Painting (4)

1. THE ROAD OF HUMANITY
= the energetic contact between humanity's polarities: societies <--> individuals

Historical studies are about the historical hard facts, I mean economic, social, religious and political realities. How these hard facts are coming about under the impact of soft facts, changing ideologies, values. ideas and ideals is an approach that is far less common. This should not come as a surprise for the same can be said of essays at understanding our contemporary world. Furthermore, history's soft facts are simply gone and generally not registered which renders the task doubly difficult.
It makes nevertheless no doubt that social and societal changes are in great part the result of changes in our worldview, in our "Weltanschauung" and this is something very difficult to apprehend.

To make things simple, let's summarize how the build-up of our worldviews operates.

We should always remember that life is nothing more than what emerges when a set of circumstances combine. More particularly, organic compounds present in the universe assemble into more complex molecular systems that evolve some basic properties leading to the emergence of life. In "The chemistry of life is an integral part of the process that births stars"(0) Alan Hall writes: "Precursors to terrestrial life's distinctive chemistry apparently abound in the churning clouds of dust and gas in distant space. ... The vast interstellar clouds that spawn new generations of galaxies, stars and planets are also the incubators of life. The prebiotic compounds that they produce sift down in a cosmic rain, not just on Earth but on any hospitable planet in the cosmos. The stuff of life is stardust and we are born of it--and, yes, we are probably not alone."

All living organisms are driven by their physical properties. We have indeed to start from that very basic fact that we are physical bodies that are genetically programmed to search for more complexity.

The principle of life on earth started with the spontaneous emergence of unicellular forms some 4 billion years ago. The sciences of complexity indicate a general strategic principle governing life and that is that life always strives for higher levels of complexity while simultaneously auto-regulating its present forms. This principle seems programmed in all particles, in all cells. This means that unicellular forms of life strive to assemble to reach a superior level of multicellular life forms (around 3 billion years ago) and the same process continues from marine multicellular forms to more advanced forms that gradually will leave their wet environment for dry ground (around 2 billion years ago). Around 540 million years ago, a revolution swept the evolutionary process: species developed visual vision systems or eyes. The same principle of evolution further led to our humanoid form some 2-300,000 years ago and finally, some 100,000 years ago, to the human form with its brain developed as we know it today.

From that point on, our human history is the story of the complexification of our individual thinking combining with the auto-regulation of our collective organization and their controversial but stimulating relation. In one word, individuals succeeding for whatever reason to reach higher levels of thinking are "contained" by the resistance of conservative collective organizational forms.
Complexification of individual thinking leads to changes in ideas, values, archetypal images and the individuals carrying those changes will not rest till those are fully integrated by their collective organizations. But collective organizational forms seem to perceive change as a source of disorganization and are resisting it in order to protect the group. The disorganization is very seldom purely individual it rather assumes a group character. Only by relying for social response and recognition on a smaller community with congenial interests can the individual emancipate himself from the dependence upon the larger community.
Primitive societies were fiercely collectivist, denying individual search of complexity. The group was considered more important than the individual and the mechanisms of auto-regulation centered on the idea of the unity of the group and its environment (animism). Disunity with one's peers or with his environment was thought to be a sin and to bring salvation and protect the unity of the group, men practiced sacrifices. But situations of disunity were generating a conscience of the self !
The gradual strengthening over time of the conscience of self drove humanity to a turning point in its history. What follows as a consequence of this turning point is one of the biggest steps on the chart of human organizational evolution. Religious and philosophic answers (gods and wisdoms) now act as the mechanisms of collective auto-regulation. As I understand it, this starts to take place some 10,000 years ago going from China to Mesopotamia. Everywhere on earth, philosophies and religions acted as the protectors of collective organizations in order to assure the common good. This turning point in history took place at different times for the different people of our earth and some are still practicing animism presently.
Let's note at this point that all religions and wisdoms have focused their attention on the same ideas and values wherever on earth and one of their central tenets has always been the search for personal "liberation" through freeing of the self from the need for material possessions.

It seems to me as if the process of growing individual thinking and conscience was opening the individuals to the winds of desire, envy and greed. Liberation of the chains binding men to desire material possessions was then presented as the solution to reach "contentment".
The consequence of human permeation to those winds of desire unleashed men's growing separation from each other leading ultimately to destructive relationships that were a direct menace for their collective organization.
Philosophical wisdoms and religions acted as an antidote to desire, envy and greed that were perceived as unleashing an unstoppable growth of individualism. Discouraging greed and lust for material possessions became a necessity for all collective organizations. And so philosophies and religions were given the role of collective instruments of preservation of the common good. In the exercise of that role, religions and wisdoms were recognized as the authorities over the knowledge of the collectivity.
All religions on our earth seem to have had this same imperative of downplaying the need for material possessions, emphasizing instead the extreme happiness experienced through one's liberation, through contentment.

- HinduDharma: "Religion In General". The Purpose of Religion: (1)
"There are two types of happiness: the first is ephemeral; and the second is everlasting and not subject to diminution. Kama or in barn is ephemeral happiness and denotes worldly pleasure, worldly desires. Moksa or vidu is everlasting happiness, not transient pleasure. It is because people are ignorant about such happiness, how elevated and enduring it is, that they hanker after the trivial and momentary joys of kama."

- A Jain Study Guide. (2)
"Jainism believes that the more a person possesses in worldly wealth the more he may be unhappy and the more likely he is to commit sin, both physically and mentally."

- Tao Te Ching. Lao Tze. Interpolation by Peter Merel (3)
44. Contentment
Health or reputation: which is held dearer?
Health or possessions: which has more worth?
Profit or loss: which is more troublesome?
Great love incurs great expense,
And great riches incur great fear,
But contentment comes at no cost;
Who knows when to stop
Does not continue into danger,
And so may long endure.

- Christianity: Timothy (4)
6.6. But godliness with contentment is great gain.
6.7. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
6.8. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
6.9. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
6.10. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The principle of liberation from desires for material possessions is still counseled by all religions presently with more or less success. But it makes no doubt that Judaism and Christianity stepped through the gates of hell. What I mean here is that social and economic changes in Europe during the medieval times opened the gates of hell or to put it otherwise opened the bottle from where the genie of desires would escape. Those changes and the actions of the genie on its followers imposed themselves upon the church of Rome which resulted in its reformation through schisms and splits and ultimately its demise in the eyes of growing numbers of individuals.
Something of the same nature, it seems, was going on in Jesus' time in the world of Judaism. Could it be that Jesus' message was preached against the opening of the gates of hell by the Jews?

As we have seen earlier, medieval merchants gradually started long distance trade over the borders of their regional market areas with other merchants from afar. General insecurity imposed the use of paper instruments of exchange, banking deposit techniques and double entry accountancy, all techniques borrowed from Arab merchants during the crusades. But the church was opposed to the use of those "diabolical" techniques:
" If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor's cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor's only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate." (5)
"Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury."(6)
"If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."(7)


Those extracts should leave no doubt at all. The Christian church in the middle ages had indeed a position that was very similar to that of Islam today.


