1. The historical view.
Since
the beginning of mankind, as far as human history goes, art has
been at the service of society. Art and most importantly visual arts
served as diffuser of the worldview of society's "men of of
knowledge and men of power" towards the
members of society at large.
- in animist times, shamans, sorcerers or
whatever they are called were
the ones who shaped the worldview of the members of the group. Their
vision of reality was that the sun was at the heart of life, a male
(yang) power of creation to be revered. Animals and plants used in
daily life were respected for their human life maintaining power. Art
served to illustrate those ideas. We moderns have come to call this
form of art "primitive arts".... it flourished for tens of thousands of
years.
- in religious times, I mean the historical phase
of human development
that comes after animism, humans revere gods (in the 3 religions of the
word a unique god). The men of knowledge, in those societies governed
by religions, are the priest, the monks or howerver they are called.
They study the religious creed in their teens to diffuse it to all in
their adult life. Art in that period describes the stories of the creed
and gives images of the gods and their inner circle, angels,...
Religious art flourished for hundreds and in some religions for
thousands of years.
- starting with early capitalism in Europe around
the 16th century,
power in society will shift from the clergy to the new rich merchants
and the entrepreneurial aristocrats. Richness in terms of gold and
silver possessions are now what procures power. The search for more
gold and silver will gradually shape a new worldview made of the ideas
of material possessions, private property, individualism and
rationality... By the end of the 15th century, art starts
to represent
those ideas as landscapes and portraits and by the 16th and 17th
century, those
subjects represent the majority of all art productions. This will go on
and on and is still true today for many people but something
fundamentally new happened in between.
- starting after mid-nineteenth century, under
the impact of new
techniques of transportation introducing the notion of speed, some
artists bring changes in their style of representation of portraits and
landscapes. Van Gogh, Gauguin are the best known precursors of this
stylistic change. The impressionist movance, later the expressionists,
the cubists, the futurists and other schools continue to depict
portraits and landscapes, or to say this otherwise, they continue to
depict reality or at least what is considered as being reality in their
days what we call today "the
first degree image that projects on the retina".
* sometime after the 1st world war, here and
there artists begin to
question the wisdom of that reality, they think, they write about the
need to reject that vision of reality for something new. (Breton,
Duchamp, Ernst, Miro, Masson, Chagall,...) This debate and trials at
painting something different will go on from the 1910th without
interruption until today.
* the creative
approaches after
the 2nd world war can best be
described as a search for individuality. Everyone tries something
different, originality takes central stage and very fast "what has not
been done before" becomes the sacred graal of
artists. BUT in this
process total confusion becomes pervasive. Everything has been called
art, has it not, from a slashed canvas to a toilet seat.
* starting around the year 2000 (very arbitrary
dating) some artists
begin to express the need for SENSE in visual arts. Debates are going
on but no firm conclusions have been accepted yet.
2.
What about the present reality of
the visual arts?
We are not in times of art commissioning anymore, when the commissioner
fixed the content of art works. Today artists have to come up with
their own content. The only way for artists to give valid visual signs,
for all to share, of the knowledge seeping out of our times is I
believe to be found in a strong knowledge base
in science, in philosophy, and in what is going on on this
earth. In our times, the only valid subject
of art works has to be derived out of a good understanding of what is
going on around us and science, philosophy and our personal
observation, are the only tools at our disposal. We can't count any
longer on the men of knowledge, they have vanished from the scene or at
best they are left to compete with all kinds of charlatans on "the level playing field"
of the market for ideas.
The present day worldview is fluctuating, we are
indeed on
the road of shaping a new worldview but the images are still not very
firm, or should I say not very firmly accepted.
My personal conclusion is that art works have to return to their
traditional function, the making of images that illustrate the
worldview of present day "men
of knowledge", the scientists and the
philosophers if some remain. They are the ones who are shaping the
borders and the background of our worldview in the making.
Knowledge acts as a springboard for creativity,
it helps to project oneself a
little further into reality and could redefine the artists and other
free thinkers of the 21st century as the potential wisemen who first
experience a global consciousness as a result of their integration of
philosophical inquiries with scientific methodologies and data.
But will artists size upon this opportunity? It
is not a given fact, it
requires indeed much humility, time and perseverance to reflect upon
oneself and to study the mysteries of the sky, the earth and the self.
Notwithstanding those uncertainties, let's remember that art is
something as the production of an expression or if you prefer an
impression of the inner feelings and ideas of the artist. So we
understand that an artist's productions are intimately related to his
knowledge. The better his knowledge base, the better we can expect his
production to be. Not advertisement of an ideology but expression of an
idea, of a feeling through the use of a technique. In other words,
content, the artist's personalized content will find central stage in
artistic creation and beauty or ugliness will more and more relate to
the content of a work!
It makes indeed no sense anymore in the
twenty-first century to
continue to photo-paint landscapes, people or the story of any creed.
Those are signs
of past worldviews that no longer apply to our present day reality and
so they can't be considered as valid subjects
of art creation in the 21st century. Landscapes and portraits have
entered the realm of interior design for the masses. Today one can
purchase mass produced portraits and landscapes or simply use a camera,
shoot a perfectly realist image and manipulate its pixels through a
photo imaging software to obtain a good interior decoration product.
