Wassily Kandinsky

 

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944), was a Russian painter widely credited as the pioneer of abstract art. He felt that art should have no recognizable objects or forms, but rather should destroy reality in order to arrive at the underlying truth of existence. He called his spiritual desire for art “inner necessity”. Kandinsky studied law and economics at the University of Moscow and was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat, but he abandoned his career in 1896 at the age of 30 and went to Munich to study art. But before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. It had a profound effect on him and may have influenced his later venture into abstract art.

In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts. But he returned to Moscow in 1914. After the Russian Revolution, he seemed to have been involved with Russian Marxist revolutionary Anotoly Lunacharsky, becoming an insider in the cultural administration. However because “his spiritual outlook was different to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society” he returned to Germany in 1920. There he taught art at the Bauhaus School until Hitler closed it down in 1933. He then moved to France producing some of his most prominent work until his death a few days before his 78th birthday. Wassily Kandinsky was an early champion of abstract painting and believed that abstract art could be used to express the “inner life” of the artist. His favorite color was blue, and he believed that the circle was the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. (Shown below is a painting by Wassily Kandinsky together with a painting by me that was inspired by it).

Travel Book 2

 

For me Art has always been synonymous with magic, so one day I wondered whether there was some theory that when applied would lead to interesting paintings. Unfortunately there is no such theory, for some reason some paintings are pleasing while others fail to satisfy the mind. For many years I believed that composition was the most important element in a painting, later I felt color was equally important.

So I analyzed the paintings of famous artists and found that the most interesting paintings had an element of crudeness in them. Take Vincent van Gogh’s “The Church at Auvers” for example, the whole building is crooked and the colors unnatural. But what would have happened if he painted it straight using natural colors, then it would be like a million other architectural drawings, competent but boring.

This was good news for me because I am one one those people in this world who is too lazy or too incompetent to draw buildings perfectly. I felt that the real secret behind a really good painting was a certain ugliness mingled cleverly with a really impressive element. The impressive element makes the painting realistic while the ugliness energizes the painting making the whole painting interesting. I used this theory to paint and came up with some eerie paintings. Of course not everyone was impressed some people called some of my buildings childish, others called them crude. But the important thing was for the first time in many years I felt like painting again.

Travel Book

 

When I was a kid this village near Ekala was filled with fireflies. Now there were hardly any. Actually, there seem to be much less insects now than there were a few decades ago. In just half a lifetime a lot seems to have changed. Maybe it was my imagination, so in one of my foolish ventures, I decided to find out more about insects.

Insects seem to be as different from human beings as it is possible to be. To begin with, they don’t have a heart, lungs, blood as we know it, a skeleton, or much of anything else. They are clearly built very differently. They have a tough exoskeleton to which muscles are attached and six legs. They were the first creatures to fly. You don’t have to be an expert to realize that they took a very different evolutionary line very early on. But what they are is they are essential to all life on earth. They are the food for birds and fish, every terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem relies on them. Oddly out of the millions of different varieties of insects, only about a few hundred have taken to the sea. (The sea is dominated by other kinds of arthropods like crustaceans.) Even plants rely on insects for pollination. It seems that they are declining at an unprecedented rate that some scientists call the global Insect Apocalypse. But there are so many varieties of them that scientists don’t know exactly by how much. Some scientists estimate that they are disappearing at the rate of 2% per year. That is a lot in 20 years.

To begin with, bees are in peril, and so are another order of insects, butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera), and beetles (Coleoptera), and freshwater insects like dragonflies and damselflies. Loss of habitat, insecticides, climate change, and pollution are thought to be the reasons. It is believed that if insects go so will their predators.