See here what the Koran says about the subject: "Oh you who believe! Have fear of Allah and give up what remains of what is due (to you) of Usury. If you do not, then take notice of war (against you) from Allah and His Messenger." "It is not permitted to pay a loan by asking the lender to receive payment from a third person who owes money to the lender...." (8)
See the following commentary by Umar Ibrahim Vadilloby on money and banking:
"The use of paper money by any institution is contrary to the nature of Islam. In the case of the bank however there is an added element to this contradiction -- namely the capacity of the bank to freely create paper money by means of credit -- which is independent of whether this paper-money is used for honest business or usurious loans. The use of credit to artificially expand the monetary resources is emphatically forbidden in the Shari'a." (8)

Similar debates were going on in the Christian Middle Ages in Europe, albeit with a less modern language but it gives us a fairly good idea about how money "managers" and merchants had to use subterfuges to turn around the religious interdictions. Let's go back for an instant to the arguments of Umar Ibrahim Vadilloby speaking about the subterfuges of modern day Muslim reformers:

"The so-called 'Islamic bank' is a usurious institution contrary to Islam. The 'Islamic bank" is an absurd attempt to resolve, as was done in the case of Christianity, the unswerving opposition of Islam to usury for fourteen centuries.
Since its origin, the 'Islamic bank' has been patronized and promoted by usurers. Their only intention was to incorporate the thousand million Muslims of the world--who in general would scornfully avoid using any banking or usurious institution--into the international financial and monetary system. The artificial creation by the colonial powers of the so called 'Islamic states', itself a contradiction in terms, whose character is markedly anti-lslamic, was the historical result of the end of territorial colonization and the beginning of the financial neo-colonialism." (8)

Medieval and later Renaissance banking was limited to a few great houses offering merchant banking services (particularly long-distance money transfer and the provision of loans). The first such organization was that of the Knights Templars, who by 1200 were in effect the bankers of the kings of England and of France. Their fortress-like monasteries, known as Temples, arose in every European land, and by the end of the thirteenth century sheltered the chief banking-system of Europe; the knights were trusted by popes and kings and by persons of wealth because their solid credit based on the countless estates of the order and its widespread financial relations.
France was in great debt to the Templars' organization, and its king, Philip Le Bel, upon the death of Pope Clement V, in 1307, brought many charges against the knights, including heresy. Friday 13th came to be known as an unlucky day, for it was the day that Philip arrested all the Templars in France (Friday 13th, October of 1307).
After 1307, in order to avoid to enter into conflict with their church, Christians largely left all banking activities into the hands of the Jews who took over from the Templars and became the bankers of the European kings.
Let's remember that gold, silver and precious stones were the basic instrument of exchange in the Middle Ages and thus it should not come as a surprise to see the Jews also controlling the jewelry (9) sector.

Rationality, through calculations and other machinations in order to increase the mass of money at hand and accumulate surpluses, established itself as the banking culture. And over the next centuries, the Jewish bankers imposed this culture of rationality to all who treated with them.
The period of "discoveries" has to be seen as one step in this economic rationalization process. Discoverers' "voyages" were in fact gigantic commercial enterprises. In general, a company was created with the king's and other aristocrat's installed capital. The target of the enterprise was to come back loaded with gold, silver and other richnesses stolen from unsuspecting folks in foreign lands. Queen Isabel and King Fernando of Castille had agreed to finance Columbus' first voyage. They benefited from a miraculous return-multiplication of their initial investment. Later voyages put Spain at the hart of Europe's financial and military might. But this was not going without much envy. The financial and commercial might of Spain and Portugal seemed limitless in the eyes of English merchants. "Condemned to smell in the distance the catholic rulers' feast, remained only one hope. If the British rulers dared not cut with formidable Spain, ... the English merchants had no reason to respect agreements which excluded them from the richest regions on earth. ... 'English piracy was famous in the 15th century; in the 16th century it will take patriotic proportions'. Between piratry and commerce the limit was ill defined". (10)
Francis Drake is the most famous of the English pirates of the 16th century. His expeditions were financed by merchants and aristocrats, Queen Elizabeth was part of them and she made a 5000% return on her investment in the "Golden Hind" expedition. Drake's feat enraged the Spaniards who prepared a fleet to attack England. Flemish canons ordered by Elizabeth, with the proceeds of her surplus from the "Golden Hind" operation, were mounted on the English ships and due to their longer shooting range destroyed hundred of the hundred and fifty warships that Spain had engaged in the battle. Half of the thirty thousand soldiers who handled the vessels died. Spain had lost its superiority on the seas.
Here we see how the proceeds of piracy allowed the English merchants to accumulate the necessary cash to finance England's superiority on the seas.
Around the end of the 16th century, merchants adventurers and members of the aristocracy who had invested in privateering and piracy expeditions started to invest the proceeds of these activities in stock companies. And the State gave the monopoly of commerce in specific areas to each of these companies. When the East India Company was created in 1600, it received "the monopoly of commerce with the isles and ports of Asia, of Africa and of America starting with the Strait of Good Hope to the Magellan Strait". (10) The instrument of English colonialism was born that 2-3 centuries later would control the world economy.

Lets now look at how industrialization really established itself. But first a general remark: approaching industrialization can't be done satisfactorily by simply affirming "ex-cathedra" (11) that it was British scientific genius that unleashed technological innovations that brought about a revolution in the process of production. Such an approach is only an intellectual shortcut which impeaches reasoned understanding. What has been determinant is that an important increase in liquidity coming from piracy plus monopoly trade with the colonies and drug traffic combined with mercantilist (12) policies to create the need for import substitutes. The ingredient for the technological innovations of the 18th century that ignited growth was indeed the perception of "mercantilist necessity" and only large scale capital investments permitted to put in production those first mass consumption goods that had already been invented earlier.
In short the story goes something likes this. Mercantilism created the necessity for "import substitute" woven cotton cloth and enclosures combined with factories to throw farm workers and small farmers in developing townships. Automatically ensued a weakening of self consumption and a higher demand for merchandise goods. Metallurgical innovations, financed by the state for the production of the cannons its wars were asking for, helped the textile craftsmen devise new equipment that would be powered by a new source of energy that had to solve the wood energy crises that had been perceived around 1700. Cheap socks and other cotton clothes became available to most and a better hygiene ensued that reduced drastically child mortality rates and the population entered in a growth spiral....

By 1800 Britain was entering the realm of mass production of cotton socks for a rapidly expanding mass market. The next 150 years will basically expand on that trend, integrating always newer mass marketed goods. The US will eventually take the lead under the combined effect of its market size and its early introduction of mass marketing of cars. The 2nd world war will expand drastically the demand for American weapons which production was financed largely through money creation that Europe will take years to repay with real surpluses. That's in summary how America took the economic lead of the world in the 20th century.

Mass market consumption was reached sometimes after the 2nd world war. 50-60 in the US and 60-70 in Europe. That's when the power of the illusionist genie of desires that had been allowed to leave its bottle during the middle-ages entered it's full swing. Let me explain.

We saw how religions and philosophical wisdoms, all over the world, had rejected the lore of material possessions and the use of techniques that would favor their expansion: money, interest, banking,... The mass consumption stage of our economic development is the moment when it can be said that the lore of material possessions is totally possessing all of us. And this has been made a reality by the use of the techniques that favor the expansion of material possessions: money, interests, banking...

We have entered a time of extremes, the polarity represented by the individuals on the road of humanity, like a stunami. is overwhelming all the societal spheres. Being possessed by a materialistic lore, our communities are atomizing and our societies are like dissolving before our eyes. Such a situation can't last for ever. Or our societies will break down and we'll enter anew into dark ages or a turn of events will unleash upon us a societal reaction in one form or another of authoritarianism that will fimally rebalance the polarities of humanity.

What to make about all that?
Well it makes absolutely no doubt to me that we have been playing apprentice sorcerers. But understand me well. The atrocious centuries leading to mass consumption are not all negative. For sure white men have driven the world for centuries through primitive brutality and the destruction of countless people. For sure we enter what scientists are calling the "6th extinction period" in the history of the earth. For sure the illusionist genie that had been liberated from the philosophical bottle blinded men to the consequences of their weapons. For sure four fifth of humanity is excluded from this "heavenly" consumerism. For sure, we helped our climate to change so fast that we could soon regret it. For sure in this consumerism paradise, men have lost their compass (the race of men, of humans, that clearly includes women, I mean I use the word men as a generic for humans... ).

