Abstract Art And The Spirit 1
It has been a long and raging arguement that the abstract
expressionists of the 50's, 60's and 70's were very busy
contemplating their own navels and trying to find the "zen" in
everything they did.
I would argue that they were in fact just one very important
example of the hungry sleep-drugged soul seeking a way to be
heard. However, many artsists of those times, and indeed today,
would flatly deny anything remotely to do with spiritual things
- or worse still - religious things.
Take, for instance, one of my favourites - Mark Rothko. This
tragic artist committed himself to the task of producing massive
canvases with many vaguely resembling the outline of a window -
especially an after image once the eye has closed. His vast
expanses of colour seemed to hunt out a corner or edge in a
desperate attempt to complete, or conclude, the picture. Not
satisfied with that he went on to give up titling his work
saying that he did not want to influence the onlooker in any
way. Ironically he failed ... and sadly took his own life. For
me his works speak of wonderful tantilizing clues visually
demonstrating the struggling spirit seeking (and succeeding!) in
revealing herself - now that is real influence! Let me explain
by an apparently unrelated route:
I seek to assist my own spirit in attempting to make manifest
even the tiniest, most pathetic, weakest fact that the spirit in
us all is not only just trying to communicate with us - but is
in fact actively seeking to set the whole human balance right
... which is the spirit leading the mind and body back to her
source - not the other way round - the mind and body leading the
blinded soul to ... well, eventually death.
Not so long ago I came across the writings of Meister Eckhart, a
fourteenth century Christian mystic. His words amazed me. He
described in his many sermons what he believed to be the truth
as to why we are here. He also revealed many tantilizing
"images" of the spirit from the least angelic being right up to
God Himself. His descriptions were ... how can I put it simply?
... abstract!
In one of his sermons he described God as ... "unknowable" ...
"not able to be understood" ... "undefinable". In another he
made a statement (one of many which may have contributed to him
being accused of heresy!) "People say God exists ... God does
not exist ... " left out of context that would be a truly
blasphemous assertion. But he went on to say that "... God is
far greater ... God is beyond existance". These and many other
controversial sayings have impressed me so much that I have come
to "see" God as an abstract entity - not, I hasten to add, an
anarchic abstract form - but rather a God far more powerful, far
more greater - than I can imagine ... in other words totally
undefinable. Rather than this putting a distance between me and
God, it has done exactly the opposite. And when Eckhart began to
describe the life of Christ in an almost completely abstract way
- Eckhart said that Christs life was the greatest example of the
seeking and finding the uncreated source of the pure soul - my
imagination began to run like a film of frenzied obscure
visuals. Eckhart has become, to me, the patron saint of abstract
artists.
The beauty of Eckharts enigmatic words are intensely inspiring.
What better way to illustrate his poetic writings than to
describe Gods "isness" in the very basic form of a gigantic flat
area of one saturated colour untainted by anythingelse.
Strangely enough this could be part of an exact description from
one of Rothko's immense, sometimes almost monochromatic,
paintings.
But this is by no means the whole story ... one of Eckhart's
contradictions said that on the one hand God is totally
unapproachable, yet at the same time God is actually very, very
approachable ...
However, that is another article.