If my mom had it her way, I'd still be painting still lifes and portraits. According to her, I should be painting pictures of things, not ideas. People don't want ideas on their walls - they want to look at pretty paintings. For crying out loud, don't make people think - just make them happy! You'll sell a lot more art that way. Or so she says, and she's probably right.
Okay. Where to begin. I stopped making people happy long ago. I have a classical training in art, and although I don't consider myself a master by any means, I'm reasonably good at it. But somewhere along the way I lost interest in reproducing the world in paint. What's the point? It made sense in 15th century Europe, when it was the avant garde. Until then, no one had tried to paint the world around them with much accuracy, so this was a major achievement. But that was 500 years ago! It's a little dated now, and we have this new thing called a camera that does a nifty job of it. As for me, I just got ridiculously bored with realism. I felt that as an artist I was reduced to reporting what I saw, like a visual newscaster. Nothing sublime about that.
See, classical art is grounded in the presumption that what we see is 'true'. How can anyone deny these pears? This chair? They're right here in front of me, I can touch them, so by God I'm going to paint them! In so doing, I reinforce the wild assumption of their existence, and of my own being, since a painting infers a painter. (Isn't that interesting, btw? That a work of art is evidence of the person who conceived it? Like a leaf bearing witness to the tree. Next time you're in a museum, try to see the painter, not the painting).
By reproducing the world around them, the artist perpetuates the myth of separation. It's like we - all of us - are trying desperately to convince ourselves that our conception of the objective world is the correct one. When we as artists depict nature, even in an abstracted form (i.e., the Cubists), we cling to our illusions of the world of objects as being a solid, fixed place. And each time we look at a painting, we succumb to the preposterous delusion of our mistaken identity.
That's my definition of classical art: one which perpetuates the illusion of separation, or duality. Advaita art, otoh, is one which demonstrates the unified nature of reality. It doesn't just depict it or illustrate it: it IS it. The art is an extension of undivided existence. The artist and the medium are one, and the act of creation is carried out through complete synthesis of intention. There is no fragmentation, because there are no mental constructs to interrupt the creative flow. Which isn't to say that there is no concept. But the concept is subordinate to the expression of unity.
So. Back to pears and chairs. I guess one could find a way to paint them that expresses nonduality. I hope they do. But me, I'm sticking with my text drawings. They don't aim to reproduce nature, or reinforce some mental construct of my identity. Instead, they are a slice of nondual experience, and a gateway to the sublime experience that I am That.
Above: Pears, 1988, acrylic on panel. From the collection of my mother.
I read this post with such interest. It is so funny to me that we tend to find things we need at just the right moment by following something unrelated. [I was looking for an image of pears.]
ReplyDeleteI love abstraction. I, like you, live in the world, the Midwest in my case, that loves representational art. I love abstract art, jazz, non-linear things.
A few weeks ago I wanted to do a controlled study with encaustic and so made 4 paintings of roses. What an uproar! People loved the roses! Alas. Why don't you do more of those, now these are beautiful, these would sell, etc... So depressing. Thank you for this post.
Thanks for your comments, Kristine. I'm glad that they hit a nerve. Most non-artists believe that the greatest thing (and the most accomplished thing) that an artist can do is to represent the world around them; the greater the technical skill, the more accomplished the artist. But, as you know, copying nature has very little do with making art. It's actually the easiest route that an artist can take, since all they have to do is reproduce whatever's in front of them. Nothing too brilliant about that. It's so interesting to me that this is the kind of art that the majority of people gravitate toward. Roses, like pears, are quite a commodity, it would seem.
ReplyDelete