Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:32:49 +1200 (NZST) From: michael.goddard-AT-stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Michael Goddard) Subject: prehistory of the crystal Awhile back there was some discussion of the origins of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the crystal, which seemed to locake it as emerging as early as Difference and Repetition. In my research I have found that this concept has a fascinating pre-history, which whether it was of significance to d&g or not is highly resonant with their work. 1) Worringer's 'Abstraction and Empathy (1908)', in which the term 'expressionism was coined develops a conception of art that would contrast an empathic organic pole with an abstract crystalline one: 'In consequence of the most profound inner connection of all living things, this geometrical form [of archaic art] is also the morphological law of crystalline-inorganic matter...the morphological law of inorganic matter still echoes like a dim memory in our human organism...we may conjecture that the creation of geometric abstraction was a pure self-creation out of the preconditions of the human organism' 2) Even more surprising and resonant is Stendhal's book 'de l'amour' a delerious yet rigorous philosophical exploration of all aspects of love, which is understood in terms of crystallisation: 5. The first crystallisation begins. If you are sure that a woman loves you , it is apleasure to endow her with a thousand perfections and to count your blessings with infinite satisfaction. In the end you overrate wildly and regard her as something fallen from heaven...leave a lover with his thoughts for twenty four hours, and this is what will happen: At the salt mines of Strasbourg, they throw a leafless wintry bough into one of the thousands of salt workings. Two or three months later they haul it out covered with a shining deposit of crystals. What I have called crystallisation is a mental process which draws fron everything that happens new proofs of the perfection of the loved one...'. It goes on developing the theory of crystallisation in numerous situations and in true Deleuzian fashion acros varisou geographical styles. If any-one is interested in these or other examples, I'd be interested to hear about it. michael
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