There must be a kind of painting totally free of the dependence on the figure-or object-which, like music, illustrates nothing, tells no story, and launches no myth. Such painting would simply evoke the incommunicable kingdoms of the spirit, where dream becomes thought, where line becomes existence.
- Michel Seuphor
Today I finished the canvas I told you about: curves that intersect in fine black lines, and you, with your habit of wanting to know why-I'm not interested in that, the cause is past matter-will ask me why the fine black lines? because of the same secret that now makes me write as if to you, writing something round and rolled up and warm, but sometimes cold as the fresh instants, the water of an ever-trembling stream. Can what I painted on this canvas be put into words? Just as the silent word can be suggested by a musical sound.
I see that I've never told you how I listen to music-I gently rest my hand on the record player and my hand vibrates, sending waves through my whole body: and so I listen to the electricity of the vibrations, the last substratum of reality's realm, and the world trembles inside my hands.
AGUA VIVA
Clarice Lispector
Translated from the Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
Introduction by Benjamin Moser
Edited by Benjamin Moser