Travel Book

 

The landscape changes quickly when traveling in Colombo. One minute you are surrounded by skyscrapers, the next you are near the sea, and then near a lake filled with Pelicans. In a suburb near Colombo, there was a lake that I found mysterious and slightly menacing. Lakes like this one are actually essential for wildlife on the island and are true treasures, but are still a disconcerting presence. Even in a lake thought to be safe, it is still possible to imagine that a crocodile might have “walked in” from another distant lake. But what worries most experts are not crocodiles, but invasive fish. For example, it is believed that Alligator gars which grow to be 10 feet long and are native to North America are found in this lake. The clown knifefish native to Southeast Asia, one of the world’s most invasive freshwater fish are also found here. So how did they get here? People purchase it from pet aquariums when they are small, but when the fish outgrows the tank they are released into a nearby lake. Maybe some people get bored with the hobby and release the fish. There are said to be 30 introduced species of freshwater fish in the island's freshwater habitats. However not all are invasive, but the trouble is some really are. It’s odd when you think of it. Some fool releases some fish into an isolated water body, and in no time it is teeming with it because it has no natural enemies. It is found maybe only in that water body for a long time, but when it floods it spreads everywhere else.

The tank cleaner (suckermouth catfish), is the most widely distributed and harmful invasive species in Sri Lanka. It can survive several hours outside water. The knife fish that directly feeds on the lava of other species is the second worst invasive fish. The aggressive Mayan cichlids that attack other fish have spread from a water body in Colombo to several other wetlands. The guppy, native to the Caribbean region which was introduced to feed on mosquito larvae, has become more carnivorous feeding also on amphibian eggs. They are even found in the Sinharaja Rainforest.

The Mahaweli Ganga (The Great Sandy River)

 

Meandering along the valley

Flows the great sandy river

Starting from the central hills

It reaches the sea forever

Great kings came and great kings went

But the river flowed on

The river reminded us

We are all one

Flowed when the sun was shining

And in the pouring rain

But if it doesn’t reach the sea on that unknown bay

Will it be destiny’s end?

RJX

Travel memoir

Unfortunately just when my travels started to gain real momentum the covid 19 pandemic struck. We went through a series of strictly imposed lockdowns, that made travel impossible. However, during one of the brief interludes of the lockdown, I decided to walk somewhere, anywhere at all away, as far away from home as was possible to be. I had never been a great fan of walking, but the lockdown had made me a kind of aimless wanderer.

So I set out of my home and “discovered” for the first time that on both sides of the road were large kohomba (margosa) trees. From what I understand the margosa tree is one of the true shade trees that thrive even on the meekest trickle of groundwater so it is invaluable for those of us who can’t afford to air-condition. People in Sri Lanka, India, and Africa love it for this reason and its many medicinal and other uses. So it is surprising that it was declared a weed tree in northern parts of Australia in 2015. Introduced as a shade tree for cattle in the 1940s, it spread so quickly, that It is now illegal to buy, sell or transport plants or seeds. I have always wondered why this was, for as everyone knows nothing much grows in most parts of Australia except gum trees. Then I realized that in reality, many great trees grow in Australia, most of them endemic. An aunt of mine once visited Australia and she told the story of how she ventured into a woody place (she was always venturing into woody places) and found that there were countless Uguressa trees full of fruits. When she inquired from an Australian, she got the answer that it was not edible, and was in fact fit only for birds. Hey, we eat this fruit around here, it’s one of my favorite fruits.

Greatly troubled by this thought I moved on and entered a shop. It was a small model of a supermarket, with difficulty you could move about and pick what you want, but the suspicious salesgirl keeps a close eye on you with a series of convex mirrors. Shops like this that pretend to be supermarkets have spread all around Sri Lanka in recent years, which I think is great. As I was eating the quickly melting ice cream without a mask, I came upon a picturesque lake which was lined by a long row of Kumbuk Trees (Terminalia arjuna). For me, the Kumbuk tree, with its shiny smooth bark and colorful leaves is one of the most pleasant trees that God has put upon this earth.

Then I looked at the lake, it was a large man-made lake, whose primary purpose seemed to be to collect the rainwater and wastewater of a thousand houses that had been built less than twenty years ago. In this short period, it had become a proper ecosystem in its own right. Cranes, herons, and a strange crow-like bird whose primary purpose of existence seemed to be to dry its feathers all its life made it a strange place to be. Which made me wonder what the difference was between a crane and a heron. A crane's neck is shorter than herons and cranes hold their necks straight, while herons typically curve their necks into an “S” shape, particularly in flight. It was also full of fish, though fishing wasn’t allowed. It seemed that even in a dry region if you dig a large hole deep enough and plant some trees around it, it will soon fill with rainwater, and if you put some fish, in no time it would be teeming with life.

