LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
The soul, spiritual matters, social justice, photography and the other arts, and the reality in which they are all joined.
First: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. Let me say that again: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. That has nothing to do with opinion or analysis, but rather with the grateful, … Continue Reading Keith Carter and the Cloud of Mercy, Part 1 of 3
This time, I haven’t drawn from religious or mystical texts, or parables or poetry or painting, for my clues to reality. This time, I’m taking you to court, so to … Continue Reading A Different Kind of Clue
All ye works of the Lord, Bless the Lord, Praise and exalt Him Above all, for ever. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of … Continue Reading How do I love Thee? Let me count the ways. (Christmas 2019)
This photograph, called “Lunar Eclipse,” is another from my “Marion under the Moon” series. I made it in 2017, and since then it has been selected by the Visual Arts … Continue Reading Happy Thanksgiving 2019, Over and Under the Moon!
As I’ve said, a part of what I plan to do for you in these posts is to give you what I’ve called clues, aiming to bring you closer to … Continue Reading Some Cautions about Enlightenment
What you see above is a reproduction of the cover of the July 1992 issue of OMNI Magazine, for which I wrote the month’s “First Word” piece. The “First Word” … Continue Reading Art and the Mad Machine: The Spirit of Life vs. The Spirit of Addiction
We’re all taught – or, rather, misled – by our families, our schools, our occupational or professional training, by the ubiquitous stream of advertisements, to believe that what is unreal … Continue Reading A Little Guidance and a First Pair of Clues
If you’ve read my first post on this blog — “Welcome to Artists, Lovers of Art, and Unknown Friends” — you’ll have a good indication of my intentions here. And if … Continue Reading A Welcome to Further and Farther Voyages
Permanent link to Art and Mystery“. . . there is only one thing valuable in art and that is the bit that cannot be explained. To explain away the mystery of a great painting – if such a feat were possible – would be irreparable harm . . . if there is no mystery then there is no ‘poetry,’ the quality I value above all else in art.”
-- Georges Braque
Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish poet and psychotherapist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011. Transtromer, who died in 2015, wrote this poem after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald … Continue Reading An Unhappy July the 4th
Permanent link to The Poetic Image“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” Robert Frank
Li Bo, how could you keep your heart from loneliness, calling always to the moon?
Yes, the word “camera” is italicized in the original text of this passage from “The God of the Living” by George MacDonald. The word opens an entrance into these … Continue Reading The Body, Mortal and Immortal, as a Camera
On the front page of The New York Times for Saturday, April 21, 2018, there was an article titled “Over 700 Children Taken from Parents at Border.” It began: On … Continue Reading Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me
“[The] notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell … Continue Reading Windows and Doors and Waves and the Well
Lo, in the silent night A child to God is born And all is brought again That ere was lost or lorn. Could but thy soul, O man, Become a … Continue Reading WISHING YOU PEACE AND JOY FOR CHRISTMAS
