He loved the sea for deep-seated reasons: because of the hard-working artist’s yearning for repose, his desire to take shelter in the bosom of undifferentiated immensity from the demanding complexity of the world’s phenomena; because of his own proclivity— forbidden, directly counter to his life’s work, and seductive for that very reason— for the unorganized, immoderate, eternal: for nothingness. To take rest in perfection is the desire of those who strive for excellence; and is not nothingness one form of perfection?