Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tl00255)

Hi Eiichi,

My weekend turned out to be busier than I thought.  My philosophy is that
when there is an opportunity to have fun, do it!

To continue with our Mondrian discussion.  BTW, I think your apostrophes
show up as funky letters on the Theos-L.  I'll try to edit out as much of
it as I could.

Eiichi:
>A semiotist Victor A. Grauer finds similarity between Mondrian's
>dialectic and Adorno's 'negative dialectic'. (Victor A. Grauer,
>'Mondrian and the Dialectic of Essence', Art Criticism, Vol. 11, No. 1,
>State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY,1996, n. 65
>pp. 25-26 ). So I am interested in Adorno's 'negative dialectic'.
>Zuidervaart explains Adorno's 'negative dialectic' in the book (Lambert
>Zuidervaart, 'Adorno's Aesthetic Theory: The Redemption of Illusion',
>The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1991,
>p.48) :
>
>"Adorno's arguments are dialectical in the sense that they highlight
>unavoidable tensions between polar oppositions whose opposition
>constitutes their unity and generates historical change. The dialectic
>is negative in the sense that it refuses to affirm any underlying
>identity or final synthesis of polar oposites, even though Adorno
>continually points to the possibility of reconciliation. The main
>oppositions occur between the particular and the universal and between
>culture in a narrow sense and society as a whole."
>
>and quote:
>
>"It [Adorno's dialectical aesthetic] deals with reciprocal relations
>between universal and particular where the universal is not imposed on
>the particular 'but emerges from the dynamic of particularities
>themselves."
>
>The similarity is quite evident when the above passage from Zuidervaart's
>book is compared to a statement Mondrian put  forward (below)
>regarding the individual and the universal:
>
>Subjectivity remains subjective, but it diminishes in the measure that
>objectivity (the universal) grows in the individual.
>
>To understand Mondrian's style of thinking and his idiomatic terminology
>and turn of phrase, familiarity with the special kind of'dialectic' in
>his dualistic arguments is requisite. An example which typifies Mondrian's
>operation of dialectical logic can be found in 'Liberation from
>Oppression in Art and Life' (1939-40) where he relates:
>
>"In the present moment, oppression is so clearly evident that everyone
>must regard it as one of the greatest evils. But does everyone see this
>evil in its real significance, in its positive and negative factors?
>'Human life is oppressed by internal causes both physical and moral'
>as well as by external factors. It is necessary to fight against both.
>All that can help us to understand the evils of oppression is useful to
>present and future. Therefore, it is essential to demonstrate that
>plastic art can help to clarify this evil.  We can conclude that plastic
>art shows a double action  manifested in life and in art: an action of
>decay and an action of growth, a progress of intensification and
>determination of the fundamental aspect of forms, and a decay through
>the reduction of their external aspect."
>
>In this example of Mondrian's perception of dichotomy, in this case
>'internal causes vs. external causes', it is a dichotomy not of conflict
>'each element juxtaposed against the other' but of a dialectical
>complexion. In Mondrian's dialectical dichotomy, one element can
>transform the other by means of clarifying the discrimination between
>both elements. And also I found common attitude facing things between
>Mondrian and Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein said somewhere (sorry I do not
>remember the reference ) something like this: I find that my own voice
>is much more important than the other philosophers'." Both of them were
>independent thinkers. Recently I found W. J. T. Mitchell's book "Picture
>Theory" (The University of Chicago Press, 1994, ISBN: 0-226-53231-3)
>very interesting (but unfortunately I can not find enough time to finish
>the book). He is also Wittgensteian. I have also found a lot of
>interesting books or essays about rhythm. If you are interested in the
>theory of rhythm itself, I will be quite happy to introduce some of them
>to you.

Adorno's argument is very materialistic and rationalistic.  Are you using
the relation to Adorno as a way of drawing away from the mystical intent of
Mondrian's art?  I disagree that Adorno's rationalistic argument is similar
to Mondrian's.  In Adorno's argument, you have to see the particulars in
order to guess at the universal, instead of turning away from the
particulars and using intuition to turn to the universal, to something
hidden and beyond the particulars (mystical).  Basically, a rationalist
looks at the known things, while a mystic turns away from the material
world to look at the unknown.

As an example, take a look at what Mondrian said:

>Subjectivity remains subjective, but it diminishes in the measure that
>objectivity (the universal) grows in the individual.

That's a mystical, not a rationalist point of view.  As an example, let me
illustrate this relation to a yogic point of view.  Before the initiate
seriously practices yoga, s/he has a very subjective personal identity
reference.  By practicing yogic meditation, the core of the personal
reference is seen to be identical with universal being which brings about
the fundamental transformation of the personality, so that the person
eventually starts to become an embodiment of the universal.  For example,
now I can say I'm Thoa Tran, artist, I wake up in the morning, I practice
martial arts, etc., but after successful yogic practice, I realize that all
of my identity is just a shell.  I leave the worldly layer and look inward
to see who I really am.  I will see the interior light and realize that my
being is different than my personification of it.  Through that discovery,
I begin to touch the spiritual, becoming more compassionate, etc.

