Awe
Chinese Version
or you wanna (return home)
Written by Haokai Gu
A tribute to “The Secret of Psalm 46”
2021/11/9
It was July 15th, 2018. My parents dragged me to the art capital of the world — Paris. We visited many different places, including the Louvre Museum. However, before I brag about my experience there, I must admit that what attracted me most at the time was not Louvre’s artworks. Instead, it was the World Cup which is being held in the same year. Coincidentally, on the same afternoon that I met the Mona Lisa, France won the World Cup against Croatia.
Since the World Cup final was in the afternoon, the museum was quieter than usual in the morning. I went straight to the Renaissance section of the Louvre, and in front of a huge stone wall and numerous visitors, I found my greatest expectation for this trip - the Mona Lisa. She was placed right in the middle of the room, in front of a stone wall which is about four or five meters. I had to squeeze over shoulder after shoulder to get to the front row of the crowd, just to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa.
However, even when standing in the front row of the crowd, there was still quite a distance between me and Mona Lisa. Besides, Mona Lisa’s actual size was quite small, so I could hardly see any brush strokes and details used by the artist. This was no doubt very disappointing. I eventually made my way back through the crowd and turned my expectations to the World Cup and my comic book. In my opinion, the present entertainment is far more interesting than the sophisticated works of art.
According to my parents, I didn’t have any reverence to art.
But in my view, those people crowding around the Mona Lisa have no difference with me. Most of them were just travelers who followed the crowd, like me. If they can’t even appreciate Mona Lisa, why would they pretend to be touch by it?
In fact, the thing I value most from an artwork is merely the imagination and intention of the artist. Mona Lisa is nothing but a stack of brilliant techniques. It is worthless.
Therefore, the one that made me scorn was a young girl who copied a sketch.
Her slender, motionless figure stood out against the throng of people. Doing portraits in a standing position is already a hard thing and doing in this kind of noisy environment will only make it worse, let alone at a portrait that I cannot see clearly. To me at the time, the girl's behavior was meaningless and pretentious.
Of course, me in 8th grade hardly reach the age of reason, and I’m a very different person now. However, I'm pretty much the same person in 2018 as I am now when it comes to another artist. I learned about this author through a popular science book about the wonders of famous people.
Every year, millions of pilgrims arrive to approach this stele, in a small church on the banks of the river Avon in Stratford, England. The right side of the altar, by contrast, is deserted. The only point of interest is a carved wooden box that sits next to it. Inside the case, behind the thick glass, lies an open book.
The inscription on the case identifies this book as the first edition of King James's Bible, published in 1611.
Not many pilgrims visit this side of the altar. Most of them just simply glance at the book, read the plaque and move on. A few more observant people will notice that the Bible happens to be opened in Chapter 46 of the Old Testament: the Book of Psalms.
If you care to look closer, you might be surprised to find that the 46th word from the beginning of this passage is "shake" and the 46th word from the end is "spear".
Shakespeare was 46 years old in 1611.
This name always pops up with surprise. The first time that I learned about Shakespeare was when I discovered that his play Hamlet had the same name as one of the elves on the SaiErHao.
The next time I got to know him was in an English class.
If we put together all the characters, phrases, sentences and articles in the English language on this planet, there is no single work of literature, not even a single text, that has had a greater impact on the modern English-speaking world than the 1611 edition of the Bible, published under the auspices of James I.
It has been considered the noblest monument of English prose, the greatest achievement of the English language. It has inspired generations of poets, dramatists, musicians, politicians and orators.
Millions and millions of people learned to read by reading the bible. Its cadences and imagery, deeply nurtured and shaped western’s constitution and laws.
But even the King James Bible, compiled over a decade by 46 editors, pales before the dazzling legacy of the Swan of Avon. For Shakespeare, the minimum estimate of his vocabulary is 15,000 words, three times more than the King James Bible. Shakespeare's pursue his creation without the help of any dictionaries. When Shakespeare's ideas could not be expressed in Elizabethan English, he invented a new word. It was all in his mind.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists hundreds of everyday words and phrases coined by the master: Addiction, Bedroom, Critic, Dawn, Employer, Film, Gossip, Hurry, Transcendence, Investment, Lonely, Manager, Switch, Wormhole, Zany
Hamlet alone contains nearly forty of these neologisms.
Who today would have such boldness in invention? Perhaps only the later Sir Francis Bacon and Charles Dodgson could match that.
Shakespeare's works are rightly to be called as the work of art. He is worthy of our respect.
Still in the 17th century, if you were willing to go southwest of the River Avon, you would come to Holland. Here, too, is an artist, shining in his own light.
In 1632, Rembrandt produced his first famous work, Anatomy with Professor Nicola Turpe. His delicate brushwork and vivid portrayal of characters made him one of the most popular artists of the century.
If he had kept up his style of painting, there is no doubt that he would have had a happy life.
However, when faced with fame and artistic pursuits, Rembrandt chose the latter.
In his later years Rembrandt completely abandoned the original painting method. He began to use rough and sloppy brushwork, and his characters became blurred and ferocious. This is undoubtedly a blasphemy against art in the eyes of aristocrats who advocate Baroque. Rembrandt finally died looniness and notoriety.
Rembrandt’s experience was similar to that of another artist we know better, Vincent van Gogh.
Art was Van Gogh's only consolation in his difficult life. He did not like to attend the so-called salons. Van Gogh was more dedicated to the creation of paintings.
If he kept on his creation, the critics will no doubt come back to him, and he will soon be the next shining star.