At a distance, I could see cashew trees. The trees in this area seemed to do a weird thing. They spread so widely that they sagged down and were supported by the ground though still attached to the tree. Now isn’t that clever, no stilt roots or other complicated roots are needed. Entertained by this foolish thought I moved on.

I decided to walk all the way to Colombo but gave up halfway and got on a bus. I got down at Pettah. I decided to wander around Colombo as much as possible during weekends and write about this city for I found myself greatly attached to it. As everyone knows Colombo isn’t exactly New York, but it is a bustling, happy city where a lot of interesting things happen all the time. Its port is one of the busiest in Asia, and it really is a flourishing city, but what makes it interesting for me is that it is a city with many art-minded people. Some people accuse its artists of copying the West, and worse being decades behind the West but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I am not an expert but as far as I am concerned the West has come to an artistic dead-end, where even the most idiotic paintings are called brilliant. Calling everything brilliant is the same as saying that nothing is. If you paint a red circle, on a black background and call it something like “The portrait of the artist's soul” it could be sold for millions of dollars if you could first get the artist to kill himself although, for most people, it looks like a traffic light. Or if you have a clever artist who can talk great things bordering on philosophy and psychology then that will sell for millions too. I am a great fan of surrealism and have great enthusiasm for this kind of thing but sometimes it makes me wonder what it is all about. If you put a small chair in an enormous room and call it minimalism for example it seems to be a very clever thing to do. If doing next to nothing seems to be the point why bother doing anything at all. But this problem is not found among artists in Colombo for they are busy drawing colorful complex paintings.

I am not trying to be professional, but for many years I have wondered what the answer was to the following question: WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST. (In an artistic sense, rather than a financial sense). I guess the simple answer is: If art makes the artist happy then he/she is a successful artist. But why I wondered were so many artists so unhappy? The answer is that art is such a thing that it makes most people prisoners of style and prisoners of their own success. In the music world, it is like being condemned to sing the same few songs again and again, because those songs were the ones that made someone famous. It took many years for me to realize this, but one day I realized that I was a prisoner of my own unfortunate painting and drawing style. But I want to change that and draw in different styles, mediums, and subjects each time I draw or paint. I think many artists are prisoners of their own technique and success, for almost all their paintings look alike.

But “WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST” in the financial sense. Artists, as everyone knows, have highs and lows (not substance-induced, but natural ups and downs of the creative process). When in a high an artist is capable of doing great work that could be sold, but when the artist hits a low which is almost all the time their paintings are uninspiring and can’t be sold. The aim of the artist if he/she wants financial success is to improve his technique to such an extent that he is able to paint great, inspiring paintings even when he hits a low and the only way the artist can achieve this is through constant practice.

After wandering through Galle face and kolpity, at last I came to Bambalapitiya where I visited the Majestic City, and decided to meet a godforsaken relative of mine. Godforsaken because although he is one of the cleverest people I have ever met, he said some of the biggest bullshit I have ever heard. His domed-shaped head seemed to hide a brain of exceptional ability. It seemed like there was nothing he didn’t know and understand fully. I suspect he knew a great deal about human nature. He believed that a large number of people in the modern world had depression and it was his duty to advise them and treat them if possible. At that time I had a lot of problems in life and was really feeling down.

Perhaps sensing this he said a strange thing. He said that a cure for unhappiness could only be found if we know the definition of “Happiness”. Happiness, he said is really a “sense of improvement” which many sad people seemed to lack. But by adopting a “philosophy of improvement” that is by making “small conscious improvements every little while” they could find true happiness.

He said “When you walk into a room, by the time you walk out, make sure either you improve or someone in the room improves with your knowledge, or something in the room improves, when you walk into a garden make sure you plant a tree, or at least water the plants. I thought this theory sounded like a joke, but in some way, it also fascinated me.

So when I returned home, decided to try out his weird theory more as a joke than anything else. I made small ridiculous improvements every little while and found a strange kind of happiness, a kind of job satisfaction that seemed to increase every time I did something. And things started improving around me, things in my room seemed neat and tidy, I had a small but flourishing vegetable garden, I had made new friends, and new opportunities came to me more than ever before, it was unbelievable really. I really wonder whether this method could be used by people who are having a bad turn in life for it certainly helped me.