Scholar's Quest

In this painting, Victor Bregeda depicts the noosphere - the realm of consciousness - the informational stratum (layer) of our planet. We see the accumulated knowledge & wisdom of the past, and also, the creation of new ideas. The books making up the landscape contain all the information that has ever existed. This is the memory of humanity throughout history, all that we have learned and all we are experiencing. The books piled up on the canvas are people's thought constructions. The wooden bridges and ladders between the books represent how one book leads us to another book, and that one leads us to several more, and so on, out to the infinite horizon.

Among the books are spikes rising skyward, each surmounted by a bulbous shape. This represents the creation of new ideas. A new idea builds on the knowledge of the past (spike arising from within the books), but is more than just the accumulation and re-combination of past knowledge. To get to the truly new idea (droplet shape on top of the spike), a leap across the void is necessary (gap between the spike and droplet). Inspired by and building upon the knowledge of the past, new ideas are continually being created. This is the scholar's quest, for the understanding of the wisdom of the past and the generation of new concepts and realizations as well.