A man is an animal with a sun inside him. That there is such an anima in the animal is clear from evidence, early and late. The cave paintings stand witness to its creative force. Plotinus recognized as the birthright of all an inner ‘sunlike’ eye; Sir Thomas Browne said that ‘we live by an invisible sun within us;’ and Picasso has claimed that he has a sun in his belly.

Artists strikingly testify to this signet of humanity because as ‘makers’ they leave in the world enduring traces of its radiant power. Man is a creative creature. (I use the term, to ‘create’, as it is commonly applied to the arts.) As artist he is privileged to bring new things into existence, endowing substance with singular and personal form. ‘Seen’ into existence by one man, they may be seen thereafter by all.

This anonymous gift of sun, outside the strictly animal order and indicating an extra dimension, generates questions. Where did it come from? Why is it there?

Speculation, unless of the philosophical variety that provides in itself the pleasure and the end, is not fashionable. The present moment, transient and isolate, provides sufficient stuff to engage all our attention. The artist concentrates on the empirical problem of seeing that the fabulous goose in his possession continues to lay the golden eggs. Though he may suffer ‘the disinclination of the sophisticated mind’ (de Lubac) to consider the source of his gift, the question is not extraneous. It is a question of life and death, like ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What am I doing here?’ By pressure of necessity it asks itself at unexpected moments. It has the vitality of a hydra; cut off one head and it confronts you with another.