Thomas Wilfred's Lumia

Thomas Wilfred is truly a fascinating mind from modern art history. He developed what he called Lumia, a formal artform where light stands on its own as an expressive medium. To render his compositions of light he developed these complex mechanisms that he called The Clavilux, (a color organ if you will). There are only about 30 Clavilux Jr and Lumia compositions still in existence. In his writings, Wilfred made known his objections to recording Lumia works on film. Thus rendering the survival of his works reliant on the existence of his machines. In this quote he talks of working with motion in his art has a time dimension:

"Light is the artist's sole medium of expression. He must mold it by optical means, almost as a sculptor models clay. He must add colour, and finally motion to his creation. Motion, the time dimension, demands that he must be a choreographer in space."

-Thomas Wilfred (1889 -1968)

These ideas really gets me thinking about the physics of art, two things that I think are more closely related than some people might think. Click here to find out more about this fascinating artist: Thomas Wilfred.

Universal Rhythmic Flow

Thomas Wilfred started experimenting with the concept of light has art in 1905, so when I read this quote; I was amazed that it came from so early in the 20th century, -

"Shall we . . . use the new art as a vehicle for a new message (and) express the human longing which light has always symbolized, a longing for a greater reality, a cosmic consciousness, a balance between the human entity and the great common denominator, the universal rhythmic flow?"

(-Thomas Wilfred, quoted in Art & Physics by Leonard Shlain, p. 263)

The universal rhythmic flow is part of what I try to express with my painting, and in my mind this ties in with the concept of transcendentalism expressed through art. Dictionary.com defines transcendentalism has:

2. Also called transcendental philosophy. any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical.

To me, this is the concept that the artists' work is the process for revealing and understanding the true nature of reality, not disregarding science, but adding to it. Some of the roots for these ideas can also be found in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Thoreau, and William Blake to name but a few.