The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts

Host: The night was humid, the city half-asleep under a mist that wrapped every lamp in a halo of pale gold. Inside a small atelier, paint-stained walls breathed the odor of turpentine and coffee gone cold. A single canvas, half-finished, leaned against a brick wall — a storm of colors that refused to become anything clear.

Jack sat near the window, his shirt sleeves rolled up, a cigarette trembling between his fingers. His grey eyes flickered with the reflection of the city lights, sharp and restless, as if searching for a pattern in the chaos beyond the glass.

Jeeny stood by the canvas, her hands streaked with blue and yellow, her dark hair falling across her cheek. She looked at the painting as though it were a mirror, and for a moment, she seemed lost in its turbulent beauty.

Host: The silence between them was thick, like the weight of a question not yet asked.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… Willem de Kooning once said, ‘The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.’”

Jack: “Yeah, I’ve heard that one.” (He exhales a thin trail of smoke.) “Sounds like something an artist says when the paint won’t obey.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe when he realizes the paint isn’t supposed to obey. That the chaos out there,” (she gestures toward the window, toward the sleeping city), “isn’t something we can control. We can only bring peace to the storm inside.”

Jack: “Peace inside?” (He lets out a short, bitter laugh.) “That’s poetic, Jeeny. But the world doesn’t work that way. Order is built, not felt. We build roads, laws, machines — those are real structures. The rest is just... comfort for the soul.”

Host: The rain began to tap softly against the windowpane, like a metronome marking the rhythm of their disagreement.

Jeeny: “But what do those structures mean if the people who make them are broken? Look at history — every time we tried to impose order on the world, we made a mess of it. Empires, wars, systems… they all collapsed because we forgot to bring order to ourselves first.”

Jack: “That’s a nice ideal, but it’s not practical. The Romans didn’t build their empire by meditating on self-control. They built it through structure and discipline, through order imposed on chaos. The world needed taming.”

Jeeny: “And yet, that empire burned from within. Their discipline became decay because their souls were empty. Tell me, Jack, what’s the point of controlling the world if you’ve lost control of your heart?”

Host: The light from the lamp flickered. The room seemed to breathe with their words, each one landing like a brushstroke on the raw canvas of tension between them.

Jack: “You talk as if the heart can bring order. But the heart is the most chaotic thing there is. Emotions don’t build; they destroy. Look at the French Revolution — born from emotion, ended in blood. People chasing inner truth turned the streets into rivers.”

Jeeny: “And yet, that same revolution gave birth to freedom, to the idea that every person’s soul matters. You can’t erase chaos without first listening to it. Maybe the artist doesn’t create order in nature, Jack — maybe they just uncover the order that was always there, hidden inside.”

Jack: (leans forward, his voice lower, more deliberate) “So you’re saying the artist isn’t a creator but a mirror?”

Jeeny: “A mirror… or a wound. They reveal what the world refuses to see.”

Host: A faint gust from the open window stirred a corner of the canvas, making it flutter like a living thing. The city outside hummed with distant traffic, the sound weaving through the heavy silence that followed her words.

Jack: “You think there’s order in chaos because you want to believe life has meaning. But what if it doesn’t? What if de Kooning was right because there is no order at all — not in nature, not in people — and the best we can do is pretend?”

Jeeny: (quietly, almost a whisper) “Pretending is still creating, Jack. When a child draws a sun on paper, they’re not fixing the weather — they’re making sense of it. That’s what we all do. The act of creating order inside ourselves is the only real creation that matters.”

Host: The rain fell harder now, its rhythm deepening, as though echoing the pulse of their conversation. Drops streaked down the glass, distorting the lights into rivers of molten color.

Jack: “So what, Jeeny? We give up trying to fix the world? Just sit here painting our feelings while everything burns outside?”

Jeeny: “No. We fix what we can — but not through control, through understanding. You can’t cure a storm by shouting at it. You learn to move with it. To listen. That’s what art is — listening to the chaos until it teaches you who you are.”

Jack: (his tone sharpens) “That sounds beautiful, but naïve. The world doesn’t reward inner peace; it rewards control. CEOs, politicians, scientists — they shape things. They impose order. Without that, nothing works.”

Jeeny: “And yet, half of them fall apart inside. You’ve seen it — the burnout, the scandals, the loneliness. Power without inner order is just noise dressed as progress.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly, not with weakness but with the weight of truth. Jack’s eyes softened, though he didn’t look away. Smoke curled between them, a thin ghost of all the things left unsaid.

Jack: “You always turn it inward, Jeeny. Maybe you’re right about one thing — people are messy. But maybe that’s all the order there is: structure built from mess. De Kooning didn’t say to ignore chaos; he said to find balance within it. Maybe the artist just learns to live with the noise.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Not to silence it, but to understand it. You see, Jack — art isn’t about making sense of the world; it’s about making peace with it.”

Host: The rain began to ease, tapering off into a soft drizzle. The air smelled of wet brick and oil paint, the colors on the canvas deepening as if absorbing the mood of their reconciliation.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe de Kooning wasn’t talking about art at all. Maybe he was talking about living. About the courage to find stillness inside, even when everything outside is falling apart.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “You think that’s possible?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s the only thing that ever has been.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly. Jack’s cigarette had burned to ash, forgotten in his hand. Jeeny stepped closer to the canvas and dipped her fingers into a streak of white, blending it gently into the dark swirl at the center.

Jack: (quietly) “So the order’s not in the painting. It’s in us.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And that’s what makes the chaos beautiful.”

Host: For a moment, neither spoke. The room was filled with the hum of the city, the soft hiss of the rain, and the silent rhythm of two souls finally at rest.

The lamplight fell across the canvas, illuminating the fresh stroke of white — a quiet pulse of light within the storm of color.

And in that fragile moment, as the night exhaled, it was hard to tell where the painting ended and where they began.