BLUE

Matisse - Blue Nude







Jutranje branje ob kavici:

»However high a man may stand he is still a being with senses. What absolutely disposes of the opposite view is this: all love, as such - without going into aesthetic principles of love - is antagonistic to those elements (of the relationship) which press towards sexual union; in fact, such elements tend to negate love. Love and desire are two unlike, mutually exclusive, opposing conditions, and during the time a man really loves, the thought of physical union with the object of his love is insupportable. Because there is no hope which is entirely free from fear does not alter the fact that hope and fear are utterly opposite principles. It is just the same in the case of sexual impulse and love. The more erotic a man is the less he will be troubled with his sexuality, and vice versa.

Sexual attraction increases with physical proximity; love is strongest in the absence of the loved one; it needs separation, a certain distance, to preserve it. In fact, what all the travels in the world could not achieve, what time could not accomplish, may be brought about by accidental, unintentional, physical contact with the beloved object, in which the sexual impulse is awakened, and which suffices to kill love on the spot. Then, again, in the case of more highly differentiated, great men, the type of girl desired, and the type of girl loved but never desired, are always totally different in face, form, and disposition; they are two different beings.

Just as hatefulness comes from hating, so love creates beauty. This is only another way of expressing the fact that beauty has as little to do with the sexual impulse as the sexual impulse has to do with love. Beauty is something that can neither be felt, touched, nor mixed with other things; it is only at a distance that it can be plainly discerned, and when it is approached it withdraws itself. The sexual impulse which seeks for sexual union with woman is a denial of such beauty; the woman who has been possessed and enjoyed, will never again be worshipped for her beauty.
Since all beauty is always only the constantly renewed endeavour to embody the highest form of value, there is a pre-eminently satisfying element in it, in the face of which all desire, all self-seeking fade away.«

~ Sex and Character, Otto Weininger
...