Les Bergers d'Arcadie: Arcadie et in Arcadia Ego

Don't worry I don't speak French. Unless you count the five phrases of quasi Quebecois that I learned from the many seasons of snowboarding in the Lauretians. It is "The Arcadian Shepards: Even in Arcadia I exist." What?, 什麼? Che cosa? 몰라요? @#$@#l? I thought it might be a good deflection as of late to speak about something other than our faltering near depressive economy. To reflect on better times to arm and to defy the hopelessness that the world truly brings. It might seem existential at times but believe me the world can always have misery. Hope on the other hand its distant brethren takes a lot more than the tossing waves of calamity to embrace. But what is Arcadia? It can mean hope but in this case it's an art exhibit.

This was an exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art (SEMA) in my neighborhood with pieces from the Musee National d'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou in France. 79 pieces to be exact and the framework centered around "Painters' Paradise" or The Images of Paradise." The notion of how "Paradise" was conceived and analyzed in the minds of 20th century artists. The likes of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan Miro and Fernand Leger were represented in the themes that encapsulate an idealized 16th century European Utopia in a reconciliation of 20th century modern art. Arcadia refers to an actual region in the Greek heartland and was envisaged to reflect bounty and paradise. The theme was later latinized by the ancient Roman poet Virgil to portray the fantasia paradise that was cognizant to Elysium fields. The exhibition was classified into 10 smaller themes such as: "Golden Age," "Joy," "Messenger," "Harmony," "Darkness," Recovered Arcadia," and "Lunch on the Grass." Suffice to say that it is appropriate during these times, especially these times to contemplate meaning and purpose.

I don't preach a prosperity gospel, but I also don't oppose it. The thought of living life without hope is unimaginable, but during times of prosperity who thinks of such things? I'm always very convinced at my own fragility of human consciousness its limitations and such. I've wondered maybe there might be one of us that would be set apart, stronger, and thus "Holier than thou," but no I've found none. Instead what I seem to witness is a ocean of souls that anchor at different points of the ocean and thus by that geometry experience hope or hopelessness to varying degrees. As for me, I wouldn't consider myself a religious relic or post modern existentialist. I would simply say that from experience it is better to have religion than not. If you have religion it is better to have faith than not. If you have faith it is better to live with hope than not. And through hope you can possibly view our meager lives through the lens of something more grand, more intimate and in the end spellbinding.

That is why we can relate to art, because what we see on that painted canvas is nothing less than an inner sanctum. It's a reflection of you and I who are non-categorical, de-genred beings. My appreciation of modern art has intensified as I have understood the personal strife of approaching the "formless." If you peel away the 2,000 years of dogmatic Christianity, the institution, the rituals. What you'll find is something quite revolutionary and dangerous. My personal anchor is on a middle eastern jew named ישוע, Yeshua. Ask me.