Beauty as Pneuma
Cinema intrigued me, I have studied it for long and have written about it extensively. I have always loved music more, but have rarely written about it. This is because I feel I cannot in many regards; what is there to say about it? I find cinema easy to speak on as it holds stories that emit much knowledge. I have discussed previously the belief I hold that life is about change; about reviving and emitting energy and knowledge. This is most fundamental I believe. In art and cinema, I have located their depictions and exploration of change, via stories. These stories present and investigate energy and knowledge as logos and pneuma. Logos is knowledge, energy is pneuma. I have discussed the use of my terminology as such elsewhere. What I’d like to delve into here is the notion of pneuma.
I utilize this term as it evokes the concept of breathing, of a pneumatic function in which air - an invisible but essential substance - energizes a system. I have not spoken much on music for I believe it to be heavily pneumatic. It has logos; it speaks knowledge. Alas, this knowledge and the language of music is mathematical is many ways. I can play the guitar a little and I am forever listening to music, but the concept that the vibration of air can emit knowledge is vague to me; I don’t have many ideas on how music works. I’ve found music difficult to study due to its complex theory of notation, melody and rhythm that I am yet to grasp; it appears rather mathematical in a way and I’ve never been great with numbers. I nonetheless love music, and perhaps remain hesitant to really study it for fear that I could fall out of love. It’s funny I suppose.
When I listen to music however, I am enthralled by its pneumatic capabilities of manifesting harmony between objects and people. Logos, knowledge in art, structures the unknown into consciousness transforming it into a lesson of sorts. Pneuma, on the other hand, guides one to experience the unknown. Jean Epstein taught me of this phenomena with his concept of lyrosophy. With ‘lyrosophy’ Epstein explains that there is a difference between knowing something and experiencing that knowledge. He indicates that the mind and body are separated and aligned with this. To return to logos and pneuma, it becomes clear with this why it is difficult to speak extensively on pneuma: it is stored in our body as affect and emotion. Evoking pneuma is to transform it into logos by some degree. That is, unless one makes an artistic and pneumatic form out of their expression of another. This technique has been called ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is but description; a visual put in words, a call to feel how one feels. This indicates that the best way to discuss pneuma is simply to describe it, making beauty out of beauty, horror from horror.
Returning to the notion that the engagement of pneuma can be outlined by the notion of lyrosophy I believe we can find a great articulation of beauty. The experience of knowledge, lyrosophy, is a powerful notion. It suggests that we can recognize, perceptually, knowledge whether we know it or not. Lyrosophy is not just the feeling of human knowledge or our own knowledge, it is not the realisation of some fact or the feeling we have solved a problem. Lyrosophy is also the wonder we feel in seeing that the world functions; that the ocean knows how to make waves, the trees know how to grow under the sun, that humanity builds cities and tames the wilderness. Pneuma is in actuality far more emphatic and functions more intensely when it is involved in the unknown, making experiences of knowledge we do not, and perhaps cannot, ascertain to be most affecting and valuable. Many can then be brought to tears in believing they witness the work and knowledge of God, or of a genius or master artists, that is perceived as impossible and unattainable. Not knowing is then precious. Beauty is ignorance energised, it is the unknown in the air and a breath of failed understanding.
