'Abstract Art' — Is It Art?

Rasp

Senior Editor
[From: The Odinist, no. 27 (1977)]


"ABSTRACT ART" — Is It Art ?


Our answer to that question is an energetic NO!

"Abstract art" is a juggling about with concepts carried over from technology that rightfully belong to science. The initial momentum in that direction was photography. The shock of the lens of the camera - a mechanical eye - being able to register reality more accurately; then the human eye and hand unsettled the objectives of painting where they were understood as a reproduction, of reality. The conviction gained ground that art was 'competing' with photography in 'copying' nature, and the artist, in search of 'new' impulses, wandered off into the wi1derness of modernism where he got lost.

Many things got lost in that wilderness, of course, among them the meaning of life. And what, after all, is so important about art having lost its objectives as compared to life having lost its meaning?

But, as art has always been the high mark of human achievement, moving 'abstract art' into the right perspective may help put other things there along with it.

To begin with, the term 'modern' is, in itself, a contradiction as applied to art. For the essence of art is timelessness. At least it has been so in our culture for several thousand years. Man's concepts of the world may change - through sight extended and insight deepened, or, conversely, through sight blinded and insight annihilated. But the world as phenomena does not change unless it is destroyed. And what the 'abstract' painter portrays is indeed a world destroyed - within himself.

For as desperately as he sought to avoid imitating nature, just as desperately did he seek to imitate science by basing his craft, as did science, upon abstraction. Thereby he did not inject a new meaning but an alien element - rationalism - into art whose essense of life is feeling. Paradoxically, on his flight from the camera, the 'modern artist' fell under the spell of technology, the daemonic spirit of the age. For this then was truly 'new': the behind-the-scene look of science and the mechanical marvels it produced.


TIME - TICKING AWAY


But bred therein, automatically, was modern man's obsession with time as the rhythm of life was, more and more, overpowered by the mechanical rhythm of the machine. Thus modern man lost all ability to relate to timelessness. An ever growing majority whose sense of timelessness had been bound to Christianity turned to atheism and sought a substitute in science. But science, while it works with eternal laws, is not concerned with their wonder — though the individual scientist on his journey of discovery may be overwhelmed by it. Science is concerned with knowledge which in turn translates timeless laws into activities whose measure is time. And if modern man is endlessly involved with anything, it is new inventions, the latest and quickly replaced still later models of mechanics. Living in cities that are no longer centers of culture but market places manoeuvred by high finance, compelled to move at an ever faster pace, he can ill 'afford' to 'waste time' with things that are timeless and therefore 'useless' because they 'do not pay off.' And in a society where 'time is money' because it is 'of the essence,' lifetime itself becomes a ceaseless chase after time related objects and objectives. To ponder things that are not of time is not part of a curriculum designed to 'kill time.'

Hence for modern man to be concerned with something so inconsistent with time as art - which to a true artist is not a commitment of time but one of self and of life - is to live outside the time-frame of the present. This to him can only mean to live in the past with which he 'is done,' while the future can mean no more than a still more powerful explosion of time in the face of life.

But with his sense of timelessness modern man has lost his gods. For gods are the conceptualized reality of eternal values and from them, as a state of consciousness, evolve all the arts - including life itself if moulded by a feeling-awareness that is not of time.

Inevitably, tragedy must result from man having lost his gods, for with them he loses the ground upon which stands his inner self.

But the more independent man becomes of god - mythological or however conceptualized the more he has need to firm his ground, to discover the god within himself. And he can do this only by calling up those values - timeless and unchanging - from which gods have ever been fashioned in the changing concepts of man, their 'abstract' forms in fact manifesting the ideals of the race. This would compel him to re-discover, employ and thereby activate the all-creative indwelling forces of the universe, thereby himself becoming a force of creation in the beautification of the self and of his world.

But what, as a consequence of the broken inner world of the 'abstract artist' happened on canvas was chaos. And if his work is not understood, then because man is not meant to reason chaos but order, and if it is rejected because it is ugly, then because man is inspired not by ugliness but by beauty.


THE 'MODERN ARTIST' A FAILURE?