All those are facts for sure.
But at the same time it seems to me that men's scientific reason is going to bring them back to their senses and to lead them back to the roots of their traditional wisdoms, be it religious or philosophic, that they will adapt to their present knowings and images and enhance into a far superior knowledge.
But at the same time it seems to me that this superior knowledge could well pull men together into a true world community where all will have a chance to eat and live happily.
But at the same time it seems to me that men could also be lost irremediably... who knows the future.

Ultimately men will eventually understand their vanity and they will then try to re-imprison the illusionist genie of desires in his bottle. But that is another story and its outcome is not a given. We are indeed somehow in the position of dogs who have bitten and have had much of a taste of blood. Dog trainers know how difficult it can be to unlearn such dogs not to bite anymore!

Whatever the conclusion one arrives at, I think that we can all agree on the fact that we are in a dire need of integration of present day mature scientific knowings with traditional wisdoms in order to be able to offer a superior knowledge to humanity. I believe, perhaps naively, that artists, thinkers and scientists are the ones who will gradually come up with the elements making such an integration feasible in the future in the meantime they are starting to shape the contours of a future worldview and I don't believe that reactionary populist movements calling for a return to an idealized past have any chance to derail the new worldview in the shaping.

(0) "The chemistry of life is an integral part of the process that births stars" by Alan Hall in Scientific American, March 22, 1999.
(1) HinduDharma
(2) Jainism
(3) Tao Te Qing
(4) Christianity
(5) Exodus, The Second Book of Moses, chapter 22 verse 25, from the Christian Bible or Hebrew Torah.
(6) Deut. Xxiii. 19.
(7) Luke 6:34-35
(8) THE FALLACY OF THE 'ISLAMIC BANK' by Umar Ibrahim Vadillo
(9) Jewelry: does not come from Jew but from "jouel", 13th century French word meaning "joyau" in modern French of "jewel" in English.
(10) Merchants adventurers: Morton.
(11) From WIKIPEDIA: "In Roman Catholic dogma, the Latin phrase Ex Cathedra, literally meaning "from the throne (of St Peter)" is applied in Catholic theology to statements made by the pope in his capacity as infallible guide and teacher of the faithful. The dogma was promulgated in 1870, in the closing days of the Italian Risorgimento. A papal statement made ex cathedra is said to be protected by the Holy Spirit from all error."
(12) From WIKIPEDIA: "Mercantilism is the economic theory that a nation's prosperity depended upon its supply of gold and silver, that the total volume of trade is unchangeable. This theory suggests that the government should play an active role in the economy by encouraging exports and discouraging imports, especially through the use of tariffs. Mercantilism is the economic policy that flourished in early modernity, often referred to as mercantilism or as the mercantile system."

Painting (3)

My post painting (2) left me thinking about the systemic map of my inquiry into "what is visual art?".

I approach this question from the historical perspective of the changes in human societies over the long haul. I can't indeed bring myself to be satisfied by abstract intellectual constructions about art that I feel are so much empty talk that time fast washes away. University libraries are replete with such art theories but these theories seem not having much enlightened humanity. I'm even tempted to assert that they are part of the problem with the contemporary confusion about art. Many times I have this troubling feel that thinking is, like, caged into specialist fields where chain reactions of words are imposing themselves upon the mind of their speakers without bringing any substance to the debate their voices are participating into. Much noise ensues not much sense. But it seems that this does not disturb our "all-knowing art bureaucratic word machine". If I write about art, instead of spending all my time painting it's not to add some more words to an already overflowing box, it is simply because I'm not satisfied with what I read and writing imposes the logical rigor that helps me to clarify my own ideas which is basically what I'm running after.



______________________________________________________

About the systemic map of my inquiry into "what is visual art?".
______________________________________________________


We are part of a continuum, part of the history of mankind, more particularly we are acting inside one moment of that history one among the global population in that specific time. It is not as if we were inventing the wheel we just flow a little further on what has been built before us.
The validation or invalidation of the sense of our actions, in painting or whatever else, is thus determined by the flowing or not of the content of our actions into the future.
For sure we are not divine and we don't know what the future has in store but we can maximize the chances the content of our actions being part of the flow towards the future by understanding the long haul historical process of what we are doing. That's what I'm trying to achieve through my writings about visual arts.


I distinguish 4 "scales" in the long haul rythm of the artistic pulse:

1. THE ROAD OF HUMANITY:
.....= the energetic contact between humanity's polarities:
..........--> societies
..........--> individuals

2. THE AXIOMS OF CIVILIZATIONS:
.....= the founding building blocks upon which societies build their future. At a certain juncture on the road of humanity societies adopt axiom like foundational ideas and values about what reality is all about upon which they later will build cultural add-ons. Those building blocks are somehow similar to the foundations of a house upon which is build the visible structure of that house that's why they are called "founding building blocks". Each civilization has its own founding building blocks and they are actively shaping the paths taken by their societies.

3. SOCIETIES STABILIZE AROUND WORLDVIEWS:
.....= a society reaches stability when a large majority of its citizens make theirs a given worldview. This gradual and evolutionary process follows 2 tracks:
.........--> the road of humanity
.........--> the path given by the civilization's axioms

4. THE FUNCTION OF VISUAL ARTS:
.....= creating the visual signs of what is shaping into the worldview of the day in order to share that worldview with all members of society.
..........--> along 99.8% of the time span of the history of human culture the men of power imposed the worldview of the men of knowledge of their day upon all members of their societies and visual artists were nothing more than image technicians who created visual signs of those worldviews at the attention of all members of their societies.
..........--> somewhere along the road of Western societies towards democracy the men of knowledge went their separate roads from the men of power and in the 20th century the worldview of the individuals started to fragment. Not being imposed any longer a worldview to illustrate the image technicians (artists) were left on their own to define what their visual signs should illustrate. Never educated in anything else than the use of their brushes they were generally "bete comme un peintre, stupid as a painter " as says it so well Marcel Duchamp. There were indeed not many Leonardos. The fragmentation of the worldview of their societies did not help them and the "all-knowing art bureaucratic word machine" was surely of no help either.
..........--> In our times of great confusion, I think, it is our first duty to re-establish sense in the art of creating visual signs. The art is not a question of technique it is a question of content...

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Painting (2)

In painting(1) I gave an image of the result that I reached after completion of the 2nd phase of my work on panel 25 of my ARTSENSE series.


I finally terminated the 3rd phase painting of this panel.
Here is the final work.


... and here follow some details.

Detail 1


Detail 2.


Detail 3

Some words about technique.
- Size: 17 x 22" (43.5 x 56 cm)
- Support: paper glued on wooden panel
- Media: acrylics
- Realization time:
...... * preparation: 1 hour.
...... * first phase: 8 hours
...... * second phase: 24 hours
...... * third phase: 22 hours.
- Form: I gave a detailed presentation of my way of painting in my posts "The subject of visual arts in postmodernism(1)" to "The subject of visual arts in postmodernism(7)"

Some words about content:
The context of my working on this panel is given in my post "Painting" of February 4th.
On February 5th, in painting(1) I wrote: "My making sense out of this auto portrait goes towards a visual rendering of the act of thinking and writing about visual arts. I wanted to convey in visual terms this idea, that visual arts, is all about the representation of the complexity of reality seen through the prism of knowledge. Thousands of ideas interconnecting among themselves and in finale generating an ordered assembling that represents nothing else than the new worldview of the men of knowledge of the day."

This painting has been realized as I was coming out of a period of 5 months of writing. What was going on in my mind during those five months clearly had not vanished as per miracle with my return to painting. This work is a portrait of me absorbed, in what I was doing those last five months and continue to do presently, meditating/thinking about the complexity of reality seen through the prism of knowledge which, by the way, is the subject of my book "ARTSENSE".

