembrandt images http://www.christusrex.org/www2/art/rembrandt.htm nov 2010

Rembrandt  http://www.rembrandtprints.org/biography.html nov 2010

The Interrelatedness of Albert Einstein

Well so far we have begun an interesting start into how design, though various great ones on this planet seemingly initiated and translated their inspirations into form, and our first foray of thoughts with Michelangelo, whose understanding was based on allowing something from the inside to be revealed knowing that what is true of design is already there.  

We have only to have the willingness to hear, see it, and allow it to come into form. 

And Leonardo Da Vinci whose attitude and posture, we sense had a range of perspective that spanned a larger scope of territory than the world had and has seen in a long time because of his willingness to let go of whatever were the limiting aspects of his imagination and those around him in his time and day on Earth.

A point of interest is that actually these two great people were in fact compatriots and artists of legend in Italy and at some point rubbed shoulders with each the other.

This of course brings up another point about which we are also fascinated with, and that is a point about the anomaly of certain human beings and their creative accomplishments.  Is it true that they were alone in their discoveries, set far apart from humanity encased in some kind of glass cocoon that was especially designed for them? 

It comes to mind that when we think of great artists and people we generally think that they were solo in their achievements, and to some degree that makes so much sense. 

If we mention the name Albert Einstein, for instance, mostly the first thoughts that come to mind is that he was a genius,  a mathematician, an anomaly. Though history tells us that during Einstein’s time he was surrounded by like minded people who were interested in solving certain issues regarding the very things that he is famous for! He touched bases with those ones who were wonderfully gifted and had insights to many issues that were pressing.  But it did take Einstein his specific effort to hear and see what others did not. A way of looking at the facts clearly through his specific lens of understanding. That was his responsibility.

The fact that each artist needs to allow the expression of an idea or thought to be translated into something tangible is of course truly a one person job.  Yet to say that Michelangelo would have created the masterpiece “David" in any other time in history would be a statement that would bring a lot of doubt of validity.  That specific time was specific as the “factors” of the time really helped to engender his understanding for his area of accomplishment then.

Could we say that each great artist was (is!) living during a period of time where other touch points known as friends, family, compatriots or some strong connections were or are in agreement with them to move beyond the concepts and ideas of the time? And who would be responsible for the translation of such creativity? 

Where does creativity begin? And who would be responsible for the translation of such creativity?

Stay tuned! Let’s see what can be further discovered! Let me know what you think!

Touching On Design with Michelangelo

From our first part of our design thoughts with Michelangelo, we surmised that a specific core in Nature would produce a unique answer, yet are we to believe that Michelangelo could only produce a singular piece of artwork out of a unique set of conditions that can be described as a piece of marble, albeit a large piece of marble?

I think not!  Why? Because unlike a blade of grass we have the capacity to create an unlimited number of possible answers to a set of conditions.  Yet as Michelangelo approached his situation in a listening stance his design ideas were either confirmed or in fact refuted by his medium…Do we believe that Michelangelo saw all the details of his sculptures and all the process with which he would need to participate in before he started? How could anyone know all the future steps that one will have to take to complete a project? But without studying and realizing a beginning plan and taking the first step the movement towards a creative solution cannot take place.

What are the chances that a chisel point broke off a piece of his intended design as he initiated what he believed was the direction of the flow of material and was not?  Are we believing that what Michelangelo produced in marble, were his first design thoughts, or did they shift as needed in the discovery of what worked out…?

More than likely, he “tested the waters” as he moved into the space towards the form in the marble that by the way, was also moving simultaneously towards him…

 “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”.
Michelangelo

Hmmm. Were those the words of someone who was storming towards a destination with only one solution in mind, focused only on his accomplishment?  Really?

Again he said,

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.
Michelangelo

What if we started using our “tools of design” in a way that melded with the energy that was already beginning to form!  Is this a novel idea? Gee, no. But it is one that Michelangelo used! 

As we gather around our beautiful “piece of marble” if we begin to take a listening stance, mayhaps we can hear and see the evidence of something wanting to come into form…our clients way of living, their sense of what they would like to have in design, the building structure itself, the pattern and direction of the rising sun...(cosmic factors?@*!)

To give an ear without thinking that we would have immediate design solutions, but more about being present to listen to what we might just term as factors. In this way we might examine as Michelangelo no doubt did, to see what directions the veins in the marble run so that when we pick up our tools we can start to chip in the right direction!

Stay tuned! I am beginning to wonder if we are on to something! What do you think?