The 'abstract artist' could, of course, also be considered a failure. There are failures in every profession, and there are painters of 'traditional art' who are no more than craftsmen. Then again, if his "abstracts' were not a facade to hide lack of talent, engineering might have proven to be a more suitable career. However, abstract art has become too interwoven with the fabric of modern life to be merely a question of talent versus genius. And if it is, as is claimed, a reflection of modern life, then it provides excellent resource material for the study of what is wrong with the modern world.

Cubists illustrate this well enough when they speak of a 'yearning for realism which is felt in all modern work' (Gileizes & Metzinger on Cubism). 'Yearning' we can understand — but cubism as 'realism'? If 'realism' can even approximately be interpreted to mean reality, is there anything farther removed from reality than cubism or related 'isms' in modern art? And is not their total denigration of the human eye as the gateway of consciousness to visual reality the most glaring proof of their total alienation from reality and thus from life?

To answer that question, let us first ask:


WHAT IS AN ABSTRACTION?


As applied to science, an abstract idea is a thought reality, not an existing reality. It is phenomenon, isolated and stripped to its essentials and compressed into a principle or a formula. Thus, while expressing a truth that is imminent in reality, as a concept of truth it exists only in man's consciousness. As such, however, abstraction is the essence of scientific thought. Without it, science would not be possible for it allows men to comprehend — in thought — the operation, substance and expanse of the universe as law and as phenomena.

The application of knowledge gained through the process of abstract thinking made possible the overwhelming advance in all areas of science in the Western world. For the ability to think in abstract terms and the skill to translate these into utilitarian realities is primarily a capacity of Western Man.

This definition of abstraction obtains its validity from total objectivity, i.e. thought emptied of all emotional content. Knowledge thus acquired is open to the understanding of, and universally applicable by, all men provided only that they possess the required rational faculties. Where a truth under this definition cannot be finalized, it can be contested and proven false on established rules of objectivity in terms of reason.

But there is another definition for abstraction. It covers terms such as god, love, beauty, ethics, etc. This definition relates, as is quite obvious, to human forms of consciousness formulated into terms of speech. As an inner reality, its truth is and forever will be highly controversial because it cannot be compressed into formula, it can only be expressed in terms of human activity.

This definition has no claim to universal validity because its concepts are derived from feeling sources of the human soul and are therefore highly subjective. Deeply rooted in the subconscious they attain collective validity only where their meaning and understanding are implicit in the bio-cultural life development of a group. For here such concepts evolved from shared feeling-experiences of the group in response to a common environment and the interaction of its members in communication with each other. Such concepts are of necessity intricately bound up with the will to freedom as the need for self-being. While subject to revision in harmony with the inner growth process of the group, they are not open to universal insight but are, on the contrary, the most personal possession of a bio-culture, for they are the 'genes' of its spiritual life. Unlike scientific truth, cultural (in this instance, artistic) truth is extremely vulnerable. The only test of its validity is the assent of inner agreement that is not the result of intellectual debate but a pre-determined knowledge of the meaning of such concepts by right of birth as part of a common heritage. Goethe said it simply: "You are like to the spirit you comprehend." And the spirit, as we know today, is as much a matter of biology as is the body.

No greater harm can come to concepts derived from spiritual-emotional sources than subjection to the precision mechanism of reason. For then they are strangled by dogma or killed by distortion.


TRANSLATED INTO PRACTICE


At this stage in our history we realize only too well that advances in science leading to modern technology have not advanced the quality of life. We also know that this to a large extent is the result of the new technological wonders being exploited by human greed for aggrandizement of economic and political powers. But deterioration of cultural values also followed as a consequence of concepts now routinely accepted in science and economy, being transferred to the inner life sphere where it led to suffocation. 'Abstract art' is a primary example.

For here we come face to face with one of the boldest attempts to destroy Western culture through total negation of traditional art. What this means we can best determine by answering the question:


WHAT IS ART?


In simplest terms and echoing the testimony of all great artists, we would say that art is a manifestation of life in any of its manifold forms, born ever anew in the transcendence of man's consciousness. It has to be a mystical process. Mystical, because man himself was never to fully understand it, though all his ecstasies and agonies were therein contained. But in seeking, in thus being compelled to seek and so directing his yearning to the ultimate source of creation, the artist transcends the mystery of life's wonders, not by way of reason but by way of an inner experience. As his soul is set afire by a spark of inspiration from the eternal fires of the creative energies of the All, so his work is set aglow and a light struck upon the torch of time, revealing to men within time, their world transfigured in the element of timelessness. And as thus God becomes conscious in the soul of man, so does man become a god in the infinite process of creation.

