Sun

Louis Kahn once said something like, the Sun does not know how beautiful it is until it strikes the surface of a material, or some such thing. It's a round-about way of saying how lifeless things are without sunlight. But the thing is; you don't celebrate the sun with words. You have to be there, first to experience its absence, and then savour the moment, sometimes only a fleeting one, when the sunlight happens to strike what you were looking at with pure precision. Like a veneer of moss on rough-hewn stones. The textures are crisply outlined, and shapes acquire a depth and colours a vividness that you didn't know was possible a moment before.

The first time I visited the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto in 1995, it was a dull, cloudy day. I couldn't see its appeal. But this time round, it glowed. It was about 10.30am, and the winter sun graced its southern facade. Its reflection in the water was equally arresting. It was an edifice whose whole existence was geared towards such moments, when it commanded all attention, when it paid its homage to the sun. We can take a photo of it, as a substitute to describing it, but the photo is itself a poor substitute to being there, registering the entire sensorial enviroment. We remind ourselves that the Golden Pavilion and the garden before it is largely an artificial creation, conceived by some master builder and gardener. Man has perfected and completed the brilliance of the sun.

At other moments, we chance upon Nature in its natural state. Fallen leaves of a sakura tree. The wilting maple leaves. The jagged ridges of a mountain range. Like underwater fishes whose actual colours are restored under the glare of the touchlight, the splendours of Nature are corrected as they reflect the sun's rays. Is it any wonder then that in wintry lands, they envy Singapore for the abundance of its sunlight? And when the late Englishman David Lean, more accustomed to umbrellas than sun-glasses, went to Jordan, he was so seduced by the light that he made the cast and crew of his movie WAIT for the right sunlight to shoot his scenes. Till today, his "Lawrence of Arabia" is an unsurpassed tribute to the sun. But everyplace has its own light. In Singapore, the hues are slightly less vibrant, because the light is ever so slightly diluted by the high water moisture content of the atmosphere. Still, I do not take it for granted. Its light is the reason for the soul's smile.

This post is for Venny, who, I understand from Lin, is wondering whether she should get an SLR. Why, isn't it obvious? It's a chance to hold the sun's glory in your hands. It is a tool to draw with light. Grasp it.

Chup