Tree of Light
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating teachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons, not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness but like great, solitary men like Beethoven and Mozart. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity, but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing and one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.
When a tree is cut down and its naked death-wound is revealed to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And I know that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest trees grow.
Size: 150x120x2cm
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Year: 2022
