Actually the full quote is: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” by Thomas Merton, Trappist monk
Art inherently encourages you—or maybe even requires you—to move into that mindset of deeper existence. Drawing or painting or making any type of art moves us beyond the realm of logical thought. It even, in its most transcendent moments, helps us step outside our whole self and into something bigger than us.
Even if we are not the artist, and we are just viewing another’s piece of work, art can resonate with us at deeper levels than words. Language seeks to describe transcendent reality, but art elicits an experience with it.
- Source: https://imightcoulddothat.substack.com/p/the-art-of-wisdom-what-art-can-do
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I was reading a book "The way of Chuang Tzu (庄子)" by Thomas Merton yesterday, and enjoyed his translation of 庄子道学 very much (I would like to share some with you someday).
So I searched on Google trying to find more of his wisdom, found the quote above and it really touched me.
I always loved art as far as I can remember, and never missed any main exhibitions in 中国美术馆 before I left China.
But I didn't start to draw much until 2016. One of the reasons was that I was experiencing some hard times then and hoped drawing would help me to escape it. And it did ... ...
From drawing, I found the missing part of myself to make me whole, and I lost myself into the process and felt being part of it. Some times I felt so deep into it that my pen would take over and I just let my hand follow the pen, as happened during my drawing of Angela Merkel which you saw before.
Alright, enough soul searching
. Wish you all have time to enjoy art regardless of the form, and most importantly, have a good Monday!ps. the book and a couple of my drawings from 2016
A pair of my old shoes (the shoes are long gone, but they remain in this drawing ... ...)
A very old man (from a photo of a sculpture ;-)
