WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Knox Martin August 31 2012
FIGURE 1: SATYR AND NYMPH SERIES 972
Many of you still don’t understand what has excited the great master Knox Martin in the latest transaction, SATYR AND NYMPH SERIES 972 (Figure 1.) I have been waiting for your responses, yet that has proven futile. With the exception of Master Olivia and Don Ray, none of you, not even my former student, Leander, has been able to feel the same excitement as the great master Knox Martin has! My point is, if something has created a strong interest in Knox, it should be having the same effect on you as well, since we are all human, and anything enjoyable in the process has to be universal, and contagious!
If you want me to tell you exactly why Knox has enjoyed 972 so much, so you can better understand composition through learning why, first you must temporarily suspend the notion that Ben Lau was the creator of the composition. Forget the creator, just look at the work. The idea is to forget who brings the water, just drink it if you are thirsty enough! You must be able to convince yourself that a masterpiece, or any masterpiece at all, does not belong to anyone in particular,– a masterpiece is just another timeless piece that will go down the corridor of time and get recognized in the collective human consciousness as Greatness, or Beauty, or Truth. In time none of us here will be around to claim ownership for it, or bear witness to it. Like the Great Wave by Hokusai, it will simply exist on its own merit. It is still alive today in the consciousness of men, many years after its creation. That, my friends, is precisely what has excited the great master Knox Martin!
Next let’s come to the nittygritty of it. The reason why it is a superb composition may be listed as follows: 1. Extraordinary compactness! 2. Unusual complexity! 3. Great unity! All you need is narrow your eyes and take in the total black at one glance: I am sure you can visualize this single huge thing configuring the black,–that oneness in your visualization is what we call unity. Then narrow your eyes again to glimpse at the white entity in its entirety: another single huge white thing comes into our view! So black and white, representing Yin and Yang respectively, are intimately entwining each other. A masterpiece that deserves being so called is but one great operation by the artistic genius, namely, in his marshaling of the Yin and Yang forces so they may superbly entwine each other in an intricate way. Don’t believe me? Fine: simply look at the compositions of the great masters, Titian, Velazquez, Cezanne, Picasso, or Matisse to verify it. 4. Powerful relationships, its various strokes and curves are fully harmonized and calligraphically beautiful! Each part is ingeniously related to each other and to the whole in a flat field of activities and of currents, or Qi flow,– all of which eventually crystallized in a metaphor that takes on a life of its own. What metaphor? It is the metaphor of a satyr having fun with his nymph! What sensation was yielded by that metaphor? May I suggest that it has conveyed a sensation of the Arabic, the Chinese calligraphic, the exotic, as well as the antique! The composition has also existed in a formal structure that promises to stand forever, staring down the generations like a gemstone that is consolidated in its own perfection, one that has been created entirely by the genius of man!
So where is the newness? You seem to be asking. I can tell you right now that you are looking at it, without even recognizing it. The metaphor is in and of itself, every bit as new, or as fresh, as a newborn baby! Have you seen it before? If your answer is negative, then congratulations: you are on the right track. Unfortunately some egoistic minds will never fail to insist that this work cannot be new, how can it?– since a satyr having fun with his nymph is an old, old theme. True, we might have it in the past with different artists, each having attempted this familiar, time-honored theme, e.g. Titian, Watteau, Picasso, and what have you, might have had their own versions of Satyr and Nymph series, yet when you look carefully, can you not see that each composition is unique, different and specific? Of course I refer to the complete compositions only, –ONLY the Holy Grails of Art, and NOT illustrations by non artists.
