WHAT THE IMPRESSIONISTS CAN TEACH US - IMPRESSIONS ABOUT LIFE

August 28th, 2022

author: Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk (Catherine)

What The Impressionists Can Teach Us - impressions about life with the cultural expert's eye

Text from the book: TIME OF CHANGES

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And it once happened that black disappeared from the palette of a certain group of painters. Why? Because black corresponds to absolute darkness. So they painted the world using only the seven basic colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), which they did not mix on a palette, but only on canvas. They painted “the moment.” A moment frozen in time, as if in a camera frame. They were called rebels. However, it was these rebels, who were initially looked at with reluctance and even ridiculed, who changed the way we perceive art and the world. They went beyond the framework and created a new art. They created the New World.

"One morning, one of us ran out of black; it is the birth of Impressionism," said Auguste Renoir. However, the name “Impressionism” itself comes from the painting Impression, Sunrise, painted in 1872 by Claude Monet, which was publicly presented in 1874 at an exhibition in Nadar’s Atelier.

For many, “Impressionism” is still just some style of painting characterized by a blurred image. The opposite of solid, clear, closed within the framework academic painting still in force in the second half of the nineteenth century. But why does Impressionism intrigue and attract us so much?

And what if I told you that the way you see, perceive the so-called reality, is Impressionism? Probably many will deny it. Many will say—No. This is not true. I see really and clearly, not behind a fog. And you're probably right. After all, the Truth is what we recognize as the Truth. But is this really the Truth you are looking for? That's why I'll ask—What about your dreams? What about your imagination? How do you see when you turn off your head? How do you see when you look with your heart? How do you see when you watch the sunset? How do you see when you listen to the whisper of nature, the sound of the sea, the breeze, the singing of a bird or simply the breath of a child? What do you see when you look into someone's eyes? What do you see when you look up to the sky or admire a flower that has bloomed in your garden? Which world is the real world? And is it really the one you thought was true?

The human mind can be very deceptive. The mind sees as it has been taught, programmed. The head creates emotions. The heart sees the world as it really is.

So what do the Impressionists teach us? 

“I can only paint what I see.” - Claude Monet

Everything is fleeting. Because everything is a moment. And the moment is the mood, light, emotion, and also the angle of view, or in other words, perspective.

Your perspective is subjective. And it is neither better nor worse than another perspective. It is just what it is. Because your perspective is an impression. It is a reflection of you for the moment. How you perceive someone or something is your mirror. He is you. When you change your perspective, you see more.

“I would like to paint the way a bird sings.” - Claude Monet

Contours are an illusion. Contours are given by the brain. It's your brain that creates the frames. Like the frames of the Matrix world. Look at a photograph. Any photograph. Photography is a captured impression of the moment. But photography is also a picture of spots. Because the human eye sees through spots. And these spots are created by dots, or pixels. By juxtaposing the colorful spots, you capture an impression of the moment that your brain interprets. And the fewer “frames” in it, the more the image you see spins, dances, speaks, and even sings and smells. And it's not necessarily the smell of paint. We call this the interpenetration of worlds, which is actually happening all the time, although not everyone wants to know it.

“The wealth I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” - Claude Monet- Claude Monet

Everything is a dot. Some people call this dot a pixel. What you see is a collection of dots/pixels forming a certain image, interpreted by your head, according to the program inserted into it. What you see is a collection of information. In other words, you see what you want to see. But when you realize that you are the one holding the brush and you are the one who is painting your life made up of different paintings, what kind of pictures would you like to paint? What would appear in your paintings? What paints do you use? What colors? How much black and how many colors of the rainbow are there? Is there still black on the palette of your colors from which you paint your life? Is your image black and white? Do you perceive the so-called reality in a dualistic way? Is the Shadow still gray, or maybe purple, bringing wisdom? Maybe your shadow is you?

"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece." - Claude Monet

You are a painter. You paint yourself and paint your world. You create. You are the Creator.  You build your world from information that you choose yourself. Every piece of information has a color. And color is energy. Depending on the perspective, the color of the information is black or in the range of a rainbow. You see the color you want to see. The black shuffles heavily on the ground and pulls you down. The rainbow soars high, glitters in the sky and creates a bridge between the worlds. So take a look at the programs in your head? Do these programs serve you or do they hinder you? Is it worth keeping virus-infected programs that make the image dark?

Information is just information. A dot is just a dot. A collection of dots, creates spots, but they are still dots. But you are the one who gives them shape and meaning. Not everything is as we think.

"Every day I discover more and more beautiful things." - Claude Monet

Everything is a dance of energy. Everything flows. Everything interpenetrates each other. All is one. What is real and what is spiritual actually creates a whole. And when you understand and accept this, you discover that what is spiritual is more real than what you have called real so far. You begin to understand that your whole life is going on in your head. Like a computer game in which you are an avatar of yourself, fighting monsters of your own invention, but in fact, fighting with yourself. Because you are the one who holds the joystick in your hand. You play yourself with yourself.

"Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand as if it were necessary to understand when it is simply necessary to love.'' - Claude Monet

And when you go down to the heart level, you replace the joystick with a brush. You stop fighting. You stop racing or hiding. You stop chasing and running. You stop judging. You are accepting. You stop. There is only this Now moment, and there is joy in this Now moment. A moment frozen in the frame of life. And this moment of stopping, acceptance, this is the point when your images and your life take on colors. The black paint disappears, the outlines disappear, the frames disappear and the dark Shadows disappear. Because the way you see something at a given moment is nothing more than a subjective view of reality, i.e. Impressionism.

Impressionism is the story of how a rebel stepped out of the frame. He threw away the black paint. He chose the rainbow. It became a bridge between worlds. Impressionism is freedom.

Remember. Your life is made up of moments. But you decide on the quality of these moments. And you choose the moments you store in your head's album. Take a look at these moments. Are these moments a prison or Freedom? Slaves obediently stay in frames, although they are often uncomfortable in these frames. The rebels choose Freedom and change the world by painting it with the colors of the rainbow. They paint the world with their hearts.

©Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk (Catherine)

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What The Impressionists Can Teach Us

text from the book:

TIME OF CHANGES

Let's talk about Love, Fear, Freedom and Time

author: Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk

translation: Elizabeth Kanski

AMAZON

eBook

👉  This book is available in Polish and English

What The Impressionists Can Teach Us - read in Polish by the author