Painting and contemplation

Meditation room
Oil on canvas by Juan Bielsa.
Painting for sale.

It is a truism. Each one of us has a UNIQUE personality, we are precious specimens. Each one of us is an original, and so we have different worlds to create, we em body different potentialities ready to be expressed on the canvas of life.

One of my best friends, for example, has a real passion for travels. When he is not working, he is continually asking himself: Well, where can I go now? He has traveled to France, to the Alps, to Germany, to Norway, to Lithuania, to Russia... He has plans to travel to the lake Baikal, in Siberia.

Instead... my pleasure is in contemplation. I travel a lot, too, but in spirit... My passion is contemplation. My passion is silence, a precious book, a lovely landscape, a good friend, an empty canvas. I lose myself in the pages of a book, I travel upon silent maps, upon the beautiful eyes of a cat, I meditate watching the poetry of sunsets, feeling the wind on my face.

It must be wonderful to travel to Norway (“the Mecca of beauty”, my friend said). It would be splendid to watch the fiords from a mountain... But, instead, I take a book by Knut Hamsun, for example, and I can really feel the fresh soul of Norway, and I can travel in this way, poetically, even to Laponia, to Iceland, to Greenland, to a paradise of fantasy and mystery.

The same is with my paintings. I paint them in meditation. When they are finished, I place them in my studio, or in my bedroom, and then I travel through them to universes that I like: Silence, Soul, Innocence.

I have a dream for my life, a gread dream: to build my house of eternity, a great room for meditation, a gigantic room for contemplation, where one can meditate upon the beauty of Love, where one can read the great book of Love.

Juan Bielsa

My e-mail addresses :
pintura@juanbielsa.com
jnbielsa@yahoo.es

 

Franz Marc, painter of purity

Cat painted by Franz Marc
Franz Marc was a member
of the impressionist German group "Blauer Reiter" (Blue Rider).

Franz Marc (1880-1916), during all this life, was a seeker of purity and truth. He did not find them in the human being. So he tried to find these qualities in animals. You can admire his magnificent paintings in which the main subjects are blue horses, dogs, cats... You already know that Hitler comdemned the blue horses of Franz Marc, considering them as degenerate art...

Marc died relatively young. At the end of his career, his thoughts about art suffered important changes, always showing a constant evolution toward abstraction. At this point the forms of animals disappear almost entirely. He searched PURITY (only in a spiritual sense, obviously). But unfortunately he did not have sufficient time to give shape to his final artistic ideas.

Each one of us has his preferences about paintings, painters. In my case... I must say: I love Franz Marc.

Juan Bielsa

 

 

Mount   PIAGORDO

Another view of mount Piagordo, which I see every day.
I just love this mountain.

Andorra ( Aragon - Spain )

 

 

Contemplative blog

Is this a blog? I don't know. I would be nice a tool to transform inner contemplations into posts. In this case, you'll have here a wonderful book, plenty of ideas to think about.

But this tool does not exist, and so you can see nothing here.

Some years ago I fell in love with sunsets, splendid sunsets in Aragon. I made mentally poems and poems, wonderful ones, about sunsets, about mountains in crimsons and purples. But this book of prayers, a masterpiece I can say, still lives in the White Mountains.

I could stare for days and days at the mound of creation, Piagordo. When the sun, Amon-Ra, kisses the soul of the mountain (a prayer), the world is created again.

I would like to be an expert in Egyptian art and religion (but I'm not). You know... the mound of creation.

I would like to be an expert in clouds and sunsets and silence, and paintings not painted.

Already two months without painting a thing... If I was not an optimist (am I?) I would say: "This is the End". But I read almost everyday some pages of positive psicology, you know...

If you love sunsets, then you are my friend. If you love Egyptian religion, if you speak some dead language, then you can understand me.

What a marvelous clouds today in Piagordo, what a silence... Another day of contemplation. If you love paintings only in imagination, the most fantastic in the world, then I'm your painter. Paintings without the sadness of the world, paintings painted in Paradise.

My beloved cat Cati used to watch sunsets every day, absolutely respectful. Like an Egyptian cat, a divinity.

Juan Bielsa

 

 

A PAUSE

I've been working hard lately, so I have not posted. Nevertheless, as soon as I can, I'll be working regularly online to make this blog an attractive place.

The most important point: I'm really excited about new projects, my new paintings and goals. I would be happy if you visit this blog now and then. After all, this is your house too.

Juan Bielsa

 

 

MAPPING SUCCESS

I think one of the most difficult things in life is to really know what we want. And to know it sufficiently well, after a profound reflection. It involves, no doubt, a lot of hard work and can take lots of hours and hours, weeks, months.

It is true that, in reality, all of us are in search of “success”, and for each person that word may signify different things. It is a real necessity then to start mapping what we want to attain, clarify our ideals, in order to make possible that “success”, which is the goal (or goals) in concrete form, an experiential stage in our way. When we know what we want and are willing to map our dreams, then all that’s necessary is energy, faith...

If, someday, that what we call reality fits perfectly with our map, that day we have attained... success. That means that we have had integrity and commitment, that we have practiced with our will, that we have been coherent with ourselves.

But to know what we want is so hard (at any age), to map our dreams is not easy, and the many hardships of life sometimes are making difficult to preserve our will and energy.

And, nevertheless, that’s the task of life, I think, to choose our most cherised way and to follow it, no matter what others may be saying or thinking.

There were people in history, for example, who knew perfectly very early in life what they wanted, and were very passionate about it, never hesitating about the way chosen. They had a clear vocation and attained success. They were the privileged ones. Now I think of Mozart.

Juan Bielsa