Fernando Caceres Jara

PHYLOSOPHICAL LANDSCAPE

The Powerful God, Urizen in Blake’s picture “the Ancient of Days” is inscribing the inexistent sphere (Ulro) with a compass radiating from his fingers. The circle likewise confines and scatters imagination; the world is shaped, a “frozen heaven, embodying the creators geometric vision. Yet the painter takes the perspective of the mind that creates the circle and confines mundane life into a horizon. Geometry and Philosophy are the competing and complementary poles in the humanist exploration.
 
The hand of the mathematician is emulating the arm of Urizen, by replicating mind’s eternal relations into nature’s forms. The exact methods of geometry were used to explain the world and shape it. Even the human body and the fate of humanity were given an explanation through mathematical rules. The foundation of this theorem was the circle, and from the circle the square, and from the square the rectangle was constructed. These mathematical rules created infinite possibilities and inspired manmade wonders like the Stonehenge, the Hypogeum, the temple of the Sun and the Moon. In the hands of humankind geometry became an instrument to modify natural landscapes according to a mathematical plan.
 
Taking the perspective of the creator of design, man who uses and confounds geometry, “philosophical landscapes” dares a further step of exploring into man’s sphere of life. Language, human relations, structures of meaning and values are at work in competing discourses. Out of this field of tensions new landscapes are projected, which are monumental, hierarchical or multi-perspectival and fragmented.