CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/2/2025

Wishing You the Beauty of the Mysterious

In Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, published to accompany the PST exhibition on view now at Palm Springs Museum of Art, Michael Duncan notes that “art is ultimately not science but something that can use science to create the indefinable, ineffable, and other.” He cites Albert Einstein’s 1930 essay, The World As I See It. “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was this experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity: in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.” Pictured here, a still from John and James Whitney’s 16mm film Five Film Exercise #4 (1943–45).