Reality is all about our perception of ourselves within the "workings" of the whole of our universe
and
painting is all about giving visual signs of the worldview that the men of knowledge are deriving from how they see and understand reality.

There are definitely an infinity of angles from where we can look at the unfolding of that reality story and the capturing by our eyes of the first degree image that impacts on our neurons is but one capturing of reality among an infinity of possibilities. Visual sight is no more than the activity of one physical-biological sensor, among many other possibles, that evolved from our general condition as humans.
That "first degree image" capturing device is basically needed by our brains' as data-input about our close environment so that our brains should be able to devise orders at the attention of our bodies for them to be able to act in the interest of their own preservation.
The first degree image perceived by our eyes is thus a functionality of human survival that we inherited along the road of our biological evolution. We should always remember that our noses were far more dominant in earlier times as a functionality of our survival than our eyes. In nature functionalities of survival can take many many different forms that are always adapted to guaranteeing the best chance of survival of the species.

Knowledge is something fundamentally different. It is what allows us to approach reality from a more thoroughly encompassing observation integrating all the different angles possible including the first degree image that our eyes are capturing about it. Knowledge projects us further than the first degree visual capturing of our close environment. It is a trial at rendering comprehensible to us the working of that environment and thus it enlightens our eyes' first degree images of reality with sense.

At the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century cubism was a first essay at giving a visual representation of reality through the prism of knowledge. As such Cubism was the first artistic approach trying to bring us visual signs of reality that were not based any longer on the classical model of copying the image projecting on our retinas (this is valid in white land but not in China where Shieyi painting since thousands of years is practiced as an exercise of "reading the meaning" of reality).
Cubism nevertheless very fast appeared to be no more than a graphical trick that made sense for sure in Picasso and Braque's visual researches but that was losing all meaning at the hands of further artists. Cubism was not rendering something else than the first degree image projecting on the retina. It only succeeded to give a different visual rendering from that first degree image that, as Marcel Duchamp puts it, was derived from a very "amateurish" reading "of the fourth dimension and of non-Euclidean geometry".

The twentieth century has been for the visual arts, in Europe and to a lesser degree in the US, a time of searching for visual representations that should project our understanding of reality further than the first degree image captured by our eyes.
Picasso and Braque were influenced much by mathematics and the notion, somehow new in their time, of the 4th dimension but they in the end they did not succeed to render something else than the first degree image.
The surrealists ventured in the path of the unconscientious that was a favorite theme of Freud and Jung and at long last they discovered visual paths rendering something else than this first degree image that they so much hated.
After the 2nd world war the members of Cobra, rejecting as pure absurdity the logic of a societal system that had unleashed all those primitive and montruous horrors of warfare, were searching for a better collective tomorrow in Marxism then in Existentialism and later in Situationism. It makes no doubt in my mind that the spirit of the works of Cobra artists have had a determining influence on the Zeitgeist in Western Europe that in finale rendered possible the unimaginable, the build-up of the EU. But the spirit of their works, exclusively turned against an abomination, was rendering a visual expression of ugliness as being something to be rejected. Thus their works being about something very negative did never really succeed to attract a large following.

Unfortunately, by the end of the second part of the 20th century, the visual arts have been sequestrated by an "all-knowing art bureaucratic word machine" that imposed its inexorable dictorship upon anything touching the visual arts. Interest obliging; making a buck out of art works took precedence over any artistic consideration. Soon under the "diktats" of the artistic authorities "whatever" was imposed as being art. That's how the visual arts entered a time of pure absurdity, non-sense imposed as art by the authorities, the merchants, the curators and the critics. The installation, in Central Park of the Gates of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, validates my point. Verify for yourself the grand-standing of the artistic authorities towards that event.:
- The gates - The gates - The gates - The gates - The gates - The gates - The gates

In their own defense, the art dictators claimed that Duchamp was the one who had initiated this drive towards "whatever" with his "ready-mades". But the intention of Duchamp through his "ready-mades " was no other than to turn into derision those "well-thinking" autorities who did not have the slightest idee about the artistic substance that artists were so desperately running after. The initial switch of the sense of art in the "ready mades", that had been operated by Duchamp, was no more that a good joke on the "smooth talkers" of his time but it ended up in the end by turning miserably against Duchamp himself.

Here is what Duchamp had to say later on about his earlier endeavors. I quote from a transcript by Herschel B. Chipp in "Theories of Modern Art" of Duchamp's interview with James Johnson Sweeney in "Eleven Europeans in America" that had been published in "Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art" (new York), XIII No 4-5, 1946: "Futurism was an impressionism of the mechanial world. It was strictly a continuation of the impressionist movement. I was not interested in that. I wanted to get away from the physical aspect of painting. I was much more interested in recreating ideas in painting. ... I was interested in ideas -not merely in visual products. I wanted to put painting once again at the service of the mind. ... In fact until the last hundred years all painting had been literary or religious: it had all been at the service of the mind. This characteristic was lost little by little during the last century. ... Dada was an extreme protest against the physical side of painting. It was a metaphysical attitude. ... It was a way to get out of a state of mind -to avoid being influenced by one's immediate environment, or by the past: to get away from cliches -to get free. ... Dada was very serviceable as a purgative. ... There was no thought of anything beyond the physical side of painting. No notion of freedom was thaught. No philosophical outlook was introduced. ... I thought of art on a broader scale. There were discussions at the time of the fourth dimension and of non-Euclidean geometry. But most views of it were amateurish. ... I felt that as a painter it was much better to be influenced by a writer than by another painter. ... This is the direction in which art should turn: to an intellectual expression, rather than to an animal expression. I'm sick of the expression 'bete comme un peintre' -stupid as a painter."
It is a mistery to me why Duchamp remains known for his "ready-mades" while his thoughts about art are so foundational but nevertheless ignored.
Who is responsible for this sad state of affairs ? Our "all-knowing art bureaucratic word machine" should be brought to account for their inadmissible lightness.

It is nevertheless a fact that, even after "whatever" had been imposed as subject of art, the societal functionality of visual arts has never been in any way put into question. We just don't know any more what this functionality is all about and so we don't speak or write about it but this does in no way mean that visual arts have no societal functionality. As Duchamp was saying "This characteristic was lost little by little during the last century". The absence of debate about the societal functionality of the visual arts does not suppress this functionality it mainly obscures it by fostering ignorance. Duchamp was right in this idea that "art is at the service of the mind". He just did not conduct the thinking to its logical conclusion. What is the mind indeed used for ? What is the outcome of knowledge ? What is the relationship between society and knowledge ? How does and can visual art serve knowledge ?

So what is the societal functionality of visual arts? Today as well as 500 years ago or 2000 years ago or 50,000 years ago for that matter visual arts were meant to create visual signs of the worldview that is derived out of the knowledge at the hands of the men of knowledge of the day. The only reason, why those signs took such precedence, is that human societies garanteed their stability through the smooth spreading among all members of society of the worldview of the day. The functionality of visual arts is thus directly related to the preservation and the enhancement of societal stability. Bingo !

Visual signs are easier to comprehend than spoken or written words and they are a lot more easy to comprehend than the theories that they represent. I wrote many times already about how this worked in animist times, in religious times and also in early modern times.

But what about nowadays?

