- It was a common theme of the ‘nature sermons’ that had made Laurillard one of the most sought-after preachers in Holland. Using simple, vivid images, he portrayed a Christ not only in nature, but also intimate with the processes of nature . . . and inseparable from the beauty of nature. . . . Finding beauty in nature was not just one way of knowing God, they proposed; it was the only way. And those who could see that beauty and express it – writers, musicians, artists – were God’s truest intermediaries. For Vincent, this was an electrifying new ideal of art and artists. Before, art had always served religion . . . . But Laurillard preached a ‘religion of beauty’ in which God was nature. [Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2011), pp. 171-172.] This new understanding changed everything for the young van Gogh. “Dat is het” (“That is it”), he said. He had struggled to adhere to his father’s stern understanding of religion; now it need no longer control him. The artist had freed himself, a bit.
Are there any revealed Truths for Humanists, scientific naturalists and non-theists? Most certainly, yes, not in the sense of a truth handed down from an external source such as a god or an ancient writing, but in the sense of a Truth revealed from within. Unless the person is suppressing or denying something, she is the best judge of what she is thinking, feeling and experiencing. For each of us, the inner life experience is the Truth revealed from within. We know this, and yet after all these centuries of human history, it still seems to come as a revelation to many.
Real
True Narratives
- Saidiya Hart, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019): “This kind of beautiful, immersive narration exists for its own sake but it also counteracts the most common depictions of black urban life from this time — the frozen, coerced images, Hartman calls them, most commonly of mothers and children in cramped kitchens and bedrooms.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Poems:
- Robert Frost, “For Once, Then, Something” (analysis)
- Edgar Lee Masters, “John Ballard”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Heitor Villa-Lobos dedicated most of his seventeen string quartets to musicians, or to his longtime companion Mindinha. Consistent with this, these works do not present grand themes but mainly reflect and express the composer’s inner life. This statement from his 12th String Quartet best summarizes their essence: “Richness through the heart always. . . The experience of the man himself, then onto paper.”
- String Quartet 1, W. 099 (1915, rev. 1946) (approx 21’) is a series of brief mood pictures.
- String Quartet 2, W. 100, Op. 56 (1915) (approx 21’)
- String Quartet 3, W. 112 (1917) (approx 27’)
- String Quartet 4, W. 129 (1917) (approx 26’)
- String Quartet 5, “Quarteto Popular” No. 1, W. 263 (1931) (approx 18’)
- String Quartet 6, “Quarteto Brasileiro”, W. 399 (1938) (approx 25’)
- String Quartet 7, W. 435 (1942) (approx 35’)
- String Quartet 8, W. 446 (1944) (approx 26’)
- String Quartet 9, W. 468 (1945) (approx 28’)
- String Quartet 10, W. 468 (1946) (approx 24-25’)
- String Quartet 11, W. 481 (1947) (approx 26[-28’)
- String Quartet 12, W. 496 (1950) (approx 22’): Villa-Lobos composed this quartet while he was hospitalized.
- String Quartet 13, W. 503 (1951) (approx 20-21’)
- String Quartet 14, W. 519 (1953) (approx 18’)
- String Quartet 15, W. 523 (1954) (approx 16’)
- String Quartet 16, W. 526 (1955) (approx 20-21’)
- String Quartet 17, W. 537 (1957) (approx 20’)
Other works:
- Pierre Boulez, Pli Selon Pli for soprano and orchestra (1957–58, as Improvisations sur Mallarmé 1–2; completed 1959–62; revised 1983; revised 1989) (approx. 67-68’): usually, we think of revelation as a sudden occurrence but according to the composer, and the work’s title, this revelation is “fold by fold.”
- Gloria Coates, Symphony No. 7, “Angels” (1990) (approx. 15’) expresses the uncertainty that is the opposite, or dark side, or revelation.
Albums:
- Brad Mehldau, “Suite: April 2020” (40’), is a musical exposition on our inner lives as the COVID-19 pandemic started.
- Josefine Cronholm, Kirk Knuffke & Thommy Andersson, “Near the Pond” (2021) (38’): a laid-back slice of life
- Linda Sikhakhane, “Isambulo” (2022) (39’): the album title means “revelation” in Zulu.
- Ernie Watts Quartet, “A Simple Truth” (2014) (55’) explores the road we’re on, beginning with the sound in the morning and ending with the sound in the evening.
- Harris Eisenstadt, “The Soul and Gone” (2004) (70’): “There is a constant shift of emphasis and shade, subtlety and emphasis, momentum balanced with reflection. . . The road to discovery is a constant adventure . . .”
- Roger Eno, “Voices” (1984) (39’): “Using piano and broad washes of synths, some treated by older brother Brian Eno, the younger Eno's pieces are slow, contemplative works of minimalism, similar to Erik Satie's 'Gymnopedies.'”
- William Goldstein, “Innocence: Musical Portraits of the Inner Child” (2019) (51’)
- Sebastian Rochford & Kit Downes, “A Short Diary” (2023) (37’): look at the track titles. “. . . sorrow is replaced with consolation, and, in responding to death, the duo also creates a parable of grief.”
- Trevor Beales, “Fireside Stories” (1971-1974) (35’): “A teenager records a cluster of songs, bent over his guitar in the attic of his parents’ home. The teenager lives in Hebden Bridge, a small town just west of Leeds caught in a moment of transition. It’s not yet become associated with the queer community and the hippies; it is, however, in the throes of industrial decline following the closure of Acre Mill, the local asbestos processing factory.”
- Daniel Bachman, “When the Roses Come Again” (2023) (43’): “There are no real songs to speak of—just scenes, which flow together as seamlessly as fields glimpsed from the window of a moving train. The album is clearly meant to be experienced as a single piece of music, and the pacing is immaculate. Introductory passages of pentatonic riffs and electronic pedal tones give way to gravelly mouth bowing and cascading sheets of feedback; noisy peaks ease off into spidery banjo and guitar.”
- Ying-Hsueh Chen, “Dark Radiance” (2023) (62’): “Percussionist Ying-Hsueh Chen is rubbing, twisting, scratching and banging her instruments. And through the unconventional attacks on her cymbals and drums, an eerie world of overtones emerges, mingling with outlandish sounds and undefined rhythms.”
- Melissa Adana, “Echoes Of The Inner Prophet” (2024) (43’): “. . . reflects her ‘personal journey, with an especially introspective point of view. The inner prophet is my own self, now older, who has the knowledge and the intuition and the truth about what my path should be.’”
- Davide Ambrogio, “Evocazioni e Invocazioni” (2021) (37’): “Evocazioni e Invocazioni is a tale that goes back to the root of sound: to connect the sound to the body that generates it, to the ritual that evokes and invokes it, so that it may become present.”
- Piers Faccini & Ballaké Sissoko, “Our Calling” (2025) (44’): “It’s a gentle, captivating work, its poetic songs soaked in nature imagery and beautifully married to Sissoko’s intricate, dazzling playing. Also present here and there is cellist Vincent Ségal, with further guests on the lute-like ngoni and guembri weaving subtly through the backing.”
- Amir ElSaffar & Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch, “Inner Spaces” (2025) (37’)
- Salif Keita, “So Kono” (2025) (42’): “. . . by far the most prominent elements here are Keita’s voice and acoustic guitar. They come together in starlit combinations. Keita is at his gentlest, his warmest, his least occluded.”