But a work of art, while the fulfillment of an artist's yearning and executed under compulsion of creative energies demanding release, evolves yet in accord with the laws of the soul. Or does anyone imagine that the soul - as part of Cosmos - could live without its laws being invested therein? Man the creator has always known these laws as part of his kinship with creation, long ere science discovered them in the All and philosophers traced them in the human soul. They were his life - he knew no other. For only in their fulfillment did he find his freedom. But it is by these laws, operative in the larger soul of his people that he was yet bound - as part of their collective consciousness, a willed being and'a being willing to be what he was – the distilled essence of the genius of his people. He it is who forever articulates what the heart of his people feels but the tongue cannot utter.

And it is thus, through this higher form of communication, that 'traditional art' shapes the culture of a people. For so a people's higher values become a living presence among them.

But this form of communication is possible only through the natural channels of sensory perception coordinated to the inner senses as evolved in millions of years of bio-cultural processes.

Only thus will, at the artist's touch, spring to life the imagery that is the soul of a people's language but lives in all the arts as a higher form of consciousness. In all the periods of Western art, the artist, in the childlike simplicity of genius, has known (as Goethe knew) that:

"... if not sunlike were the eye,
never could it see the sun ..."​

and has experienced the coordination of inner-outer vision as a function of oneness in his oneness with the All.


AS THE GREEK SAW IT


What in the arts evolved from such coordinated vision was never a 'copy of nature.' Always, the hands of genius — sublimating all technique to his purpose — shapes from nature and the events of life that more-glorious-than-life reflection that is the marvel everywhere on any journey through Western art.

Leading us through the sanctuary of the beginnings of Western art in Early Greece, Bruno Snell in 'The Discovery of the Mind' lights the way to an understanding of its inner sources - in the Greeks, but also in all those who were to come after them.

"The gods [of the Greeks]," Snell writes, "do not derive from the cults, nor do they owe their origin to priestly speculation; they took shape in the songs of the poets, side by side with the company of the Achaean herpes ... Soon after the appearance of the Illiad and the Odyssey Greek sculptors begin to make their statues of the gods large and beautiful; the gods' images have houses built for them, not for the benefit of some secret cult or mystery, but merely as a fair home for a fair statue. In this manner the artists attempt to duplicate in stone the sentiments pronounced by the poet." In every way, the Greek Way was a natural one. Thus Snell: "Natural. What is the meaning of this word? The, natural first sees the light of day in the Homeric poems; its emergence involves an intimate connection between the life of man and the purpose of the gods. Because these gods do not use brute force and senseless terror in their contact with human life, it is free to unfold itself in accord with its own modest principles. The Greeks faced a meaningful and orderly world with admiration and peace of mind; they recognized the profit which lay in putting to work their hands, their eyes and above all their intellect. The beauty of the world was enticingly spread before them, promising to reveal its meaning and its disposition. Wonder and admiration, in an even wider sense than contemplated by Aristotle, issued in philosophy ... The Olympian gods were laid low by philosophy, but they lived on in the arts ... even the triumph of Christianity did not halt this trend. Finally, the rejuvenation which the gods experienced in the Renaissance also lay in the realm of the arts."

With Heraclitus the Olympian god-concept changed to become 'the ultimate goal of human knowledge in the conviction that man shares in divine knowledge ... as anchored in the depth of the soul." For, "I searched within myself," he said, and thus found that "visible signs are the means of attaining to the invisible ... for man is able to combine his sense perceptions and to make conjectures about the invisible." Hence, he "urges men to be watchful, and pay heed to what nature has to say."

These excerpts, scanty though they are, yet indicate the course European art was to follow. Indeed, art under Christianity was the only safe way to express a relationship with nature and the godhood as it was felt not as it was taught to be. Not only did the greatest objects of art continue to be identical with the human form (although they were to become more expressive), but the Oriental characters of the bible were likened to European racial ideals (thereby no doubt making the acceptance of the alien gods less painful).


