Painters From England

"One rather beautiful name is ‘The Rainbow Bridge’ — the bridge which links us to wisdom. This name is very apt because it is taught that the thread is made up of seven strands, of the colours of the spectrum; and that these strands form our seven little personal links with the seven creative forces of Nature..."

"What will that world be like? What are the steps by which its achievement can be approached? If we realize what the various needed changes and developments are, we will better understand where we can fit in, and to which necessary efforts we feel most drawn."

"This is called the World Breath or ‘Seven’ Breath, and was much practised by the ancient Egyptians who were adepts at physical and physiological culture. Seven, as you know, plays an important part in the plan of the Universe which affects tnis Earth, as for instance, the 7 planets, 7 colours of the spectrum, 7 notes of music, 7 days of the week, etc. If we practise the Seven Breath every morning on awakening, we will tune ourselves in to the forces of growth and progress and derive great benefit and strength from so doing, provided we neither strain nor jerk."

"Correct breathing also performs a constant massage of the internal organs by raising them up and down, thus curing constipation when it is caused by faulty insufficient breathing (as is often the case) which holds the muscles of the abdomen in a static position. Therefore the first thing to do is to make sure that you know how to breathe from the physical standpoint, and how to control the muscle of the diaphragm. This muscle forms the dividing line between the chest and the stomach just below the ribs. Place the fingers upon the diaphragm muscle just below the ribs and under the centre breast bone. In this arched hollow lies the muscle upon which correct breathing depends. Take a slow breath, drawing the muscle upwards and inwards, following its movement with the fingers, fill the lungs with air right up to the collarbones. Then breathe out slowly whilst tucking the diaphragm still further inwards and upwards!"

"From the mind of each of us there stretches an invisible thread. This links us with the inner Heavens, the place of all knowledge, and inspiration. Like a telephone wire, this thread is useless unless there is a receiving instrument at one end, and a person trying to establish a contact. We may spend our whole lives without ever properly using our invisible thread, or knowing that it is there. This is tragic, because there is no limit to what we can achieve by means of this magic link. The thread has been known and used by all the sages in history, and has been given many names."

"All religions give us the same hints and lay down the same principles, which imply: Firstly, that man will eventually become perfect and God-like — that is to say powerfully creative and no longer subject to death and disease. Such... [people] will obviously be able to run this world in an ideal way. Secondly, that humanity and all life upon this planet are ONE and indivisible... we must try to understand the secret of Unity. Thirdly, that loving and sharing all and with all, is to be the answer to most of humanity’s problems."

"It is no exaggeration to say that if even five minutes a day were spent in mental and physical breath control, a person’s whole life would be made anew. For, besides the physical atoms of the air, such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, there are literally thousands of different radiations playing through the atmosphere, some of them infinitely subtle and powerful, which come from planets far outside our solar system! These can, and should, be drawn upon by us in correct breathing, specialized through our endocrine glands, and used in our most vital thinking and creative activities."

"Instead of a world with a split personality and schizophrenia, as we now have, we would see a global civilization sanely and centrally controlled."

"The scene would change from that of world and individual disease, due to faulty circulation through obstructions and deficiencies, to collective and individual health due to following the true and natural laws of economy."

"Correct breathing must be deep, slow, even, and controlled by the mind and will. If it is deep it allows all the necessary rays and forces of nature to be drawn in and to reach every part of the body. If it is slow, then all possible benefits can be obtained before it is expelled again. If it is even, a rhythm is established in time with the rhythm of nature; the various vibrations of the body tune in with each other, and with the cosmic life-giving rays, thus producing a complete harmonious integration. If it is controlled by the mind and will, outside influences cannot upset the personal rhythm, nor distract the individual from his goal."

"Conversely, a shallow, quick breath only half-nourishes, and is the partner of fear, nervousness and self-consciousness; whilst the uneven uncontrolled breath allows the person to become ‘beside themselves* with the emotional disturbance and indecision."

"Herein lies the true secret of breathing because most people do the exact opposite and drop the whole chest and let the muscles sag whilst breathing outwards. At first, practise every day until you have gained control of the diaphragm muscle, using it to push the air up and out in expiration. This pulls the intestines from their usual sagging position, thus accelerating the whole digestive system. It is also the foundation for all your future breathing work. It raises the chest and inclines the oxygen to pass upwards into the head and cleanse and invigorate the mind."

