CHAOS
Chaos is wind. In Greek mythology, chaos was the origin of all things. Chaos was the primordial void. Arguably, chaos is the primordial void. Χάος spells the word in Greek. In the 17th century, a Dutch chemist, Jan Baptist von Helmont, equated chaos with gas. He based his decision on work done by Swiss alchemist and mystic, Paracelsus. The 'g' in 'gas' comes from the Dutch pronunciation of that letter, a spirant, also used to pronounce the Greek 'X'.
Chaos is wind. In Greek mythology, chaos was the origin of all things. Chaos was the primordial void. Arguably, chaos is the primordial void. Χάος spells the word in Greek. In the 17th century, a Dutch chemist, Jan Baptist von Helmont, equated chaos with gas. He based his decision on work done by Swiss alchemist and mystic, Paracelsus. The 'g' in 'gas' comes from the Dutch pronunciation of that letter, a spirant, also used to pronounce the Greek 'X'.
Chaos
is gas: A state of matter that has neither independent shape nor
volume but tends to expand indefinitely. Now, of course, we have
turned this substance to good use. Gas heats and cooks and powers the
automobile. It powers the intestines, large and small. Indeed,
wordsmiths might be well personified by Wind. Order and chaos go
together like a kiss and a smile.
Ordo
ab chao: Out
of chaos, comes order. This Latin phrase is one of the oldest mottos
of Craft Freemasonry. Take a good mason and make him better was the
goal of this ancient fraternal organization.
In
the arts, aesthetics provide a set of principles whose goal, in a
broad sense, is to find order in the void and represent what was
found. In a narrow sense, this becomes the exploration of beauty; but
the topic continues to expand. A four volume encyclopedia dealing
with all the varied aspects of aesthetics awaits your inspection. To
say that the aesthetic is the antonym to chaos does not overstate the
case.
Violinist
Yehudi Menuhin wrote:
Music
creates order out of chaos: for rhythm produces unanimity upon the
divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony
imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.1
And
Rembrandt. Painting his coarse representations of a chaotic world.
Dogs emptying their bowels in the foreground, working men plying
their trades, warts and limps and squints and whathaveyou. He was
rejected by his peers, by the pillars of the community. He worked in
poverty without commissions. And never abandoned his belief in his
art. This self-portrait2:
unfinished,
unsigned, but as contentious as a rabid dog has elicited nothing but
controversy from art critics, blowing hard. To me, the message is
clear: the perfect circles in the back ground say, Yes, Aristotelian
ideals are all well and good (beyond 'order', some 'perfection');
but, look at me, this is the reality (Chaos ordered). Sure, I could
paint like you fellows if I chose to; but I don't. Deal with it.
And
no more harmonious arrays exist than those of Rembrandt.
The
motif of this struggle against chaos (chaoskampf
in German) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, and equally so in modern
literature, music, painting, and other arts. We live in the
maelstrom., the whirling void. And from that void, we create our own
world, colorful or drab or gray or gay or bleak. Day by day. Moment
by moment. Harnessing the wind.
1
Jamesh A. Leit, George Whalley: Symboles Dans
la Vie Et Dans L'art,
McGill-Queen's
Press - MQUP, 1987, p. 29
2
From 1665-1669, oil on canvas, 45" x 37"; Kernwood House,
London.
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