My soul will not be obliterated!

I remember years ago finding this Goethe quote and writing it down in a little book I had gotten in Young Womens - I remembered it recently while enjoying the MET's artwork of the day email. With constant meetings and work lately I fully embrace the necessity of this idea.

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."

So here are two "fine pictures" that have filled me with the sense of beautiful

[to the right: Marvin E. Newman (American, born 1927)
Title: Windy Day]

Also last night, after the last participants in our regional strategy planning meeting left in the van to head to Bangkok, I took a hot shower and curled up in my hotel room and watched "Sense and Sensibility" (with the audio commentary of Emma Thompson). She spoke a lot of Ang Lee's focus on the use of landscape in the film, that in China landscape is not a mediocre art form but an important means of explaining narrative.

"Between 900 and 1100, Chinese painters created landscapes that "depicted the vastness and multiplicity" of creation itself. Viewers of these works are meant to identify with a human figure in the painting, allowing them to "walk through, ramble, or dwell" in the landscape. In this landscape, lush forests suffused with mist identify the time as a midsummer evening. Moving from right to left, travelers make their way toward a temple retreat, where vacationers are seated together enjoying the view. Above the temple roofs the central mountain sits majestically, the climax to man's universe. The advanced use of texture strokes and ink wash suggest that Summer Mountains, formerly attributed to Yan Wengui (active ca. 970–1030), is by a master working in the Yan idiom around 1050"