a Pearl White serial

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder.”

—John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

Turning sand into gold

“I like to take a very weak color and make it rich and beautiful by working on its neighbors. What’s gloomier than raw sienna? Now look at what I’ve done to it there: It’s gold. It’s shining and alive, like an actor on the stage. Turning sand into gold, that’s my life and aim.”

—Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

ethics and aesthetics

“I think art parallels life. Color, in my opinion, behaves like a man in two distinct ways: first in self-realization and then in the reallization of relationships with others. In my paintings I have tried to make two polarities meet—independence and interdependence, as, for instance, in Pompeian art. There’s a certain red the Pompeians used that speaks in both these ways, first in its relation to the colors around it, and then as it appears alone, keeping its own face. In other words, one must combine both being an individual and being a member of society. That’s the parallel. I’ve handled color as a man should behave. With trained and sensitive eyes, you can recognize this double behavior of color. And from all this, you may conclude that I consider ethics and aesthetics as one.”

—Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

a powerful absorption in visual phenomena

“[Joseph] Albers was animated by a powerful absorption in visual phenomena. At Black Mountain, he recalled that as a child he’d accompanied his mother to a bank where the floor was tiled in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. The young Albers feared that if he walked across the floor he might sink into the black squares and need to climb out onto the whites—an ordeal he mimed for his students’ amusement by hobbling around on the floor. His classes were peppered with his analyses of such commonplace phenomena as New York City streetlights, monuments in the park, and insect anatomy. He’d point out what others had perhaps glanced at but not contemplated: the shape of the Yale football stadium, the spot of light that remained for a moment when a TV set was switched off, the way a red roof could merge with a blue sky, how the color of tea deepened in a glass.”

—Frederick A. Horowitz, from Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

seeing

“I never taught art, I think. What I have taught is philosophy. I have never taught painting. Instead I have taught seeing.”

—Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

This purple knows about this pink

“[Josef] Albers’s remarkable ability to use words to prize the character of color was a vital component of [his color] course. . . . ‘This one smells like Cuban cigars,’ he might say, or ‘it tastes like a roast beef dinner with a nice Burgundy.’ A brown, lacy study had ‘a grandmother quality.’ Albers praised one study in stripes [pictured above], saying it was like ‘good aged mellow cheese.’

Along with this, Albers would concoct little melodramas to help his students see the color performances: ‘Look here! This green is creeping in. It’s a monster coming in from the edge and taking over. . . .’ Or ‘This purple knows about this pink. You see, it’s happy to be next to it, and it keeps it from running away.‘ A certain red ’wants to take control, to be a fascist.’. . . One student recalls a conversation between yellow and orange: . . .

“Look! The color orange is at the door and says to the yellow, ‘You go first.’ But the yellow is also polite and says, ‘No, you go first.’ They are like good friends, and their conversation is very charming.’”

—Frederick A. Horowitz, from Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

Wish I was an English muffin

“Wish I was an English muffin
’Bout to make the most out of a toaster.
I’d ease myself down,
Comin’ up brown.”

—Punky’s Dilemma, words and music by Paul Simon, from the Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends, 1968.

Chinese paper

“The invention of paper is usually ascribed to Ts’ai Lun . . . a prominent official under Ho Ti (A.D. 89-106). . . . He is said to have made paper out of tree bark, hemp, or fish nets. . . . The oldest examples of Chinese paper known to us today . . . show that at a very early date paper was being made that was thin, white, and of good quality. Since then, paper has been made from bamboo, mulberry, hemp, corn and rice stalks, cotton, flax, silk cocoons, reeds, moss, and a kind of water fungus. . . . The quality of papers varies; surfaces are smooth or rough, weight is thin or thick, and tints range from white through yellow, blue, and gray to quite dark tones. . . . The most famous paper was the kind called Ch’eng Hsin T’ang Chih (paper made at the Pure Heart Hall), a fine, thin, smooth sheet of high quality, considered by some authorities to the best ever made in China. It was perfected in the Later T’ang period (A.D. 923-934) and used by the great painters of the Sung and Yuan periods. Between this fine, smooth paper and the coarse, absorbent kinds are papers of innumerable degrees of smoothness and roughness. . . . Some well-known kinds are Wild Goose White paper, Kuan Yin paper, Blue Cloud paper, White Jade paper, Cicada Wing paper, Ice and Snow paper, and Six Times Lucky sized paper.”

—Mai-mai Sze, from The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique, 1956.

Chinese ink

“Chinese ink is made of carbon or soot, obtained by burning dry pine or fir wood in a kiln (sung yen mo: pine-soot ink), or by burning vegetable oils in an earthenware bowl (yu mo: oil or lampblack ink). The soot is then mixed with a little glue. . . . [T]he mixture is molded and dried into a stick or cake. For use, this is gently rubbed in a little water on an inkstone to produce the liquid ink. This procedure still yields the best ink, although liquid ink is now made and widely used. . . .

By T’ang times there were many ink makers, and the art of its manufacture was far advanced. Since those times, the best kind of ink by repute has been made from pine soot, a kind of sung yen mo that is also called chiao mo (glue ink). It is deep in tone and glossy, the degree of blackness and sheen depending on the species of pine and the method of preparation. . . . [I]t was used up to Yuan times and was easily distinguishable from the mat black ink made in the Ming period, which in use gave the same effect as lampblack ink (yu mo), lacking in depth as well as sheen. . . .

The process of making ink sticks . . . consist[s] of burning or cooking, mixing, pounding, stirring, sifting, shaping, setting in molds, and drying. Inscriptions or decorations are often engraved on the sticks. After the ink sticks are finished and completely dry, they are rubbed with a piece of rough cloth and polished with wax till clean and smooth, and then wrapped in paper for storage.

Among the experiments in inkmaking there were procedures to make it mat, an effect desireable for certain purposes. To dull the ink, pulverized oyster shells were sometimes added, or powdered jade, although jade was put in principally as a gesture of respect to the ink. So much care and skill were given to the production of ink that ink sticks became objects of art, prized for the variety of their shapes, their decoration, their inscriptions, and the names of their manufacturers and the places where they were made. They were collected and venerated. . . . Old sticks and cakes have a unique fragrance, which in the past was often heightened by adding musk, camphor, pomegranate bark, or the like, as the ink was being made. Besides giving the ink a fragrance, these ingredients were believed to improve its color and brightness and to help preserve the sticks. Old ink was and still is treated like vintage wine.”

–Mai-mai Sze, from The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique, 1956.

Human existence

“‘Human existence, beg to report, sir, is so complicated that the life of a single individual is nothing more than a bit of rubbish in comparison.’”

—Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.