Art by Will Paradis

Yesterday I learned something that has a direct impact on the construction of Art History. Watching a documentary on abstract Art, I was introduced to the name Hilma Af Klint, a women from Sweden who was Theosophist born in 1862. By 1907, she was painting abstracted shapes and forms that she claimed were diagrams of the spiritual realities she discovered through her theosophical search. Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon was finished in 1907, which is considered a representational segue into the birth of abstraction. Her work, while not in the Artistic tradition of those history has come to consider great painters, predates the pure abstractions of Kandinsky, the accepted founder of abstract Art. And yet I never studied her, not even a mention, in my years as an active student of painting.

In the show I watched, the narrator highlighted her disconnect to the greater Artistic world as her works were the spiritual searches of a mystic and not the compositional searches of an Artist, but that dismissal of the Artistic importance of her work seems stiflingly academic. As Giordano Bruno, a monk, should be studied in association with space travel, so should Klint be studied in the development of the Avant Gard. Her greater spiritual awakenings foretold the development of Art away from the image or physical representation, as Bruno’s spiritual awakenings opened up a larger universe for the discoveries of science. And certainly, she channels the medieval Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, another under-celebrated clairvoyant spiritual Artist.

I still know little about Hilma Klint. She is said to have written over 150 journals describing her spiritual quest. The one early, naturalistic painting shows Artistic sense, talent, and some degree of education. Her work is very geometric, balanced and evocative. It speaks of concepts beyond words yet they are diagrams of real ideas. I don’t know if she was known to the Artists who opened the flood gates of abstraction; there are a great deal of similarities in some of what I have seen to the works of Paul Klee twenty years later. Often discoveries are made simultaneously but geographically and philosophically independent of each other.

I am not sure why she is less known, even to Artists, than she is. There was more distinctions between endeavors in her day, perhaps, to say that as her focus was on Theosophy and therefore her contributions to Art are sequestered under that guise. There is precedent for using symbols and arrangements of forms to represent ideas or graph concepts (the Venn diagram, the color wheel, the Chakras) and coupled with the newness of abstraction as an idea relative to Art, not to mention ever festering misogyny, it may not be surprising after all that this explorer has gone under the radar.

I am grateful not only to have learned of a person from our past that might enhance our future, but for the chance to be humbled by the ever changing realities of history. Facts are fleeting. Even the laws of physics get changed and modified as we continue to grow and learn. I hope there are other Artists that pop up which challenge our view of history and how Art evolved. We need to be humbled in order to grow together.

4/29/18 – This evening, I get to teach a painting workshop about abstract Art. I must say I am very excited about this class. I have never taught a workshop that is centered around abstraction and a desire to learn more about that specific focus in Art. I feel like I have been preparing for this class for 20 years or so. Of all the different subjects I have taught, this might be the most important.

I allege that we as a culture have not yet come to terms with abstraction and the power it wields. We are still, largely, tied to the representative image in our main vocabulary or understanding of painting. We have made strides of the century, but there is still so much to be learned about Art through the application of abstraction.

I attest that abstraction engages another part of the brain that representational recognition does not. It engages the eyes, heart, mind, emotions, and all of the other things that are affected by Art with the language of cognition. To understand abstraction is to understand a universe beyond our own ideas.

In addition to sharing this class and my ideas on the subject with others, I am grateful for this opportunity to better articulate and understand my own relationship with abstraction. I appreciate the opportunities to grow that are offered by teaching…

4/4/18

I am deeply concerned about the divisiveness of our current culture. Whether it be NRA members ridiculing adolescent tragedy survivors or progressives calling people “ignorant assholes” for daring to explore the concept of a spirit animal, this “my way or the highway” attitude of social communion causes subconscious walls to be built up against understanding and harmony as well as begs the question of who has the absolute authority to dictate anything.   Why do sides need to be formed in order to spread understanding, isn’t that counter-intuitive? No one has all the answers, and no one person ever will. If we are going to save the planet and the human spirit from disease and destruction we need to learn how not to insult and hate on each other, especially when we feel at odds.

I look at painting and I see answers to our problems. i see entities of all different colors shapes and sizes working together. I see subtle support strokes and dramatic scene dominating marks both find their communal place in the balance of harmony. I see cooperation and intrigue, simultaneous oneness and celebration of the singularity. I see even marks and colors that are no longer visible to the naked eye serve their place as foundations of the visible composition. I see the living and the remembered in unison in the universe. And throughout the painting process and its subsequent energy radiates love. We can learn so much about how to better come together as people through the evolution of Art…

I have come to view Art as an ever radiating sphere, somehow uniting everyone in some way as Art effects everyone in some way. But that does not mean that all Art has the same gravity. Painting, as far as we know, came first, as has a distinct magic that exists in its explorations and evolutions to this day. With the break from narrative and objectivity that happened in the early part of the 20th century, painting’s potential for the discovery of yet unknown realities grew exponentially.

At its core, Art is a quest down the rabbit whole of Reality to better understand existence, the opposite side of the coin to science perhaps. Art as narrative, as illustration, as expression, all come from that, and have varying gravities connected to their relevance to that core search. The works of Michelangelo have more gravity, more power in the truth of their creation than say a superhero comic, not because of the subjective way we might relate to these respective Arts but because of the breakthroughs in achievement and understanding generated by the work itself despite its meaning, representation, or narrative. That said, more people in the world know the name and stories of Batman, or Superman, or even Bart Simpson, than Michelangelo. Societal or cultural impact does not in and of itself represent the gravity of Artwork. Ask Van Gogh, whose works had no impact at all in his own time. Now, you can’t even walk into a dentist’s office without seeing a print of Sunflowers or Starry Night (I have a problem with Art prints, as they detract from the singularity of the painting/painter relationship, but that is another subject.)

The sphere of Art inherently unites the subjective and the objective in their respective places, in order that Art may maintain its deep core power and still speak in some way to everyone.