But fate intervened. In 1890, Van Gogh ended his life in chaos.
But their story is not over.
Rembrandt's achievements in light and form are unrivalled. Later generations regarded his technique as a template, and those works, which were originally spurned by the aristocracy, are now study by countless artists.
No contemporary painter has a stronger imagination and more profound verve than Van Gogh in the shaping of colors and scenes. Van Gogh left an indelible mark in the history of art with his own life.
They persisted in their artistic creation when no one recognized them.
They repay the public's disdain with enthusiasm and affection for art.
It's one of those potent, rare and precious emotion that can totally upset your life. An emotion strong enough to make you abandon everything behind and go follow your heart.
“That sweet, sweet fusion of wonder and fear, irresistible attraction and soul-numbing dread known as awe.”
“Awe is the Grail of artistic achievement. No other human emotion possesses such raw transformative power, and none is more difficult to evoke. Few and far between are the works of man that qualify as truly awesome.”
It is awe that brings thousands of worshippers to Shakespeare's gravestone.
It was awe that led Rembrandt and Van Gogh to create such incredible paintings.
That's what awesome stuff is. It's new, something that we never have seen before; it's generous, something that worth our respect.
On July 15, 2018, I returned to the Louvre on the afternoon of France's match against Croatia. Funnily enough, I left my phone in the pavilion, so I had to go back to the security area of the Louvre to retrieve it. This time, there were fewer people in the Louvre than in the morning. After all, it was the afternoon of the World Cup, and everyone went back to watch the match. As I passed the Renaissance section, I saw the Mona Lisa again. There were much fewer people than there had been in the morning, but in coincidence, I saw a familiar figure.
It was that girl in the morning. I can't help but wonder what made her stand in front of the Mona Lisa for hours.
I could see that she was absorbed in copying, so I approached slowly from behind her, pretending to get a closer look at the Mona Lisa. The next thing I saw were her hands, blackened with lead and graphite from constant drawing, and copies of many other portraits. Some of them are not sketches of the Mona Lisa, but other works of art in the museum. I was surprised by the delicacy of her portraits, especially the Mona Lisa, which she is currently working on.
What surprised me even more was that she didn't seem much older or younger than me.
She didn't notice about my observations. Maybe she didn't care. But from the first moment I saw her book, I knew that her obsession was not an act. No matter how vague the Mona Lisa may seem to me, it must have had profound meaning for her.
I felt embarrassed of myself because she was definitely worthy of respect.
At the same time, I felt ashamed, because she had a tenacity and persistency that I could not understand at that age.
That's what awesome stuff is.
Speaking of the source of awe. Bach showed his students a very specific example. In addition to Bach's original name, B-A-C-H, there were two other sets of initials associated in Bach's music. These initials were listed at the top of the manuscript for the whole world to see.
The initials are SDG and JJ.
SDG stands for the Latin phrase Soli Deo Gloria, “To the glory of God alone.”
JJ stands for Jesu Juva, “Help me, Jesus.” Bach wrote all of his great masterpieces sub specie aeternitatis, “under the aspect of eternity.”He did not compose only to please his sponsors, or to win the approval of an audience. His work was his worship.
Bach once wrote, " Music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul. Where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.”
“The name of the power that moves you is not important.
What is important is that you are moved.”
Awe is the foundation of faith, no other motive can free you from the shackles of personal achievement, no other emotion can teach you about the meaning of art.
Awe teaches you how to understand other people's awe.
Every note of Bach's score weaves the framework of modern Western music. It was his awe of creation that made posterity stand on his shoulders and look out over the boundaries that music could reach.
Four hundred years ago, during the Renaissance, Shakespeare wrote his greatest works with awe and passion. We will all see the world through these great works. They are the source of modern English, the precepts of our thinking.
In the middle of the 17th century, Netherland, Rembrandt created countless superb work with his awe and pursuit of art, under the contempt and insult of the world.
By the end of the 19th century in France, Van Gogh was already in the hospital, spending his days in chaos and delirium. His work was never accepted by the public. But even so, he never let go of his art.
History has proved that it is the masters' relentless pursuit of art that has brought countless inspirations to later generations. Imperceptibly, they established the basis of modern aesthetics.
They influenced almost every artistic pioneer we know of in modern times.
Picasso, Soutine, Matisse, even Duchamp, pop art, surrealism and abstraction were influenced by them.
Many people do not recognize their work, it does not matter, because the value of the work itself is given by the artist, the creator, with their own imagination and creativity.
If you can't understand an artwork, try to understand its creator, the context of the work.
Our reverence for any work is derived from the creator's reverence for creation.
After catching a glimpse of the “Monalisa” on July 15, 2018, I turned my attention to the comic book at hand. It's a very attractive book; it's called the “Watchmen”. Watchmen was a good quality entertainment in terms of its story and art style. Obviously, the story of this comic book fascinates me more than the Monalisa.
At the same time, exactly 566 and a quarter years ago, a little boy was born in Italy, Vinci. He showed a very high artistic talent at a very young age; his portrayal of the human body, the depiction of objects, was to the point of perfection.
His name was Leonardo Da Vinci, the pioneer of the study of the human body and modern drawing theory, the creator of the smile of Monalisa, and, less well known, the founder of one of today's great forms of entertainment, the comics.
On July 15, 2018, I didn't learn how to appreciate that mysterious smile, let alone the creator behind it.
But I was fascinated by one of the countless legacies of that creator.
Maybe we more or less are moved by such things.
Awesome, isn’t it?