{"id":933,"date":"2015-11-17T18:17:03","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T18:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=933"},"modified":"2015-11-17T18:17:03","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T18:17:03","slug":"terror-and-the-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"Terror and the Imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tom D’Evelyn’s words about art as replenishment for the imagination. \u00a0Reposted from Haiku Eschaton, originally posted on\u00a0Tom D’Evelyn<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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As events unfolded and the number of dead rose in Paris, November 13, The Poetry Society tweeted a quote from Baudelaire\u2019s Les Fleurs du Mal. \u201cSoon we will dive into the cold darkness . . .\u201d The aptness of the quote aside, Baudelaire is a name to conjure with now. We live in a time of terror. \u201cThe Flowers of Evil\u201d look prophetic.<\/p>\n

Art is a source of resistance to terror. Terror cauterizes our access to a level of reality that is pre-conceptual but absolutely real. Terror numbs the soul. As Baudelaire\u2019s complex devotion to the image suggests, the image may reawaken the soul to its primary landscape.<\/p>\n

I am not talking about art for art\u2019s sake. The image in the sense I mean it here, and which I believe Baudelaire meant it, at least part of the time, is an image that connects us to the world of embodied meaning, a pre-conceptual world.<\/p>\n

William Desmond writes: \u201cThe qualitative presencing of the world as other is given to us over and over again\u201d (God and the Between<\/em>\u00a038). The philosophic language need not detain us: \u201cqualitative presencing\u201d helps clarify the connection of the image to the world as embodied process \u2014 the world as other; and the role of repetition in this self-confirming of the \u201cworld as other\u201d undermines the \u201cennui\u201d normally associating with repetition. This presencing is given to us \u201cover and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desmond helpfully remarks on the double burden of the ancient Greek notion of \u201caesthetic\u201d \u2014 both seeming and feeling, appearing and beholding. Aesthetic response says \u201cyes\u201d to created being, from within createdness. Aesthetic horror \u2014 as Baudelaire shows \u2014 we recoil from; it awakens some recognitions in us.\u201dThe aesthetics of creation both delights and disgusts us, resonates with us and repulses us, sweetens us and nauseates us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fair enough. At a time of Terror horror overwhelms the yes of creation: we see the monsters among us. Artists may show this and help us see it. Artists may also show us the primal imagery of the \u201cyes\u201d \u2014 such imagery however delicate and intimate may help us break through the numbness that builds up as a response to Terror.<\/p>\n

There is a \u201cnormal\u201d for which we long, which discloses to us something sacred at the heart of created being.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom D’Evelyn’s words about art as replenishment for the imagination. \u00a0Reposted from Haiku Eschaton, originally posted on\u00a0November 14, 2015\u00a0by\u00a0Tom D’Evelyn As events unfolded and the number of dead rose in Paris, November 13, The Poetry Society tweeted a quote from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[348,350,117,349,347],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-paris-attacks","tag-art-as-resistance","tag-baudelaire","tag-november-13","tag-response-to-terror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-f3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}