AND NOW: AS AN "ABSTRACT ARTIST" SEES IT


For comparison we quote from an essay by Naum Gabo on Cubism in "The Constructive Idea in Art."

Gabo writes, "Cubism was a revolution. It was directed against the fundamental basis of Art. All that was before holy and intangible for an artistic mind, namely, the formal unity of the external world, was suddenly laid down on their canvases, torn in pieces and dissected as if it were a mere anatomical specimen ... The contours of the external world which served before as the only guides to an orientation in it were erased; even the necessity for orientation lost its importance and was replaced by other problems, those of exploration and analysis ... That is why a Cubist painting seems like a heap of shards from a vessel exploded from within ... Although the Cubists still regarded the external world as the point of departure for their Art, they did not see and did not want to see any difference between, say, a violin, a tree, a human body, etc. All those objects were for them only one extended matter with a unique structure and only this structure was of importance for their analytic task. It is understandable that in such an artistic concept of the world the details must possess unexpected dimensions and the parts acquire the value of entities, and in the inner relations between them the disproportion grows to such an extent that all inherited ideas about harmony are destroyed."

Except to refer the reader to the intellectual acrobatics performed by the 'abstract art' critics of the day, what better confirmation could we find for our contentions?


SCIENCE AND ART


The Greeks knew that the arts and science issued from the same source of human consciousness. It was they who, after all, created not only the foundation for European art but for empirical science. Thus Xenophanes: "Truly the gods have not revealed to mortals all things from the beginning, but by long seeking do men discover what is better."

But the search begun by the Greeks, which indeed led to the 'Discovery of the Mind,' was brought to an abrupt halt by Christianity, not to be resumed until the 'Enlightenment' period, rooting in the 15th Century as a natural reaction of Western Man to the Dark Ages. Now science became the bitter antagonist of religion. For religion was not, as with the Greeks, the source of wonder that inspired intellectual curiosity and sent 'men seeking.' Instead, religion became estranged from the search for truth as its suppressor, and so was lost the intimacy of its relationship to reason so natural even to Aristotle. But as the arts for centuries had been largely identified with religion (as Christianity), they themselves now became suspect in the cold rational atmosphere of reason. And the rift that developed between science and religion caused science and the arts to fall apart as well. They diverged along separate routes, with science claiming unchallenged authority in the realm of truth, and the arts subjected to a new interpretation of 'reality.'

Two disturbing factors evolved from this interpretation for Western life: the materialism of the age and the realization that science leaves unanswered the ultimate truths of existence.

And so now the spiritual values buried beneath the avalanche of materialism clamour to be once more brought to the surface. A restive mood pervades the minds of men, urging them to go 'seeking to discover what is better.'

What could be more logical then than to retrace our steps and begin by re-assessing what first allowed man to assess the world about him: the human eye, leading to insight even as it provided him with sight and indispensable in the creation of the plastic arts?


THE FUNCTION OF THE EYE


This, as everyone knows, is to convey knowledge of an image within the range of vision and its qualities to the brain. Its first function at the primal level was to serve that purpose to which all functions of the animal organism are attuned: self-preservation. It apprised the animal of approaching danger, the proximity of food, a mating partner, etc. Thus the sight of an object acted upon the brain like a signal evoking an instinctive reaction in response to physical needs. Hence the ability to see at this stage served purely pragmatic objectives.

This function was, of course, retained in the human eye. It allowed man to see what he was about, whether confronted with friend or foe, to generally judge distances and discern distinctive shapes of phenomena. But with the overall expanse of consciousness, its importance grew relative to man's diverse capacities. A visualized object fell, so to speak, into a well of thought and emerged as a concept. Then, as man, in an ever broadening perceptiveness, became aware of the limitations of the eye to penetrate into realities intuition prompted him to visualize from within, the telescope and the microscope became extensions of the sense of sight. He was then able to see beyond his normal range of vision into a world so fantastic as to make reality itself appear 'unreal.'

Thus the eye and its extended mechanisms were indispensable instruments in the development of science through man's capacity to think. And eventually thinking was able to move into areas of knowledge detached from and beyond all sight.

That the world now seen through the eyes of science should evoke revolutions in the thinking of men and shake old concepts with the violence of earthquakes was a natural consequence. What, in fact, was reality? — Was it what man saw within the bounds of his natural vision or that which he could not see? In this new quest for truth, the mechanism of the eye itself was questioned. Why was its sight so restricted? Did not even the eagle have superior vision?

