Saatchi on redemption and infinity

Famous art collector Charles Saatchi has an interesting and compelling, though semi-Pelagian, idea of how redemption is achieved. And what infinity might mean, relating to Rothko.

I believe God must be very disappointed in his handiwork. Mankind has clearly failed to evolve much in all these years; we're still as cretinous and barbaric as we were many centuries ago, and poor God must spend all day shaking his head at our vileness and general ineptitude. Or perhaps, we might just give him a good laugh. But of course, I hope God likes our art enough to forgive us our sins, particularly mine.

...

My understanding of infinity goes something like this: every 100 years a sparrow flies to the top of a large mountain, and cleans its beak by scraping it on the highest rock. By the time the mountain has been scraped away to a small pile of dust, that would be the equivalent of the first second of infinity. I thought of that the last time I stood in front of a Rothko and neither felt an overwhelming sense of infinity, nor had a mystical experience of any kind. Maybe I've just seen too many Rothkos and they don't pulsate with ethereal splendour for me anymore. Or perhaps I never quite got the wonder of Rothko.

Photo: Wikipedia. Quotes: The Guardian.