It makes also no sense anymore to continue to illustrate the
ideological trappings of religious or political half baked truths as it
makes no more sense to plunge ourselves into the different distortions
of reality as described by the twentieth century observers of the
technological alterings of our visions. Those are all signs
of a past worldview and as such they are no valid subjects of art
creation today.
We the artists and free thinkers of the 21st
century have to place the
bar somewhat higher. Let's remember that those of us who are watching
the image of the global village in the cosmic mirror are plunged into a
whole new world vision that gives us in some way the means to cross the
divide between our present day land of folly and the promised land of
consciousness that sits across this bridge leading to the future.
We artists have to cross this bridge, we have to go toward the future
but we should permanently remember that the parapets on the bridge are
our only protection from falling into the absurd and we should remember
that those parapets are made of solid knowledge...
3.
About form and content.
I do not believe one instant that technical skills or mastery in one
technique are automatically conferring artistic qualities. Saying that
technical mastery confers automatically artistic qualities to a work
would be like saying that physical beauty in a person is what makes a
person beautiful. We all know that a beautiful person has a lot more to
offer than her physical beauty. But let us not fall in the absurd
again, it is also clear that the absence of technical mastery will
never allow a work to become a work of art on the merit of its content
alone. We all know that an interesting person does not necessarily
render a person beautiful but we all also know that an interesting
person that is physically beautiful is undoubtedly a beautiful person.
In other words, an artist has to possess some mastery in his technique
in order to express himself with ease. How could one
without technical
mastery be able indeed to express himself unhindered?
Mastery I believe
is to be understood as the result of practice not necessarily of
schooling because schooling without practice will never procure
mastery. I furthermore think that mastery is the result of a process
combining work, experience and personal internal maturation.
From my personal experience, I deduct that
content and technique have
to be blend into art form. What I mean to say here is that
whatever technique
is being used to express whatever content, the resulting work must be
harmonious. Harmony is indeed the general state of our universe, of our
cosmos, and as particles of dust that we are in our universe we can't
but make do at the image of the whole that contains us.
A work of art should thus reflect this harmony,
this is not to say that
a work of art must be beautiful, many things in our universe are not
necessarily beautiful but they are always harmonious.
Here we reach the true meaning of style. How to
keep up with the
harmony of our universe? I discovered that "will", I mean this
desire
from the brain to reach something, is rigidifying. In other words
"will" is a
reflection of our greed and of our desires all human
feeblenesses.
Greed and desires create disharmony that reflect
in our
painting or in anything we do.
The only way I personally know of to keep harmonious lines,
forms and colors is to
let go all "will"
and to accept what comes in full humility. Meditation
greatly helps.
Meditation is accomplished in a context of
retreat deep inside oneself,
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 and all its component particles you are part of it and
everything shines with clarity.
After meditation comes the sign. Having sensed
reality we want to share
our perception with the others around us. Generally words fail us and
we recoursce to signs, simple mental images conveying the sense of what
we want to share.
In animist societies, shaman, men of knowledge
were initiated by their
benefactors to the art of seeing reality. With the help and under the
influence of psychotrops, they learned to reach out to the ONE for
gaining understanding of the working of the daily realities of their
tribes. Their initiation was completed when they could enter into
contact with the ONE at will at which time they used signs to share
their worldview with the other tribe members. Carvings, paintings and
decorations of those times integrate the signs of the worldview spread
by their men of knowledge.
In the religious times of the gods, priests and
monks were initiated to
the creed that they would later preach to their brethren. The spreading
of their worldview was realized through signs and words (manuscripts
with illiminations), painted images, sculptures,...
In the early stage of capitalism, paintings were
commissionned to
represent the new notion of individual property. The new rich and
entrepreneurial aristocracy wanted to adorn their walls with the local
landscapes of their mansions and castles and also their portraits.
Those paintings became the signs of their property and individuality.
By the end of the 19th century, the signs start
turning to the
individuality of the creator himself and by mid twentieth century we
all had lost the meaning, the sense of what signs are all about.
Here we are now, entangled into this perplexing
and troublesome
situation of total absence of meaning. But I think that we should
rejoice at the knowledge of our conscience of this absence. This is, I
believe, the turning point where, or should I say when, we start to
search for the deep sense of our reality in the making. Artists can
then transform this understanding into signs for all to contemplate.
Meditation, no doubt about it, is clearly one of the greatest ways to
discover ourselves and then find out about what all around us is all
about so that we finally can make sense out of our reality and thus
discover the signs making sense of our times.
4.
The Artsense collection of acrylics.
My Artsense collection of acrylics is a first shot at making sense of
our reality in the making. My
painting is indeed to be understood as an essay at rendering my
personal
vision of the coming worldview in post-modern societies. In other
words, knowledge (scientific and philosophic) is what drives my image
making.
If you are interested to dwell more deeply into
the subjects that I
sketched here above check my book Artsense.