[David Anthony]

I'm guessing this is ekphrastic.
Could you post a link to the picture, Rick?

[Rick Mullin]

Really, it's not intended as a guessing game. I would tell you the source if it were an ekphrastic poem. I like to make that kind of thing explicit.

I don't mean to be coy, but I really can't explain this. I especially like Michael Cantor's description of how he reads it, however. While I didn't intend any of the specific details he describes--those are really for the reader to come up with--I sense he sees himself. As I said, the first person plural is what this is about. From there, I'll take any interpretation, and may come up with several of my own.

Thanks for the reply Fr Robert. I understand what you're saying and not contesting it. I just think it is an intriguing question, similar to, but not equal to, the meat of the Inness credo.

RM

[Janice D. Soderling]

OK, I'll bite. What is the Inness credo?

(Duh, I must be really dumb.)

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Janice,

It's in my previous comment:

"Knowledge Must Bow Before Spirit"

Not to be confused with the Ellington Principle. For that, see "Minimalism".

Rick

[Jan D. Hodge]

"Knowledge Must Bow Before Spirit"

Isn't that Glenn Beck's credo?

[wendy v]

The arts are of course peppered with such warnings:

God guard me from those thoughts men think
in the mind alone;
He who sings a lasting song
Sings from the marrow bone

(Yeats)

Love, love, love. That is the soul of genius. (Michelangelo)

The Spirit is the Conscious Ear…

For other Services—as Sound—
There hangs a smaller Ear
Outside the Castle—that Contain—
The other—only—Hear—

(Dickinson)

For all this help of head and brain,
How happily instinctive we remain….(Frost)

Etc.

The intellect is assumed. It's a powerful force. It’s no secret that it wants to rule the kingdom, wants to rule each and every poem. Thus all these warnings from the masters, or so it seems to me. It isn’t easy to bring such elusve concepts forward in a workshop environment. Imagination, intuition, impressionism, bah ! People seen to take really serious offense. But it’s not as if the subject is scandalous, or new to the arts.

I love the Inness.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Lear: How do you see the world?

Gloucester: I see it feelingly.

Now that's a short poem!

I love the Michelangelo one, Wendy. Love.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Knowledge Must Bow to Spirit

Right, I did read that, but it didn't register that it was a credo, i.e. creed.

1. A formal statement of religious belief; a confession of faith.
2. A system of belief, principles, or opinions.

It seemed to me to be one of those intellectually unclear things that can mean anything, but, hey, what do I know?

Crossposted with Jan D.

[Rick Mullin]

Oh, I think it's clear as a bell, Janice. It's what we have to do.

Jan--I never saw they guy's paintings. Actually, from what I've seen of the him, I think he is preponderantly cerebral. He hasn't got much to work with brainwise, but there seems to be none of what George I. would call Spirit.

Think about it. Inness is basically advising the artist to surrender to nature before sweating the technique. Me Likee.

And congrats Jan!

RM