Philosophers of the talkless world

…and over the black forests lies a touch of white snow

Written by KAI on 16 February 2023

Every child draws. When you put a pencil in his hand and spread paper in front of him.

Every child draws with dedication. Every child draws with perseverance, with movement, with strength. If you let it. If you don’t disturb it. If you give it the time. It discovers itself playfully.

Drawing is movement. Every child experiences itself as being in motion when drawing. As alive, as effective, as wondering, as exploring and investigating. The child leaves a trace that remains and becomes aware of it.

Drawing is development. Drawing is language. Drawing is a language beyond words. Drawing is a way of feeling the world, of exploring and understanding it. Drawing is a language that can be understood and spoken by all those who engage with the stillness and movement of drawing and drawings. By all those who are present: With dedication, with time, with an open mind and a clear spirit.

Drawing is sensuality. The act of drawing is a sensual, peaceful, uplifting and self-appreciating way of seeing, perceiving, respecting and enjoying one’s inner and outer self without meaning.

Drawing is movement. The movement of breathing. While drawing, I come into harmony with my breath, I observe the breath and become calm at the same time. I see myself alive and marvel at it. Where there was restlessness, deep calm spreads. Painful thoughts about the past, fearful thoughts about the future leave my mind, my body. The living, inspiring reality at rest in itself is the here and now.

Drawing is inner and outer peace. Drawing with the brush and with ink is pausing, observing, letting flow, is meditation and dialogue at the same time. The breath and the brush guide me, the independent movement of breathing and the independent movement of the day surrounding me begin to fertilise each other in interplay.

The paper is my counterpart, the brush is a being, has a character. The coal-black deep ink and the flower-white light of the paper meet, dance around each other like day and night.

Shadow and light play with each other, condition each other. As a draughtsman, I am present, enjoying the dance, acting as a medium, experiencing how the force surrounding me flows through the brush, which becomes a being that guides me, that dances with me. I step out of the confines of my body and begin to comprehend, explore and enjoy the vast space outside of human perception.

Drawing is a language, nuanced and rich, quiet and gentle and at rest in itself. Calmer and gentler than words. Drawing lives through its creator. Drawings live through their viewer. If I as a drawer become a viewer who can enjoy, then drawing is a celebration, drawing is a dance, drawing is meditation.

The light of the day makes the drawing visible. The depth of the ink, the idea of the night, the infinity of the black makes the drawing tangible. The nocturnal uncontrollable dream enables me to deepen my understanding of the essence of the day, of my constructions of reality. The outside and the inside, the interior and the exterior are in dialogue, in a reciprocal dance, yin and yang, male and female, stillness and movement, action and reaction, inhalation and exhalation, black and white. One does not exist without the other. The outside enters the inside of the brain via the retina, the inside gradually begins to form an image of the world. Step by step we feel the world, step by step we comprehend the world around us with our senses, we mirror inside what surrounds us outside.

If I take my time as a viewer, if I meditate on a drawing, I enter into a dialogue with my inner self, I begin a journey into the self. When I have overcome the limits of my brain and my adulthood, which shows itself in wanting to understand and interpret and evaluate everything, then true encounter is possible, true encounter with myself, true encounter with the other, with the world surrounding me, which I create anew every day.

Like nature, like the whisper of the forest, like the rustling of the treetops in the wind, like the eternally crashing waves of the sea, the thoughts that come and go while drawing, while walking, while thinking, are a perpetual movement of calm and light.

Drawing and contemplating what is drawn is a pause, is a dialogue with myself, is a peaceful and tranquil journey inside, a journey through the inside to the outside.

Drawing liberates, drawing centres, drawing clarifies, drawing brings peace, drawing can make you happy.

Time with ink and brush and paper is my form of contemplative meditation.

This gives my black and white drawings and ink paintings depth, a quality that is at rest in itself. They move between light and shadow, between day and night, allow space for one’s own thoughts, for dreaming and for reflection.

Drawers are philosophers of the talkless world, shifters between worlds, moving in the world beyond language. Drawers are observers of the inner world, day dreamers and night wanderers at the same time.

Drawers move effortlessly between inside and outside, connect top and bottom, dance with light and shadow, let themselves be embraced by day and night in equal measure, and let themselves be seduced again and again by the softness of the paper and the brush. Every dance is new, every brushstroke a surprise, every breath home.

Drawers trust the peace and quiet of the paper and the knowledge that with a single brushstroke, with a single movement, everything can change.

Kai Jerzö, Utrecht, 16 February 2023

Quote? Yes, with pleasure as follows:
– Jerzö, Kai (2023) ‘Philosophers of the talkless world: …and over the black forests lies a touch of white snow’. In: Illustration.world-Blog, 2023-02-16. URL: https://illustration.world/kai_2023-02-16_drawing_en/ .