A couple of quotes by or about the French artist Cézanne:
His entire will must be silent. He must silence all prejudice within himself. He must forget, forget, be quiet, be a perfect echo. Then the full landscape will inscribe itself on his photographic plate.
He would start by discovering the geological foundations of the landscape; then, according to Madame Cézanne, he would halt and look at everything with widened eyes…’ The landscape thinks itself in me’, he would say, ‘and I am its consciousness.’
There is something there about being fully present (obedient) to the moment and how (digital?) noise and activity clouds the silence. This feels very close to what Simone Weil describes as our becoming like a transparent window pane and is a helpful way of thinking about it.
