The great quality of true art is that it rediscovers, grasps and reveals to us that reality far from where we live, from which we get farther and farther away as the conventional knowledge we substitute for it becomes thicker and more impermeable. –Marcel Proust, The Maxims of Marcel Proust (ed. 1948) Proust certainly knew […]| Redtree Times
In my solitude I sing to myself a sweet lullaby, as sweet as my mother used to sing to me. –Albert Cohen, The Book of My Mother (1954) Today’s post is kind of like a poker hand. I have a pair of Cohens and a wild card in the form of a new painting. The […]| Redtree Times
But the Wise Perceive Things About to Happen “For the gods perceive future things,ordinary people things in the present, butthe wise perceive things about to happen.” –Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7. Ordinary people know what’s happening now,the gods know future thingsbecause they alone are totally enlightened.Of what’s to come the wise perceivethings […]| Redtree Times
“Art is such a relief to us because, actually, it’s the real world — it’s the reality that we understand on a deeper level… Life has an inside as well as an outside, and at the present, the outside of life is very well catered for, and the inside of life not at all… We […]| Redtree Times
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere Aude!- ‘Have courage to use […]| Redtree Times
… I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for […]| Redtree Times
Look down the long valley and there stands a mountainThat someone has said is the end of the world.Then what of this river that having arisenMust find where to pour itself into and empty?I never saw so much swift water run cloudless.Oh, I have been often too anxious for riversTo leave it to them […]| Redtree Times
When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life. –Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853) If one moon can do that, can you imagine the effect of seven moons? Maybe we need seven moons now more than ever? This painting is titled […]| Redtree Times
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. –Carl Sagan, Cosmos Maybe the way we view ourselves as being part of a group is the dividing line that separates us these days. Some of us adhere to Carl Sagan’s view that throughout our history we […]| Redtree Times
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the…| Redtree Times
10 posts published by redtreetimes during October 2025| Redtree Times
Each for himself, we all sustain The durance of our ghostly pain; Then to Elysium we repair, The few, and breathe this blissful air. –Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC) This year’s edition of my…| Redtree Times
Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement. […] They have never ceased to be my guiding lights. –Luis Barr…| Redtree Times
Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? M…| Redtree Times
10 posts published by redtreetimes during September 2025| Redtree Times
Dusk of Time- Coming to West End Gallery When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy’s grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood…| Redtree Times
But it’s a long, long while from May to December And the days grow short when you reach September And I have lost one tooth and I walk a little lame And I haven’t got time for waiting g…| Redtree Times
Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention has…| Redtree Times
I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where…| Redtree Times
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to m…| Redtree Times
Pity the nation whose people are sheep And whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that rai…| Redtree Times