Dante Elsner, You ask, how can we know the infinite? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer - in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is exstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.,,, But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration. It is only now and then that we can enjoy this elevation above the limits of the body and the world. - Plotinus: Letters to Flaccus, From P.D. Ouspensky: Tertium Organum
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Dante Elsner

You ask, how can we know the infinite? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer - in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is exstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.,,, But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration. It is only now and then that we can enjoy this elevation above the limits of the body and the world. - Plotinus: Letters to Flaccus, From P.D. Ouspensky: Tertium Organum

1990

Current Collection

The Noble Sage

London, GB

Medium
Watercolour on Japanese Mulberry paper on painted board
Dimensions
19 × 42 cm
Status
In Gallery Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-155407

The full title reads like an academic footnote, yet the accompanying image is simple: a serene head in a yellow-orange outline floating within a pink aura. It most eloquently represents to Elsner the state we must all aim for: the pink surround being the impermanence and inferiority of reason we must unchain ourselves from in order to absorb the divine.

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