I firmly believe that the societal confusion that we experience nowadays is related to the confusion that we experience in the visual arts and not the other way around. In other words, I believe that the knowledge that gradually emerges out of the ideas of today's men of knowings, the scientists, is not translated into a worldview. If there is no longer any worldview that could be permeating society at large there can be no longer any question of the visual arts relaying the worldview of the men of knowledge towards all members of society.
The artists have thus no alternative but to abandon the traditional dumbness that is associated with illustrating the ideas of others. We are confronted today with this paradox that we do not know where are today's men of knowledge. Surely enough there are some scientists and thinkers who are trying to connect "knowings" horizontally but this does not preclude the existence of a workable knowledge giving birth to an worldview that would be acceptable to all. In conclusion the only conceivable way out of this conundrum is for the artist to become his own man of knowledge. I follow Duchamp one hundred percent when he says that "this is the direction in which art should turn: to an intellectual expression, rather than to an animal expression. I'm sick of the expression 'bete comme un peintre' -stupid as a painter".
Yes why should painters continue to accept all that non-sense coming out of the mouthes of our "all-knowing art bureaucratic word machine" ? What is it that forbids artists to start accumulating scientific knowings and to confront those with the wisdom of philosophy in order to create knowledge ? Yes I know this proposition of mine is no easy feat. But what is the alternative if we want to surpass this characterization of being 'bete comme un peintre' -stupid as a painter" and being absolutely unable to fullfill the societal role that is ours ?

The societal confusion that we are plunged into nowadays creates much despair. More and more individuals feel at a loss and try by all means to find answers to the inescapable questions relating to REALITY that could be sensical to them.

Religion brought such sensical answers for over one thousand years in Europe and did so too in the territories that inherited the European Christian worldview. Later portraits and landscapes suceeded to give a basic representation of the ideas of individualism and private property or ownership that formed the backbone of the worldview adhered to along the timespan of modern times.

Without visual signs of a unified worldview mirroring today's trends and knowings our late modern societies are fragmenting and imploding into atomization. Individuals have come to believe that they know better. But the fact remains that individuals are as particles of their societies and that the creative tension between individuality and collectivity is what in the end generates the possibility of a smooth sailing into the future.

Could there be a worldview emanating directly out of scientific endeavors and the accumulation of scientific knowings nowadays ?

Yes and no.
Science is indeed characterized by ultra specialization. The scientific outlook is like chanelled through narrow vertical pipes leading in the direction of the microscopic or the macroscopic towards the observation of very narrow areas of reality. Views out of such vertical pipes are thus necessarily fragmentory and the scientific approach ends up being burdened by an infinity of fragmentory observations that are not connected horizontally between themselves. My understanding is thus that the scientific model is generating an infinity of "KNOWINGS", vertical micro-observations, but those knowings do not in any way qualify as "KNOWLEDGE" about reality.

Knowings are undoubtedly necessary quantities in developping a coherent knowledge base but it is the horizontal linking between developped knowings that in the end is generating knowledge. The fact is that science is accumulating astronomical quantities of knowings and that nobody is capable any longer to connect all those knowings together.
It is physically unfeasible for us humans:
- first to accumulate all the available knowings at any given time and if it were feasible it would nevertheless remain an unattainable task to track their appearance over time.
- second to link all the existing and potential knowings between themselves in order to generate knowledge.

The acceptance of our physical limitations brings us to the recognition of our void of wholeness that, in the end, is what generates our perpetual quest for "wholesensicalness". From the deepest of our origins till today we searched to master this "wholesensicalness" and even if we did not succeed to master it, we tried to approximate it as good as we could with the tools at our disposition at the time and one of the determining tools for ordering and making sense out of the knowings of the time has always been philosophy.
Philosophy is our vision of the whole of our reality, of the whole of our universe, it is what gives sense to the fragments of reality that we observe with our eyes or that we discover through our scientific explorations.

In this sense it is imperative that we all go back to the foundational building blocks of our civilizations for those building blocks are acting upon our civilizations in a way very similar to the way axioms are acting on mathematics. As in mathematics, the central question in our civilizations relates to the validity of our founding axioms or building blocks. But this is a question too large to entertain in this post so I'll skip it all together to jump directly to the conclusion.

In my mind the approximation of "wholesensicalness" is what a worldview is all about and rendering visual signs about the worldview of our times is what the mission of the artist is all about.

Painting (1)

I'm re-painting since 3 days now and was thinking to share with you the evolution of my work.

I terminated my first phase painting (meditation/automatism) on 31 panels of my ARTSENSE series in February of 2004 and completed phase 2 (sense) and 3 (beautification) of 24 of those panels by end of August. You can see those 24 acrylics at laodan/acrylics

7 panels were thus awaiting to be completed.

In 3 days I completed the 2nd phase of panel 25, a portrait of me the "thinker" freshly leaving the keyboard after 5 months of writing. I'll post an image of the work after terminating the beautification phase in a few days. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture after phase 1, I'll try to give you images of the 3 stages for panel 26 or 27.

My making sense out of this autoportrait goes towards a visual rendering of the act of thinking and writing about visual arts. I wanted to convey in visual terms this idea, that visual arts, is all about the representation of the complexity of reality seen through the prism of knowledge. Thousands of ideas interconnecting among themselves and in finale generating an ordered assembling that represents nothing else than the new worldview of the men of knowledge of the day.

Painting

These last 5 months I have been writing full time only to restart painting since January 31st. No doubt that for me colors come easier than words.

I plan to paint full time for a few months in a row in the waiting of a publisher. Generally I start around 9 am and leave the brushes around 4 pm to go to the computer, checking my inbox and then reading on Bloglines. I advise you all to check Bloglines it's a tool that I just could not miss anymore. " Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install -- simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device."

I have a second blog on Bloglines. When seeing or reading something of interest, I clip it to that blog. The blog service started in August of 2004 and by now I have assembled 767 items related to visual arts and all that I believe will be acting as a catalist on our future visions.
I allowed for public viewing of my daily selections if you are interested this blog is at "In the air of our times".

ARTSENSE

Writing and painting are solitary endeavors undertaken
out of the noise and the action of this world.

The artist has to make a choice:
- or he spends most of his time on the margins of society creating art works

- or he spends most of his time running after market recognition.

I made the conscient choice to spend my time in the creation process
knowing full well that it meant staying on the margins of society.
Yes it's possible not to run after the marketization chimera of our societies,
but one has to be conscient that this comes with a price.

The price is being relegated on the margins of society's actions.
Marginalization puts you out of the knowing

about how to bring your message to society at large.

I mean, for example, how do I handle the next step after my writing of ARTSENSE ?
How do I find a gallery to show my visual works?

Yes here I'm.
It seems I need some serious help !
Interested to help me polishing the text of this book or to find a publisher ?
Contact me and I'll give you the address where you'll find a PDF copy.
All those who will appear to have given a valid help in the publication of this book
will be mentioned in an introductory "thank you" note.
I'm going to re-post this "help" message during the next 10 days, hoping
to attract the attention of most of my regular readers.

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.

For those who enter this site for a first time,
I rearranged the order of my last postings so that
you can have an uninterrupted reading
of my personal approach towards painting.

Form is the outer expression of the inner content

I personally agree with Kandinsky that "The form is the outer expression of the inner content. Therefore, one should not make a deity of form. "1

The resonance of the artist's inner content with his time is what will generate the form of his art work. In other words the art form is somehow generated automatically when the artist's ideas are in sink with what's going on in his time, thus the necessary precedence of the content of the art work, the content is indeed the essence of the art work.

In this lies the fundamental difference between the modern approach of the visual arts with the realism of Renaissance and post-Renaissance times. In religious times and early modern times form had to bend to the reality2 projected onto all members of society by its "men of power". Form was assumed to project the subject of a work, it was thus a kind of photocopy of the "no-brainer" first degree image reflected upon the observer's retina.

Twentieth century artists rejected this assumption on the ground that science indicated that reality was a lot larger then what the eye was physically able to see and consequentially they tried to define a new approach more in sink with the impact of science and technology on their times.