But the counsel of widom prevailed over questioning reason. It saw that truly life would be impossible in a world seen with microscopic eyes. Phenomena, whether plant, beast or man, could not be recognized in their finite forms and, as a whirling mass of atoms, lose all identity in relation to each other.

It was from this unsettling disclosure of a seeming disparity between the seen and the unseen reality of phenomena that 'modern art' gained many of its impulses, leading straigjht into the bondage of technology. And as the world was now conditioned to reject the past with its 'old' values and eagerly embrace what was new as 'better,' scheming vendors of desert ancestry soon created a profitable market for these 'nouveaux objects d'art' however ibecilic.

Today, enough light is shed upon the subject that only disorientation of mind, lack of artistic capacity or malicious intent are plausible reasons for further applauding the hoax of 'abstract art.'

For the simple truth is long acknowledged that man's sense of sight is coordinated to reality as it is meaningful to him.

And, of course, it is meaningful not only to discriminate between the useful and the harmful, but between the beautiful and the ugly. Yet, while the eye is the window of the soul to the world, judgment is not a function of the eye but issues from a value system evolved in the soul that has passed through many refining processes in the overall cultural evolution of a race. Archaeologists have everywhere unearthed evidences of this process. Measures or standards of beauty organically developed as a lived part of life were filed away as 'reference material' in the subconscious catalogues of the mind, allowing man to respond instinctively to what was beautiful as a way of 'seeing with feeling.' Thus beauty became typified in the ideals of the race, the inner spiritual ideals corresponding to the outer physical image. The Greeks, for example, did not idealize the beauty of another race, they fashioned it in the image of their own. Christianized Western Europe, did not formulate an alien godship in the image of its Oriental origin but shaped it in the most idealistic form of Western Man.

'Seeing with feeling' no doubt had its impact on the development of feeling itself, deepening sensibilities that in time emerged as the passion of dedication to beauty demonstrated for thousands of years in the gigantic creation of Western art.

From these overall considerations two factors come into focus: One, that in the dawn of their birth the different races of man learned to 'see things with different eyes' and, two, that this feeling-sense of seeing became a genetic component in the identity complex of its respective race. Therefore the difference in the shapes of the cultures of the races that comprise man.


THE TREE, SEEN BY A SCIENTIST AND AN ARTIST


But 'seeing with reason' was a cultural development exclusively Western. Since the Age of Enlightenment, when reason divorced itself from feeling, science and the arts developed into ever more distinct and independent entities. But in either case the organ of sight, the eye, retains its importance as the mind's means of entry into the world, bringing into focus not only what is seen but how a thing is seen.

Continuing with the function of the eye and to illustrate how perfectly valid either way of seeing is - whether with reason or with feeling - let us examine a scientist's and an artist's approach to a tree - that archetypal form of life so significant in the mythology of our folk.

The scientist's concern with the tree, though he may be fully aware of its beauty, is its functional purpose. He wants to know what 'makes a tree tick.' Therefore he will dismember it, cut the trunk, uncover and study the root system in relation to the tree's height, the expanse of its crown and the conditions of soil, pondering the mechanism of nourishment and the manufacture of chlorophyl. The results of his study will be borne off to efficiently operating laboratories for further industrial and economic study, today also including the eco-system.

The artist mayor may not be aware of the organism of the tree as an object of utility. But he will not see it as such. If indeed he is an artist, he will absorb the tree into his soul as a lover absorbs the loved one into himself. And what appears on canvas or paper is not that tree rooted in yonder glen but a tree rooted in the artist's love of beauty - a tree he has created, a tree become his own – a wonder of nature experienced and reborn in the wonder of the human heart and the skill of human hands.

Thus the tree enters into possession of the scientist as knowledge in terms of reason. It is made the artist's own through an inner event in terms of feeling.

In either case their vision takes them beyond the sense of sight. The scientist sees the microscopic and functional realities of the tree that are moreover discernible as part of a universal system of natural law. His search remains rooted, however, as does the tree, in the physical existence of reality.

