On Jewels of a Higher Order.

“In Vuillard’s interior every detail however trivial, however hideous even- the pattern of the late Victorian wallpaper, the art nouveau bibelot, the Brussels carpet is seen and rendered as a living jewel: and all these jewels are harmoniously combined into a whole which is a jewel of a yet higher order of visionary intensity.”     

This quote is from the remarkable essay ‘Heaven and Hell’ by Aldous Huxley, published in 1954. In this part he’s referring to the great French painter Edouard Vuillard, 1868-1940. For Huxley, Vuillard’s painting is a vehicle that transports us into a heightened sense of reality, one akin to visionary or mystical experience and this experience, which one might call aesthetic rapture, is a deeply rooted need in the psyche of man. 

He goes on to say that this need has been the impetus for artmaking since the beginning of our species history. It transcends cultural considerations, civilized or uncivilized, colonized or free indigenous cultures. I believe it’s important when viewing and creating art to recognize that art satisfies a basic human drive. It arises out of the imagination (whether personal or collective) and not primarily from mental constructs. It’s essential for a healthy culture to see art as the natural response to life and not merely a dialogue with abstract ideas. Making art and the transportive experience of appreciating art fulfills our thirst for the visionary, mystical and Transcendent Drive as Carl Jung called it. 

Art is the domain of the mystical and the archetypal. It works with timeless templates of consciousness that are not within the grasp of the mind. The distinctions between high and low art, technically brilliant or untrained, ugly or beautiful are not relevant to the transmission of meaning, beauty or spirit. Anyone who has ever spent time with children’s art will know what I’m talking about. There is a transmission through art that transcends qualitative judgements. You could say there is criteria for a successful painting in formal terms however all criteria in the end remain subjective. The true appreciation of art is found in the gut and the heart while the rational component is secondary. These quotes from Wassily Kandinsky illustrate my point:

“It is never literally true that any form is meaningless and “say’s nothing”, every form in the world say’s something. But it’s message often fails to reach us, even if it does, full understanding is often withheld from us.” 

“Form often is most expressive when least coherent. It is often most expressive when outwardly most imperfect, perhaps only a stroke, a mere hint of outer meaning.”

“To those who are not accustomed to it the inner beauty appears as ugliness because humanity in general inclines to the outer and knows nothing of the inner.”

Kandinsky implies that it is a contemplative consciousness that is able to pick up on the nuances of form and feeling. His contemporary the well-known writer on art and metaphysics Ananda Coomaraswamy dovetails nicely when he say’s “…and the simplest expression reminds us of one and the same state. The sonata cannot be more beautiful than the simplest lyric, nor the painting than the drawing. Merely because of their greater elaboration. Civilized art is not more beautiful than the savage art, merely because of its possibly more attractive ethos.”

Both writers point to the alchemy that takes place within the viewer when the object of contemplation becomes a doorway to the unitive state, where subject /object dichotomy breaks down and one catches a glimpse, or recognition. This word ‘recognition’ takes on a special significance here. In ancient tantric traditions of India, the aim of life was not to become something but to recognize something. In many ways the antithesis of our cultural norms in the west. The west always championed becoming while the east valued the simplicity of being.

For tantric philosophers and spiritual adepts of 11th century Kashmir aesthetic rapture was seen as a precious doorway to freedom and there was much discourse on it. But this rapture went beyond appreciation for the beautiful. For them it was…”the sheer wonder of being that one accesses in connection with any experience that intensifies and absorbs awareness.”   Christopher Wallis from “The Recognition Sutras".

This could mean any encounter with the senses or mind when in a flash one experiences the pure wonder and beauty of being, or even the shock of ugliness which triggers the collapse of subject/object duality and we experience our native non-dual understanding.

It is this shift in awareness that is the alchemizing agent. It can transform both the artist and the viewer in an instant of recognizing the true depth of experience beyond ones default mode. When beauty initiates this brief 'recognition' what remains is a yearning . A yearning for more and a desire to go deeper because we've been given a glimpse of something so tantalizing to spirit. Catching a glimpse, some artists might be inspired to improve their skill set while for others it becomes a reason to abandon their training and the two ways aren’t mutually exclusive. Henri Matisse explains...

 “You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

For Matisse this deep desire and everything he had learned was in service to his inner voice. Contrary to what I was taught to believe about him in art school he wasn’t one of the fathers of a secular modern art movement devoid of spirituality, he was a modern-day mystic who said….“The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.”   

That “jewel of a yet higher order of visionary intensity”, as Huxley put it, is not only the domain of sublime art but is inherent in our everyday consciousness. This is what the Tantrika’s and mystics in all traditions point to. For the artist it is their calling to enter into a state of flow by will or accident, to be a channel by which the vison appears and for the appreciator of art it is their willingness to open to the mystery of form and color without preconception allowing the ‘recognition’ to happen by itself, beyond the mind. 

As I stated earlier…. I believe it’s important when viewing and creating art to recognize that art satisfies a basic human drive. The drive for expression of feelings, the drive to dialogue with his/her inner and outer environment, the drive to transcend, the drive to find meaning and the drive to offer oblations or prayer.

We are the inheritors of an incredible legacy of giving and receiving beauty in all its permutations. The visions are everywhere if we have the eyes to perceive. We can miss the jewels and gems that lay in full view but are hidden by the dust of our minds. It’s up to us to blow away the dust and polish those rubies and emeralds so that their true colors can shine and illuminate our consciousness.

Paul Klee said…“Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface... but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.” 

An artist's vision can be sublimely refined as in the work of Edouard Vuillard or like Paul Klee, one who expresses the mystery through an innocent childlike expression. There is no agreement on what may move us, for much of it is due not only to the art itself but to our capacity to meet it with open hearts and minds. If we are lucky and the grace descends, we recognize the face of our own divinity, the veil lifts and for a fleeting moment at least, we access a state of wonder and being, beyond our everyday awareness. Then the jewel of consciousness shines within and we feel a strange sense of coming home. 

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."                           

William Blake