The Euclidean Plane

In 1965 when I was four years old a geometric drawing toy arrived on the scene. I was hooked as soon as I laid eyes on 'Spirograph'. Moving simple plastic cogs and a pen on paper would result in wonderfully complex forms. It was an invitation to witness the unraveling before my very eyes and with the motion of my body of something extraordinary.

Εὐκλείδης (Euclid) was a renown Alexandrian Greek mathematician who lived over two thousand three hundred years ago. He is attributed as the author of 'Elements' which introduced many significant concepts about geometry, number theory, and algebra.

The Euclidean Plane is an idea. It does not exist as an experienced place. It is an area of width and length, but with no height at all, none. When I look at the artwork 'The Euclidean Plane', I am seeing light and the absence of light as an almost flat square surface. The photons that distinguish the visibly light and dark areas have height - these waves of light are around 400 to 700 nanometres, a nanometre being equal to one billionth of a metre: 0.000000001 m.

And yet, as I look at the artwork I think of it as both flat and as conveying the illusion of depth at one and the same time. I am drawn to the work as it is both pleasurable and curious. I ponder on the nature of a flat two dimensional plane. I gaze at the flowing arcs in search of pattern and form. I am in awe as the beauty of ideas and experience flood my mind.

At the heart of every snowflake is a nucleus of dust. This tiny particle could originate from any number of places: the smoke from a forest fire; the minute specks of volcano ash that are pushed into the high atmosphere; the fine debris that falls from a meteor as it streaks across the sky; the microscopic particles picked up by the wind from plant spores and the cells of feather and skin that living things shed each day.

I ponder on the journey of a particle of dust. The dust from one living thing to another.

From someone standing on a hill looking skyward, from distant sand, and then for days across an ocean far below, until on high, ice crystals enfold and change the particle of dust to form a single snowflake that lightly tumbles to the earth and, after time, comes to fall upon my palm. I sense its cold but cannot feel its weight. like the image that accompanies the poem, it is as light as light itsesf, waiting to be known by the warmth of my attention. I easily ignore a solitary snowflake, yet its journey can be as great as any I have made.

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A Solitary Snowflake Falls

A speck of dust from soil or sand,

From powder down or loose brushed skin,

Encased within its centre lays,

A prick from past of living thing.

As snowflake falls,

The grain returns in shallow husk of crystal white,

Come gently lay upon this earth,

In wait and warmth in day or night.

ORIGINATOR · Mike de Sousa

ART FORM · Abstract Art

COMPLETED · 2016

Free to enjoy. Copyright maintained. Not to be used for ai or commercial gain.

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