Alas, in late modern times marketization favored form over content. Free form was indeed less disturbing for the art establishment than free content. But, in finale, the market has to assume the full responsibility for the dismissal of the essence of art works from "market-successful" artistic creations in late modernity.
The total confusion wherein the art world has been plunged is indeed a direct result of this dismissal of the essence of art from the works that the market retained.
I'm not speaking here of this idea of the sacred in art that follows the renaissance, I'm speaking about the universality of art's societal functionality, I mean the creation by artists of visual signs about the worldview of the men of knowledge in their time.

In the past religious times and early modern times the first degree image projecting on the retina was the imposed form to illustrate the imposed content of visual arts. Artists toiled to reproduce first degree images as illustrations of the stories of the men of knowledge of their times, religious stories in religious times and the stories about individualism and private property in early modern times.
The artist was firmly discouraged to let lose his intellect.
Today, it is assumed that each and everyone should make the best use of his intellect, is this not so?

But visual artists struggled to reconcile the use of their intellect with the first degree image on their retina. This fast appeared to be an impossible task for the intellect can't be constrained by such a narrow perception as the first degree image on the retina. The intellect has to be let loose in order for it to flourish.

But then how to let the intellect derive a visual form out of its activity?

Artists struggled with this particular question during all of the twentieth century and the question has still not found an accepted answer.

1. Wassily Kandinsky. "on the problem of form" 1912. In Herschel B. Chipp. Theories of modern art. University of California Press.

2. The reality projected onto all was, until recently, the knowledge of the "men of knowledge" of the day that was imposed on all through the power at the hands of the "men of power" of the same day.

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (1)

If we agree upon this idea of the precedence of content in an art work then we recognize that one content is not equal with another content. Content is indeed relative. The ideas of the artist appear in his feelings and are thus expressed on the canvas. But his ideas are not necessarily the same with another artist's ideas, thus the relativity and when we speak about relativity we speak about judgment. Every individual judges but the judgments of different individuals generally do not coincide. So then whose judgment do we speak about in relation to the content of an art work? Or is there a way out to give all individuals a sort of viewing key that could lead them to judge less subjectively?

First we have to clarify what is being judged and also what are the parameters of the judgment. If history is a good reference then we see that the content of art works that resist the realm of time always makes sense out of the period in which those works were created. In other words, those works expressed the "Zeitgeist" in term of the knowledge of their period, they indicated how the worldview of their societies was shaped in that present and how it was starting to shape the future.

In animist societies, the content that is represented is what preoccupies all the individuals: food, sex, the sky and so on. In the times of the gods, the religious message is central and in initial modern times, the house and the landscape where one lives are giving its centrality to the idea of ownership and individualism.

So what do we find in later modern times and in our present day reality that is really shaping our societies?

Is there one central theme or could there be multiple themes?

I firmly believe that there is one central theme and it is "how does our universe function". Not only the universe far away, the macro view of the universe but also the micro view, the view of the infinitely small.

So the question of our times, at least this is my view, is how does our universe work from the infinitely small to the infinitely large and what is our personal place in all that. I believe that the central question that best characterizes our times for most of the individuals is "how do I fit in all that".

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (2)

Starting with the idea of knowledge, we know for a sure fact that the most advanced scientific undertakings are in the field of the sciences of complexity. How does life start? Is it a godly creation or is it spontaneous emergence under specific conditions?

My views are derived from the conclusions reached by contemporary scientists and also from the study of the civilizational building blocks in Europe and principally in China. As I already stated earlier late contemporary rationality seem to fuse with traditional Chinese wisdom. What is considered central in the principle of reality is change with no start nor end, no good nor bad, only the change from one state/moment to another state/moment.

The "Tao Te Ching" conceives of the sky and the earth as the combination, the ordering of an infinity of elements (ten thousand things) derived out of chaos. Once order is established, the sky and the earth are entering a non ending dance of changes that directly impacts on humans' lives. Let's relate this to astronomical studies and the ten thousand things become the elements of change following the big bang, their combination and ordering taking place along the 13.7 billion following years.

Life itself is then perceived as a gradual process of change starting some 4 billion years ago with the spontaneous emergence of unicellular organisms. The search for more complexity that is inscribed in all cells leads then those unicellular organisms, over the following one billion years, to combine together to give multi-cellular organisms. The next steps of evolution then lead to ever more deeper levels of complexity to reach the human form with its present day characteristics some 100-150,000 years ago.

Religious believers doubt this presentation and ask about what comes before the big bang. Seeing that science is without any hard fact as of today about what came before the big bang, they argue that god must have been the originator of the intelligent design that is found in our universe and so they establish their god as the ultimate final cause from which everything originates.

But this logic is flawed for it is not because science is still without any hard observations or answers today about what came before the big bang that it will not tomorrow succeed to grasp such observations. This mode of questioning the validity of the scientific model of reasoning is basically dishonest. We all know by now that science will never come to the end of its quest for understanding so taking a question that is not resolved scientifically at one particular moment in history as proof of the non validity of the scientific model is indeed fundamentally dishonest.

Suffice here to notice that traditional Chinese wisdom is not without answers. In this vision the universe that preceded ours concluded with all matter imploding into energy and this energy later exploding into the big bang that originated our present universe that is still expanding and will continue to to so till it uses all the energy liberated by the big bang. When our universe will have used up all the energy liberated in the big bang it will start shrinking till all matter implodes into energy that is bound to explode creating a new starting universe and so on. Energy is composed of the Yang principle and matter is composed of the Yin principle. Old Yang mutates into young Yin that becomes old Yin. Old Yin mutates into young Yang that ages into old Yang. Old Yang ... and so on without end.

The traditional Chinese philosophy experiences no need to find causes, it succeeds to explain changing realities from the energetic contact between polarities (chapter 2.2. of Artsense). Change is thus conceived of as being inherent to what is there. Having no intellectual need to recourse to causality the Chinese have also no need to stop the search for earlier causality with an abstractly posited final causality and thus they do not need to invent gods.

Following in the footsteps of this reasoning, we reach the conclusion that our universe follows a circular movement corresponding to the cycles of matter expansion and energy concentration.
The cosmos follows one spiral but the "ten thousand things" within the cosmos follow each a similar spiral and thus what I see now are ten thousand spirals within one huge unit that is the spiral of the universe. Humanity and individuals are both surfing, conscientiously or unconscientiously, on their own temporal spiral.
The conscience of this complex reality brings me to my mission as an artist that I see as the creation of visual signs about our surfing on the spiral waves in our cosmos.

That's the background of my painting of my visual perception of reality. That's also my personal answer to my initial questions "how to let the intellect derive a visual form out of its activity?", "what do we find in later modern times and in our present day reality that is really shaping our societies?".

Knowledge is the universal and unique answer to the quest for sense of the artist. The time of the "men of power" imposing on all the knowledge of the "men of knowledge", this time of propaganda is gone I hope with no possible return.
But this does not mean that knowledge is gone, it remains there as a possibility.

The only serious problem for the artist at the dawn of the 21st century is that knowledge today is not given, it is in the forming, in the shaping, it is indeed not mature yet and as such sharing in its shaping implies accepting to "dirty" one's hands in the intellectual process of creating ideas.

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (3)

Having given the general background, the worldview that I explore in my visual works, let's come back to the visual creation process itself.
___________________________________________________________________


First comes meditation.
In the comments accompanying my acrylic 07, I describe meditation as follows:

" Meditation is accomplished in a context of retreat deep inside yourself, far from the noise of the world. It requires total relaxation of the body and absence of the mind.

The physical relaxation is the easy part. Stopping all thinking and forgetting about all accumulated knowledge and social bonds needs real humility and much patience.

After reaching total absence of the mind you are plunged back in the age of babyhood this is when you reach total innocence. Total innocence frees the links between yourself and the whole of our universe. You are now in contact with the ONE, you are part of it and everything shines with clarity."

