Visualization

How do you see a dot, a line, a plane? Does it cause an association to something real? If it is an emotion, there is no true shape. At Marcel Marceau's school in Paris, we were asked to find a shape for various emotions. Joy was demonstrated as an upward crystalization and sadness a concave and deflated frozeness. Some emotional shapes are harder to find than others. I do remember Marceau saying that you can not show something like "my brother-in-law" in mime. The nuances of speech are different. In mime, each movement has meaning...even the costume. Therefore, it is important to economize each move. Mime is stylized. I have always had a problem with bad acting in operal. Yet, if an opera singer uses economy of gestures it is similar to the impact of mime.

Abstract art reflects an inner world. A blurry view of a painting not finished was Kandinsky's discovery that the abstract had meaning without a recognizable shape. So...perhaps when we try to visualize as in a Buddhist meditation, which I've practiced...the ability to stay calm and keep an image steady, may also be an abstract and not necessarily a painting of a being.