The artist's sight transcends its earthly existence to its roots in the Infinite; thereby his own self is experienced as rooted in the Soul of all Being. But a subject so seen and known cannot suffer to be 'abstracted.' Involuntarily, as a force of his creative genius, the artist - neither abstracting nor subtracting from the tree – ADDS to it the colour of his transcendent experience, thus lending to his subject a life of its own and elevating it from the ordinary to the extraordinary of his personality.


THE TEST OF TRUTH


Yet, although scientist and artist differ in their ways of seeing, one law binds them both: Truth. Neither can present what is not true and proclaim it to be valid without destroying a measure of the truth within the Whole Truth as it lives in Nature. For the scientist the test of truth lies in empiricism. For the artist it lies in the simple fact that his work 'must make sense' however lofty its theme to those of 'like spirit.'

But as their vision and their terms of reference differ, so does their language. - Science speaks in terms of formulae related to empirical fact; art speaks in terms of imagery related to mysticism. In either case, however, communication involves both the outer sense of sight and the inner sense of understanding as related to natural phenomena.

A scientist, penetrating into the mysteries of phenomena, formulating his knowledge in the abstract language of his profession, does not thereby violate the sanctity of the truth of nature. He reveals not only the wonders of nature but those of the human mind. Consider but the marvel that scientists can count atoms invisible even to the microscopic eye; know that the electrons of lithium vibrate 10http://www.newnation.co/

forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1821&stc=1&d=1284491830 times per second, one second measured at 10http://www.newnation.co/

forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1820&stc=1&d=1284491821 seconds per year representing 3000 years; or, in the macroscopic world can analyze substances in stars light years away from earth. — (How scientific knowledge is processed by pseudo-scientists or technicians in the service of exploitive greed is, of course, another story. We need think only on the link between knowledge of the structure of the atom and the construction of the atomic bomb, or the effects of engineering upon the human condition in modern cities. All of which would require a separate essay to show the connection between Western science and alien-minded usurpers!)

But the transfer of concepts from science to the arts is not merely a misuse of the application of knowledge gained in noble pursuits. It effects as complete an anarchy in the arts as would result in science if suddenly the poets were determined and permitted to write mathematical formulae in their own language!

Thus all considerations lead to this central insight: Art is the creation of life (nature) through Life (consciousness). What the eyes observe through the microscope, what beyond all sight is yet made visible through intuition and imagination, is the perpetually moving rhythm of life. This rhythm lives - visibly - in the movement of the stars and the oceans; in the mists that rise and fall, in the ballet of birds in the sky, and in all the comings and goings of flowers and snows. And it pervades man totally in body and in soul. Therefore his feeling of oneness with nature as a rhythmic movement - the dance of life; therefore his exuberance in the flowing back and forth between himself and another living thing or a loved one; therefore his desire to catch the fleeting moment of beauty - to create and hold forever its timeless spirit - in an image on canvas, in a poem, in a song. For so does he know the joy of life, a translucent light that lets him see things even as the gods had wanted them to be seen! Therefore his rejection of what is mechanical in the arts. For these are the things built from abstractions - things from which life died to become formulae therewith to build things that 'work' but do not live! Therefore a technological design, however brilliant its conception and fascinating for the intellect, is not a work of art but a creation from the sources of reason for perfectly valid purposes of utility. But distortions of reality dragged into the arts under the guise of 'abstractions' are a dead weight, incredulous, alien to both science and the arts, and offensive to the spirit that generates art.

For it was given to man to see the world with his eyes, to listen with his ears, and thus to live in a world of which he is part and apart from which he cannot live. Whatever knowledge he may gather within or beyond the range of his senses, he cannot experience it other than as a human being. His eyes have not become microscopes or telescopes, the laws that govern life have not changed. He has come to know them better, to apply them - not always wisely. Throughout it all he is what aeons of selective processes of evolution - biological and cultural - have made him - that singular part of nature that is man and as such a part of nature still.

Thus, while such thoughts may seem anachronistic, they are in fact the elemental structure of human life: a movement spanned between the Earth and the Godhood as the poles of existence, in constant interaction with the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown.

Where either of these poles have been removed as no longer needed, there man has lost touch with reality which is both phenomena and its essence, and which to comprehend man was given two faculties fundamental to his existence: Reason and Feeling. But it seems that in this modern world man has removed both poles and moves in a vacuum far from Earth and from God.