"As soon as you have begun to master the diaphragm muscle, you can consider the rhythm of the breath. This must be gentle, even and deep, and have four stages; (1) pause for preparation, (counting three); (2) breathe in slowly, (counting three; (3) hold breath whilst absorbing life forces, (counting three) and (4) breathe out whilst spreading the new life all over the body (counting three). Then repeat the exercise. As soon as you feel able, increase the counts to four times four and gradually increase until you arc able to breathe to four times seven without strain. (p. 104)"

"Various classes of doctors and healers somewhat to look down upon each other and ignore respective merit. This habit must be superseded, of course, by co-operation, correlation and the growing understanding of the part that various types of healing play in their relation to one another..."

"From Mongheir I embarked, and returned by water to Calcutta; and here I had an opportunity of observing a series of scenery perfectly new; the different boats of the country, and the varied shores of the Ganges. .... It is common, on the banks of the river, to see small Hindoo temples, with gauts or passages, and flights of steps to the river."

"This city anciently bore the name of Kashi, but at what period it received its present name the page of history is silent. It is built on the north side of the river, which is here very broad, and the banks of which are very high : from the water, its appearance is extremely beautiful ; the great variety of the buildings strikes the eye, and the whole view is much improved by innumerable flights of stone steps, which are either entrances into the several temples, or to the houses.... Nearly in the center of the city is a considerable Mahomedan mosque, with two minarets ... this building was raised by that most intolerant and ambitious of human beings, the Emperor Aurungzebe, who destroyed a magnificent temple of the Hindoos on this spot, and built the present mosque, said to be of the same extent and height of the building destroyed... Surrounding the city are many ruins of buildings, the effects of Mahomedan intolerance."

"This hall was, by order of the Emperor Jehanguire, the son of Acbar, highly decorated with painting and gilding; but in the lapse of time it was found to be gone greatly to decay; and the Emperor Aurungzebe, either from superstition or avarice, ordered it to be entirely defaced, and the walls whitened."

"If Mondrian, with the omission of diagonals, modulation of colour and sensuality of material, moved into an increasingly life-alienated and Apollonian ideology, so Clarke explores the optical stability of forms with sensory Dionysiac temptations where here and there they give rise to menacing disturbances of order."

"Fallen petals on the grass or scattered flowers across a field do unexpected things when you examine them – Primroses seem to cluster together in a shape that recalls a single flower; Bluebells become entirely anonymous in a hovering mist; Daffodils group together into crowns of thorns and barbed wire."

"Black has the power to astonish. It absorbs and reflects colour stealing much from the prevailing chromatic landscape. It makes blue bluer and light lighter. There are as many variations of black as there are of green."

"There is a world that can be seen only through stained glass. It is like no other. The medium is thought to have been at its zenith in the Middle Ages – though the medievals had the advantage of Gothic architecture to respond to. I want to surpass the Middle Ages, not equal them. Surpass them with the new and irresistible: volumetric, spatial colour, transporting post-industrial godless man to the edge of ecstasy."

"[In Clarke's work] I see a possible enlivening of the jaded purity of Constructivism, an extension of geometry into the opposite, namely the emotional and incalculable as one of the answers to the conflicts and contradictions of our time. Art can only remain effective if it does not ignore the painful depth of unresolved antinomy."

"Colour is the animator of my poetical ideal. It is the single most important device in my work, and the driving force behind its impact."

"It is through painting that I understand how to view architecture, appreciate the rhythm of a poem, draw pleasure from the structure of a well-composed sentence. And it is through painting that the complexity of music makes itself understood to me. It is through painting, in fact, that I am."

"Art is reimbued with its genuine power and profundity in the architectural realm. Its real power lies in the cathedral, the shopping center, the hospital. Not in the studios of Soho and Chelsea or the galleries of Madison Avenue or Bond Street."

"When I am designing a stained glass window I am painting; when I am drawing a drawing, I am painting; when I am making the cartoon for a tapestry, I am painting; and when I am listening to music I am painting. It is the centre of everything that I do."

"My art is an art for the working class."

"I am working class artist. I am very happy if my work pleases or engages intellectuals or professional people, but my art is an art for the mass: I want to communicate this idea of intimacy and poetic transcendence to as many people as possible, and the idea that it is confined to one social demographic is abhorrent to me."

"Painting is a way for me to view the world as it exists and the world as it might be."

"It's not that painting is the medium with which I identify the most. Painting is the medium through which I am able to identify with anything external."