I reaffirm that Mondrian was not only trying to draw the universal down,
but he was also trying to use his art as a way to draw his inward
perception of self outward.  He also thought that if he could shape this
into cultural objects (and he was not alone in this endeavor), he could
help form a utopian society.

>There is some danger, I think, in describing Mondrian's mature style
>geometrical painting as 'mandala'. Because he was a practical painter as
>well and got a lot of influence from the other art movements, which is
>not necessarily correlate to some religion (for example, Cubism), and
>always seeked for the relationship between art and everyday life. In
>this sense he was also one of the same avant-gardists as Peter B$B]H(Jer's
>definition of 'avant-gardist'  He wrote:
>
>"The European avant-garde movements can be defined as an attack on the
>status of art in bourgeois society. What is negated is not an earlier
>form of art (style) but art as an institution that is unassociated with
>the life praxis of men." (B$B]S(Jger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde,
>Translation by Michael Shaw, Theory and History of Literature, Vol. 4,
>the University of Minnesota Press (Manchester University Press), 1984,
>p.49)
>
>But this view is refuted by Frederick R. Karl(Frederick R. Karl, Modern
>and Modernism: The Sovereignty of the Artist 1885-1925, Atheneum, New
>York, 1985, n. pp. 3-4) :
>
>"B$B]S(Jger(IU(Js point is that Modernism and the avant-garde are separate
>phenomena. Modernism occurred as an attack on traditional language and
>writing techniques, the so-called aesthetic movement; whereas the
>avant-garde is intended to undermine and change 'institutionalized
>commerce with art.' Modernism, he stress, is concerned with linguistic
>strategies; the avant-garde is involved in historical conflict and
>change, going much further than Modernism. B$B]S(Jger is driving a wedge
>between the pure aestheticians and those who follow [Georgy]
>Luk$B-D(Js(IU(Js
>sense of art as a totality. If he accomplishes that, then Modernism
>becomes a 'technical change,' a linguistic strategy, and the avant-garde
>a deep-rooted adversary or subversive force against commercialization
>and, generally, a bourgeois-oriented culture. But if we see that art in
>the latter nineteenth century and thereafter has become almost  purely
>process, if we cite the proliferation of manifestoes that assault
>traditional social forms of every kind, if we note linguistic strategies
>as having social roles and forms, then B$B]S(Jger's distinctions are
>weakened, even collapsed."
>
>I also find Frederick R. Karl is interesting writer.

Mondrian's mysticism and the formal aesthetic influences of the time do not
have to be mutually exclusive.  Art has always been used as a vehicle to
interpret mystical relationships even before it was used in a merely
aesthetic or exclusively formal way.  Primitive societies have used art in
a mystical sense to find their place in the world.  Their art is mystical
and mythical.  In morning times, the Cubists, for example,  derived part of
their work from African art which was mythic, fetishistic, and totemistic.
African art also used effigies to relate to unconscious archetypes.

Mondrian wasn't working in a vacuum.  He was part of a cultural millieu
that was utopian and trying to spirtualize and idealize the creative
aspects of life.  Look at the things that were going on to stimulate their
ideas.  It was a time of cultural phenomena, the discovery of the atom
changed their ideas of physics, radical psychology from likes of Freud and
Jung stimulated ideas of the unconscious and the "shadow", and, of course,
Eastern ideas became more prevalent in the West through vehicles like
Theosophy.  It was more than Mondrian alone, it was the times.

You would not have seen the effort to abstraction in art without the
spiritualizing influence of those days.  Spirituality was like a yeast in
the culture.  Granted, some artists took that influence and turned it into
a more formal inquiry into the abstract princples of art making.

>Here, it sounds becoming preaching style I stop here about this topic.

It may be preachy in spoken language, but certainly not in the written
language.  Preaching in the spoken language means there's an audience
forced to listen for hours but too polite to walk away.  The written word
offers the reader a choice to take it or leave it without hurting anyone's
feeling.  Am I boring you, yet?  See, I can preach, too!  My English is
better than yours. Watch out!!!

>> >I have been not so confident
>> >about my knowledge about religion, though I once affiliated with one of
>> >Tibetan Buddhist sect founded by a Taiwanese who now living in Seattle
>> >and with Raja-Yoga mainly for those reasons I took trips to Seattle
>> >and India 4 or 5 years ago.
>>
>> When you have the time, I would like to hear more about this.
>
>OK. My religious experiences are not theoretical ones, though.

If not theoretical, what were they like?

Okay, partner, the tennis ball is on your side!

Namaste,
Thoa :o)