AND THE FUTURE?


A renaissance in the arts, a return to reason in technology and a balanced interaction of both is not possible until man in himself once more knows the meaning of greatness. As yet the way to greatness is barred to the majority of our people. For modern man, shut away in his vacuum, is kept pre-occupied with things little and vile and with evil that is big.

Psychologists have made a horror chamber of the human soul. Financial wizards fill the mind with calculations spacing out all but the magic sign of the dollar (or its equivalent). The vulgarity of the gutter motivates writers and playwrights. Crime and sensation grip the imagination of the 'ordinary' man. Greatness, where it dares utter a word of truth is assassinated, forced into meaningless wars or otherwise out of existence. Inspiration is bought from the vendor of drugs or pornography, and idealism finds room only in agencies for 'foreign aid.'

And yet there live, in hidden bypaths far from the madding crowd, those heroes of the arts that dare defy the modernism of the age. They call themselves realists because they 'paint it like it is' - Andrew Wyatt, Ken Danby, Alex Colville are names that come to mind, and the environmentalist Glen Loates. Then there is Ernest Lindner who came from Vienna to find his true home among the knarled old trees of the forests of Northern Saskatchewan. His 'canvas trees' live as did and still do those in Turner's (17th Century) landscapes. Different in form but kindred in spirit - real and not to be mistaken for anything but trees, but trees with a personality as the gift of the artist to posterity!

In their works, what moves us is not the realistic technique that seeks oneness with nature, but a dramatic expression of nostalgia. For the past? No - for a return to the self that is now lost but was the celebrant of life through the ages when it was not 'discrimination' to proclaim the identity of the self. And indeed therein lies the secret of "Paradise Lost" — for paradise is where man knows life as the harmony of the self correlated to the harmony of the All, within the extended community of the self.

Gabrielle Roy, the French Canadian author, said it well. Speaking of the early French settlement in St. Boniface, a suburb of Winnipeg, she said: "We worked in English and came home to French. We played in French, we prayed in French, we laughed in French. We wept in French. And now St. Boniface from the outside, you would say it was English ... Almost I dare not say it, but French there now seems to be only a matter of culture, not life."

But, oh, the French! - you may say - what problems they cause! True, unfortunately, because what lives here as a human reality is being sidetracked, diverted into a political football. Yet underneath, there it is: the stirring nostalgic yearning to return to one's self, to culture as a way of life; not as a decoration on the outside fringes of life turned into a cage of alien concepts where there can be no freedom because there are no doors that open to the inner self.

But there are escape routes to this inner self and we must find them. For only in knowing it can we understand the meaning of tradition as the renewal experience of the self in the bio-socio-cultural continuity of our Race.

Thus we can see links between the sculptures of the Early Greeks and Rodin, between the sketches of Da Vinci and Dürer, between the landscape paintings of Millet and Krieghoff. But we can see no link whatsoever to Western art of the 'works' of Chagall.

For Chagall is an example of the intrusion of an alien spirit that calls itself 'new' and 'modern' because it has no inner relationship to what is 'old' and 'traditional' in Western art. It does not know and never can know the nature of our self-being.

And thus, in this final example, we see 'abstract art' de-masked as what it is today: one of innumerable tools applied under pressure of media-pursuasion to de-personalize the identity of the Western Soul! Not art, but an instrument of destruction.

[Helgar]
 

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TOYNBEE ON ART


We have wilfully cast out of our souls the great masters who have been the familiar spirits of our forefathers; and while we have been wrapped in self-complacent admiration of the spiritual vacuum that we have created, a Tropical African spirit in music and dancing and statuary has made an unholy alliance with a pseudo-Byzantine spirit in painting and bas-relief and has entered in to dwell in a house which it found swept and garnished. The decline is not technical in origin but spiritual. In repudiating our own Western tradition of art and thereby reducing our faculties to a state of inanition and sterility in which they seize upon the exotic and primitive art of Dahomey and Benin as though this were manna in the wilderness, we are confessing before all men that we have forfeited our spiritual birthright. Our abandonment of our traditional artistic technique is manifestly the consequence of some kind of spiritual breakdown in our Western Civilization; and the cause of this breakdown evidently cannot be found in a phenomenon which is one of its results.
 
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