"Moving with frequency between the polarities of my experience is a fertile source of ideas. Somewhere between anguish and joy lies a region taut with further contradictions. If art speaks truth to power then in my view both compelling forces need to be addressed. The desolate truth carried in profundity is made even more striking when matched by the sublime energy of the decorative."

"Punk articulated the vitriolic disapproval by the young of the sneaking complacency in music, art, politics and perhaps most important of all - the environment."

"As punk rock was able to sweep the board clean in music, so must the board be cleared in visual art."

"The Spitfire and the Porsche and the battleship have something of perfection in their design. They are anonymous in their beauty, like the fleur-de-lys, and compelling, like heraldic ciphers of the 20th century."

"The self-inflicted isolation of the contemporary artist and the mistrust levelled against the architect are both important contributing factors in the current situation of architectural art. The painter is anxious to keep intact the historical image of artist as loner, the intense sensitive, the genius and “maestro”; while the architect, feeling the watchful eye of his client constantly over his shoulder, approaches any extra-to-budget expense, such as art, with considerable trepidation, guarding jealously any intrusion into his building by potential glory-thieves. – Clarke in the essay 'Towards a New Constructivism', from his 1979 book Architectural Stained Glass."

"I used to think that I somehow existed apart from making art and thus my work itself existed outside prevailing realities, uninfluenced by circumstance. I was wrong and that's clear to me now. Biography and art intertwine, strangling and oxygenating simultaneously."

"Everyone was saying that painting was dead, and really believing it. It was a very difficult time for me. I felt unsupported and isolated…"

"From the earliest memory every day started with prayer and ended with prayer…And it is still in my bloodstream, even though I am not conventionally religious. I am not good at belonging to groups. But doesn’t everyone think about God?"

"When I first started doing self-portraits – and I didn’t start until I was in my 40s, quite late – I did these portraits where my hand was kind of stretched out toward the canvas, as if about to paint…I suppose I was imitating those famous poses of Goya or Rembrandt. But something felt so false about that. Somehow women don’t have a secure place in the history of art and to portray myself in this way standing squarely, about to paint, it wasn’t right."

"When I first met Lucian he wasn’t that famous. He was notorious, but he did not have a big international reputation or anything. He was a genuinely Dostoevskian character it seemed to me, living much more on the edge. And then later he became more a national treasure and was quite seduced by that."

"It isn’t that I object to it. I just feel it’s the wrong adjective as applied to the films I do. Because horror to me is, say, a film like The Godfather. Or anything to do with war, which is real and can happen, and unfortunately, no doubt, will happen again some time. But the films that dear Christopher Lee and I do are really fantasy. And I think fantasy is a better adjective to use. I don’t object to the term horror, it’s just the wrong adjective!"

"I wasn't cut out for office life, I always wanted to be an actor."

"As for Sisley, I just can't enjoy his work [visiting the Paris Impressionism-exhibition of art-dealer M. Petit, May 1887], it is commonplace, forced, disordered; Sisley has a good eye, and his work will certainly charm all those whose artistic sense is not very refined."

"Yesterday Sisley was looking for me everywhere. Madame Latouche told me that he wanted some information about the technique of painting fans. Well, this means my fans are spoken of.. .I only fear one thing: that they will finally say that's all I am good for! [fans!]"

"Our poor friend Sisley, alas! will not assist at the final triumph, which is near, and of which he has seen but the dawning: he is gone too soon, and just at the moment when, in reparation for long injustice, full homage is about to be rendered those strong and charming qualities which make him a painter exquisite and original among them all, a magician of light, a poet of the heavens, of the waters, of the trees — in a word, one of the most remarkable landscapists of this day."

"Sue Coe … has done more through her paintings and prints to help animals than any other artist in history."

"[Describing her visit to a slaughter facility in Pennsylvania] The floor was very slippery and the walls and everything else were covered with blood. Dried blood had formed a crust on the chains. I surely didn't want to fall down in all that blood and guts. The workers wore non-slip boots, yellow aprons, and helmets. It was a scene of controlled, mechanized chaos."

"I have no doubt that Sue's art … is of historic importance. A hundred years from now and more, assuming our species has managed to survive, Sue Coe's work will hang in all the great museums of the world."

"Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!"

"He covered tons of paper with his words and made them his very own words... he branded them like cattle he rustled out there on the free ranges of Literature... Used by another writer who was attempting cut-ups, one single word of Burroughs vocabulary could ruin a whole barrel of good everyday words, run the literary rot right through them. One sniff of that prose and you'd say, 'Why, that's a Burroughs.'"