Those last two elements are central to my approach to painting:

* clarity of thought: I don't need to think about what I'm going to paint, it's there in my spirit and when using a brush it simply comes out on the canvas. I could as well use another medium but for now I feel good with brushes but who knows what medium I'll be using later on.

* babyhood innocence: I do not like voluntarist painting, I feel, it is uniformly stiff having an air of "out of reality" a little bit as if water was climbing the cliffs. What I like is the feel and innocence of water flowing along its natural downslope.
Children paintings often reach that grace and meditation permits to reach the innocence of a baby at whatever age. When using a brush the content simply comes out on the canvas without any sign of having been imposed by will.

For sure meditation does not come out of the blue.
You are scanning yourself. Your ideas are flowing, like a visual show, out of your memories and then rapidly fading in pastel clouds towards the light of absolute tranquility.

Meditation starts with the scanning of our accumulated ideas and experiences that's indeed the raw material upon which meditation is acting. This scanning retains the building blocks of our thoughts that it substantiates in a moving flow, of forms and colors, that transforms and transforms towards absolute nothingness or absolute tranquility.

We should be absolutely conscient at this point that total clarity and babyhood innocence do not infer that the quality of our thoughts and of our actions should have been by any means transformed. No, we remain who we are, we have just been illuminated by our discovery of the sequential logical path followed by our own thoughts that's what is illuminating. In a flash of truth we discover our own limitations in term of our understanding of the whole from which we are a particule. Total clarity about who we are and what are our limitations that's what drives us towards the point where tranquility set's in.

Meditation does not render you, as of by miracle, a genius it only helps you in being quiet and clear minded. Meditation is a technique of self discovery it does not change you into something you are not. It just shines total clarity in your spirit which gives you absolute tranquility.

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (4)

After meditation comes automatism.

"Scientists must have a broad background and education. They should not be too narrowly focused on science. Everything a person knows contributes to constructing rich metaphors, making mental leaps, discovering links between unlikely things, and finding new and creative ways to combine familiar ingredients.
A scientist calling for the use of metaphor? According to Holland, development of theory involves such "nonscientific" things as metaphor, models, and cartoons. The scientist deliberately exaggerates what he or she wants to study and deletes other details in order to get to the essence of the question. Questions lead the way; then the scientist moves into metaphor. "1

What about visual artists do they also construct "rich metaphors", making mental leaps, discovering links between unlikely things, and finding new and creative ways to combine familiar ingredients"?

"It is not to be despised, in my opinion, if, after gazing fixedly at the spot on the wall, the coals on the grate, the clouds, the flowing stream, if one remembers some of their aspects; and if you look at them carefully you will discover some quite admirable inventions. Of these the genius of the painter may take full advantage, to compose battles of animals and of men, of landscapes or monsters, of devils and other fantastic things which bring you honor. In these confused things genius becomes aware of new inventions, but it is necessary to know well (how to draw) all the parts that one ignores, such as the parts of animals and the aspects of landscape, rocks and vegetation." 2

Thanks Leonardo for this clear as water expose on automatism. For those who don't know, this was written around 1510. The surrealists did indeed not invent the water.

Both Leonardo the painter and Holland the scientist insist on the same observation about the necessity of having a strong knowledge. Holland goes further than Leonardo when he says that the scientist's knowledge "should not be too narrowly focused on science. Everything a person knows contributes to constructing rich metaphors, making mental leaps, discovering links between unlikely things, and finding new and creative ways to combine familiar ingredients."

"With the conviction of a preacher, Holland concluded his talk with three principles for scientists of the future. Science, he said, involves discipline, metaphor, and reduction. Discipline means that just as a tennis player must internalize the elements of the game in order to play without stopping to think about how to hold the racket, students must internalize scientific knowledge in order to use that knowledge easily." 3

In order to avoid being limited by a weak technique the scientist must master technical skills, as the tennis player or the visual artist for that matter.

An artist whose technique is not sure (not mature) has to spend his energy and devote his concentration trying to execute painfully what a good technique would have allowed him to execute very easily and without the need of his conscience being absorbed by that technical act.

A sure technique allows to focus not on the execution of the task but rather on the content that is being expressed through the execution of that very task. In other words, with a sure technique, the hand will follow the spirit where it is attracted and draw the image that emerges somehow spontaneously. Drawing or painting are thus freed from the technical act itself that is executed automatically and are then concentrating exclusively on the content of the painter's thoughts or should I say absorbing the spirit, the thinking, the dreaming of the artist.

"These internalized elements are the source for metaphor. Along with discipline, scientists must break out of the narrow confines of their box and think broadly through transdisciplinary experience and education. The broader their background, the more they are able to use such tools as metaphor in constructing theories. "4

We can only think about what our conscience has been nourished with, in other words, we can't think about something that we don't know a damn thing about. The painter who only knows about painting is unable to derive ideas or visions about anything else than what his eyes let him see, landscapes, portraits and stills. His counterpart who is well informed about biology or astronomy or philosophy or whatever else, will draw from the knowledge he accumulated to derive new forms and coloring schemes. He will use conceptual metaphors that tend to be prelinguistic. And he will "make basic assumptions regarding space, time, moving, counting, controlling, and other core elements of human experience."5

The painter who has a broadband knowledge base thus gains access to a superior level of consciousness that let's him dwell in new visual dimensions.

"His third principle, reduction, has to do with drawing information together. The work of science is the work of manipulating building blocks, such as creating protein from amino acids. There are levels upon levels of building blocks, but researchers always have to be aware that if they are working on one level, they still have to satisfy the rules of the other levels."6

What Holland is referring to here is the ability to connect different elements that we stored as a result of our experiences. So the richer our experiences, the richer will be our possibilities at connecting various elements and creating metaphors. Thus in the end the deeper we will be able to dwell into our visions.

Holland's conclusion about the background of the scientist rejoins my own point about knowledge in painting. The deeper his knowledge or his background and the deeper the spirit, the thinking, the dreaming of the artist will be let to dwell. The deeper his thinking and his dreaming are allowed to dwell, the richer his theories, his visions will appear to be.

Eventually, the depth of an artist's visions and the images generated by the metaphors he succeeds to generate bring him to a point where he goes out of the certainties of his time and jumps into a new understanding, a new way of doing. That point is when the artist establishes a radical change of paradigm in the practice of his art.


1. John Holland "Calls for a Radical Reassessment" THE BULLETIN OF THE SANTA FE INSTITUTE Fall © 2002

2. Leonardo. "Treatise on Painting."

3. John Holland Calls for a Radical Reassessment THE BULLETIN OF THE SANTA FE INSTITUTE Fall © 2002

4. John Holland Calls for a Radical Reassessment THE BULLETIN OF THE SANTA FE INSTITUTE Fall © 2002

5. About "conceptual metaphors" in Wikipedia.

6. John Holland Calls for a Radical Reassessment THE BULLETIN OF THE SANTA FE INSTITUTE Fall © 2002

7. A paradigm shift is an often radical change of paradigm. It is the successful new theory which explains a phenomenon or phenomena that the previous theory fails to. In Wikipedia

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (5)

I find that the act of will in a painting is rigidifying, it lacks what machine work lacks, it lacks the poetry of the spontaneous human intervention, it lacks those small "mistakes"that the act of will is automatically correcting. That's about form for form but there is a more essential aspect of meditation/automatism and it concerns the content. It's what Leonardo calls "admirable inventions" in his treatise on painting. When looking intensely at a surface, one always finds small irregularities in the material and the more one looks at those irregularities the more one finds of them. Those irregularities are Leonardo's "admirable inventions". The artist does not create those irregularities, he only interprets them in his own vocabulary, his own mass of referable (knowledge). If his technique is mature, the artist sizes the patterns of his brain in those irregularities. Each artist has his own tricks. One looks at the material of the color that is deposited on the paper or the canvas to find his brain patterns, another as Miro "in watercolors would roughen the surface of the paper by rubbing it. Painting over this roughened surface produced curious chance shapes..."1

I personally work in the color material and discover there a world that grows by itself. I follow what I discover and I do not impose my will at this stage of the work. In some works, this stage takes 10 minutes, in other works it can take hours and in some other works it can take a few sessions. This is the moment that I express my feelings in the sense employed by Jackson Pollock. I'm not trying to represent something, I just express my feelings in very fast brush gestures. In the meditation/automatism stage I have one session per day for a given work and generally I work simultaneously on a few works. Brushing the colors on the canvas or the paper is a very intensive gestural activity pumping much energy.
The intensity of energy liberated is, I feel, disruptive of my rational judgment and thus it is important at this stage for me to let things cool down fast . After ignoring the piece on which I work for a few days, I see it in a different light and I then am very fast ready for the second stage of my work.

