philosophers' stones

split the tree, and i am in the wood; lift a stone and i am there
apocryphal gospel

the stone is god, but it does not know it, and it is the not knowing that makes it a stone
meister eckhart

Goethite / named for goethe, in use since prehistoric times as a pigment

Alfred Jensen April 1977

One afternoon during the year 1921, I was walking down a street in San Diego, California. I suddenly saw the edge of a young man's face, a nose. I called out to the owner of the profile, "Karl, remember that I drew your portrait in 1915, when we were children in school?" "Of course, I remember, Alfred," he answered, "and I still keep the portrait as a remembrance of our school days. That was 6000 miles away and six years ago, in Horsholm, Denmark."
The edge of things, a profile, coupled with a past event, has always made me leap like an inspired diver off a board.
Edge events have occupied me for years - the edge of color as it is observed in a prism. Goethe wrote in Beitrage zur Optik, 1791, paragraph 33:

The prism as an instrument, was looked upon with submissive awe and humility in the Eastern lands; so that the Chinese emperor gave himself the right to be the unique owner, as he insisted, by divine right of Majesty, to behold these beautiful appearances for himself alone. We in all ages from youth to old age look with wonder on the prismatic instrument because upon its use depends most of the color theories: therefore, to begin the study of color we must concentrate on this object.

While the study of Goethe's color theory has engaged me over a twenty-year period, it is in the past three years that I returned to it, as well as new readings in contemporary physics and electro-magnetism and constructed the prism machine.

http://www.alfredjensen.com/home.html

Verweile doch, du bist so schön*

[…T]he bourgeoisie no longer dares to look in the eye the order of production that has set itself in motion. The idea of [Nietzsche's] Zarathustra of eternal recurrence and the motto embroidered on the pillow covers - "Just a quarter hour more" - are complementary.

Benjamin notes similarly that the 'phantasmagoria' of Baudelaire's reve parisian "reminds one of the world expositions in which the bourgeoisie calls out to the order of property and production: Stay awhile. You are so lovely!

Susan Buck Morss The Dialectics of Seeing p 283


The phantasmagoria of " Rêve parisien" recalls that of the world exhibitions, where the bourgeoisie cried out to the order of property and production their " Abide, you are so fair!"

[J71,7] p355 The Arcades Project

*The phrase is Goethe's from Faust.

Stay, thou art so fair! To prolong the instant forever…
Faust's lust for knowledge is limitless and he makes a contract with Mephistopheles: he will die at the moment he declares himself satisfied,

"Werd' ich zum Augenblicke sagen:
Verweile doch! du bist so schön!
Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen,
dann will ich gern zugrunde gehn!"

Goethe's Häuschen

Wanderer's Nightsong II
goethezeitportal

Up there all summits

are still.
In all the tree-tops
you will
feel but the dew.
The birds in the forest stopped talking.
Soon, done with walking,
you shall rest, too.

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

sparklee