“Codex-all we see is“ now ””

Thanks to the photografy born in the middle of the 19th century, we are now able to recognize the moment “now”.

On the other hand, we can no longer remove the colored glasses as photography.

Our memories are remembered like flashbacks of photo, and the scenery in front of us looks as if we were peeking into the photo finder.

Before the photografy was born, it was impossible to capture the moment “now” and show it to others for sharing.

In the past, western painting was challengrd to visualize the dramas of myths and stories, and for that purpose artificial and permanent compositions were studied.

From the beginning, they didn't care of eventual and momentary element of “now”.

The only “Las Meninas” by Velázquez seems to be exceptionally depicted as a snapshot of Princess Margarita and the people surrounding.

However, this painting was an amulet that entrusted the eternal prosperity of the disappearing Habsburgs to its only successor Margarita.

Velázquez, ordered by Felipe IV for the secret command, painted this picture with all his might.

In order to be an amulet it should'nt have to be revealed.

To that end, I think Velázquez had to create a scene in which “nothing happened” and that would have resulted in a snap-like picture.

The ingenuity of Velázquez, which can be said a perfect crime, is surprising.

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“Las Meninas” was completed in 1656, and exactly 200 years later, in 1856, “Hokusai” was discovered in Paris.

This eastern strange woodcut print shocked the painters at the time.

And "Japonism" was born.

In the painting world, the “photograph” born shortly before forced the portrait painter out of business and jeopardized the existence of the painting itself.

But the photography gave birth to “impressionism”.

In other words, the painter realized that, in addition to the genres of myths and stories, “now” prodused in the everyday life could be cut out as a picture and snapped into a picture. So they started drawing tavern couples, boaters, dancers, and so on.

The Japanese ukiyo-e print that triggered this new attempt had an impact on the Impressionists not the way of painting, but the way of looking at the snapshot-like world.

The composition of the people who ran out on the bridge with umbrellas in the sudden rain had never been in Western painting.

So how could the Ukiyo-e artists in the Far East who did not know the existence of "photograph" had a photographic view, and become aware of the moment “now”?

In Japan traditionally many paintings were painted in scroll-style .

This is a system where the story develops as the scroll is expanded.

In other words, the time is flowing linearly, and the time course of the screen that we are watching can be clearly confirmed.

In contrast, in Western painting, all events are developed on one screen.

For example, many “Christs” appear on one screen.

The passage of time is not linear.

It is confusing if you do not know the content of the story in advance.

Where does this difference come from?

I think that it's the difference between pantheism and monotheism.

In Japan, there is a general belief in the so-called pantheistic idea that Gods exists everywhere. According to pantheism, everything in this world is God, which ultimately can be said atheism. If the universe itself, including us, is God, it is not necessary to recognize the existence of God. And there, people can see all the events evenly without hierarchy. As a result, the consciousness of the moment “now” could be born.

The monotheistic god is outside the universe.

From the god's point of view, this universe has no beginning and no end, just everything exists. We cannot recognize the space as a four-dimensional expanse.

But for God, the past, the present and the future of the universe are already there.

God does not need to cut the moment of “now”.

Naturally, that idea was also reflected in the spatial concept of the painting, and it was the result of packing all the events on one screen.

Anyway, it is significant that “now”, which no era visible until then, was discovered at the end of the 19th century. Does it mean that God's view has weakened?

We cannot see everything in this universe but only see “now”.

In 1900 Nietzsche died leaving the phrase “God died”