1. Miro. Interview with James Johnson Sweeney. 1947. In Herschel B. Chipp. Theories of modern art. University of California Press.

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (6)

The second stage of my painting.


This is when I try to harmonize what is there on the canvas as a result of the first phase that has been generated out of meditation/automatism. In this first phase I expressed my feelings through colors and forms without any intention to imprint a given content. The second phase is all about the derivation of content out of the meditation/automatic expression.

But here again "will" is absent in the sense of "voluntary, intentional, deliberate, willful, willing". Somehow I reach content unconscientiously that means without thought for reaching meaning. I never spent much time looking at Gongbi style paintings while I was in China, such works never attracted me but for some reason that I can't exactly explain the stylistic result of this second phase is paradoxically very much Gongbi-like.

The paint material and the colors applied in the first phase are there on the canvas into abstract forms. In this second phase I follow those abstract forms with a thin brush trying to generate some sensical meaning while eliminating all that makes no sense all that weakens the emerging meaning. For me this is indeed the stage of rendering absolute sense out of abstract forms and colors. It's what Leonardo calls "A way of enhancing and arousing the mind to various inventions. ... if you look at any walls soiled with a variety of stains, or stones with variegated patterns, when you have to invent some location, you will therein be able to see a ressemblance to various landscapes, graced with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, great valleys and hills in many combinations."
In those abstract forms left on walls by stain Leonardo searches for inspiration to realize a subject that he very conscientiously and firmly has imprinted in his spirit before starting his painting. I myself do not plan a subject conscientiously before starting to paint. I just let things unfold. Surely enough when looking at "stains or stones with variegated patterns" or when looking at the colors and lines on the canvas it is my mind that is pulling my eyes into seeing some things and not other things. The mind is always active, if not conscientiously, then unconscientiously and what the eyes retain is basically what the mind gives the eyes to see. In that sense what is important for the artist is what is in his mind. Now we should be conscient that what is in the artist's mind is an input, it was not there originally, it has grown with his life experience. So for an artist, or for whoever for that matter, the quality of the creative output is basically dependant on the quality of his total earlier inputs. In other words knowledge is what gives quality to the creative output of the artist. Sure enough what I'm speaking about here is art in the sense of the creation of visual signs about the worldview that is in the shaping. Without knowledge there is indeed simply no way that the worldview, of the men of knowledge in our society, should be attainable so much less a worldview that is not formed yet that is in the shaping.

This second phase is the moment when my accumulated knowledge is been imprinted on the canvas. My hand follows the existed lines and contours on the canvas following where my spirit is attracted and draws the image that emerges. Drawing or painting are freed from the act itself that is somehow executed automatically and are then absorbing my spirit, my thinking, my dreaming. Now we should be conscient that not everyone can do what I here describe. It's not only a question of the earlier inputs that condition the creative output, it's also a question of technical skills. Someone who has not accumulated sufficient practice in his technical execution will be constrained, will be hindered in the visual representation of his creative output. He will be stuck in the technical rendering of the first idea that passes through his mind and will not be let free to explore further up the unwinding of the thread that this first idea follows in his mind and thus the flow of his creative output will be interrupted. This is when his work becomes fully a work of will that cements in a concrete technical pain.

This Gongbi-like second phase took somewhere between 15 and 40 hours on average for each work of the ARTSENSE series. The work is long, the time is flying and the spirit is floating around the world as if in a real dream. The work is done when the complete canvas has been integrated in the "sense-making story".

Remains then the last phase, the beautifying of the work.


(1) Chinese traditional painting divides into two very different approaches. One could be seen as the artistic form, or should I say the philosophical form, it is called "SHEYI". The other form is a kind of craft for interior decoration, it is called "QONGBI".

The subject of visual arts in postmodernism. (7)

3rd phase of my painting.
The harmonization of colors and lines = the embellishment or the beautification of the work.
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The content is firmly established with the second phase as well as the general composition. What remains to be done in this third phase is finding complete coherence in all the lines and colors and this more often than not is about eliminating all the non sensical elements. Beautifying is indeed the phase of making absolute sense.

The finishing touches, of this process of elimination, are about exclusively reserved to the harmonization of colors. The whole canvas sometimes receives a changed color harmonic but there is no law about colors that holds on its own. Last changes are executed simply out of the necessity to reaching color harmony over whole the canvas.

I already wrote a few times that I consider paintings as objects for interior decoration and I feel that an interior should only accommodate on a wall finished objects that are enlightening as well as decorative. I indeed have the weakness to think that what appears on your walls reflects on what is going on in your brains, in your life and in your family and thus I feel that the content of a work is sacred and it's form should absolutely be harmonious.

I don't mean to say that an art work should be beautiful in the sense that it should integrate the fads of the air of the times. Far from that. I consciently use the term beautification in a provocative way hoping to attract the attention of the reader. Fashion and fads have nothing to do with art, they are marketing realities and nothing more. In consequence the artist should remove himself from those artificialities and yearn for something more fundamentally sensical.

What I want to convey with the concept of beautification in art is this old idea of harmony. It's an undeniable fact that we are no more than a particle of dust in our universe and so the thinking goes that we should strive to harmonize within this whole. In other words an artwork should be reflecting our acceptance, of what we are, of our nothingness. Our vanity, greed and desires are indeed destroying in ourselves this idea of nothingness and pulling each of our actions into vain superficial and meaningless manifestations of marginality on the outer limits of the universal. That's where our "will" often makes us do, say, draw or paint unwholesomely.

I do not mean to say that our destiny is fully determined that we have no free will. What I refer to is this idea well known by the surfer that we first and foremost have to acknowledge the fact that we are no more than a grain of dust, in the sea, blown by the winds along the waves. Surfing is all about being one with the elements, one step out of their harmony and it's the fall. That's exactly what happens also in painting. One step out of the universal harmony of lines, forms and colors and the work lands on the outer limits of the universal. In terms of culture the work starts to be embarrassing, offensive or even repulsive. In music this story is more straightforward sounds that land on the outer limits of the universally accepted for the ear are stressful and can sometimes be extremely painful so we reject such sounds. The eye can accomodate about everything it's our minds that revulse and the memory of the experiences of the mind is what generates culture that's how culture in ourselves is reacting towards what is visually on the outer limits of the universal.

The beautification of a visual work is like surfing on the waves of the sea, accepting the wind as it is and playing with it. The recognition of our nothingness in the wholeness of the sea or for that matter of our universe teaches us non-resistance teaches us non action that's the moment in surfing when the wave carries the body that's the moment in painting when the mind follows the brush. Ugliness appears when there is resistance to the waves or action of will to beat the waves and also when the mind wants to beat the brush.