Abstraction, Exploration

Art, simplicity

One aspect of the Greek form from its earliest ‘geometric’ incarnations onwards is its simplicity. The baroque, the romantic, all of this is entirely foreign to it. The great mistake of art historians has been in seeing the abstract as primitive; as if at first man creates simple geometric forms and only later, as he advances, things get more complex and refined. This was Wilhelm Worringer’s thesis, which went so far as saying that the early abstract art of ancient peoples displayed their psychological infancy: incapable of accepting the boundless complexity of reality they sought to tame it by resorting to the simple, the universal, the geometric. But the simple is not only at the beginning, it is also at the end. It is what has to be achieved. It is chaos brought into form. The disordered soul is incapable of simplicity, and the idiot is incapable of thinking through universals. The great man lives a life of simplicity in accordance with a well-ordered plan, and the child runs off in all directions. The disordered soul is pulled in all directions by his feelings, the ordered soul is self-composed. And so as much as the simple style can show a lack of development, it can also show the heights of achievement. When all that is rudimentary and unnecessary has been left behind and only the essential remains.

Is there not also a historical reason, that because of some great collapse, the techniques for great art had been forgotten? Perhaps, but great catastrophes often bring forth great achievements and can serve as a type of filter that necessitates an unseen focus on what is most essential. Kandinsky says of abstraction that it serves to abstract from representation in order to focus on pure forms and colours that can express certain forces directly. Until now, Kandinsky says, the artist has tried to affect the viewer through the means of representation; a beautiful landscape, a tragic scene, and so on. But abstraction allows the artist to affect the viewer directly. Pure forms, pure colours, pure forces. Kandinsky might have failed in his own art, but what he says gets at the essence of all art, especially ancient ‘geometric’ art. If one sculpts a man, this particular man depicted is only a means to an end —to affect the onlooker in a certain way, to inspire a certain feeling in him. Hence why it is perfectly normal in art to represent the man in a way that is far from realistic. Abstraction = the method of all art, so Kandinsky says. In its essence, art can certainly not be defined by representation. If this were the case, all photographs of sufficient clarity could be deemed art. But, to allow this abstraction (the expression of invisible forces through visible means) to take place, representative elements certainly are useful.

Now, the problem with much art today is that it isn’t abstract enough. When you go to a museum and there is some conceptual artwork, a white wall with some random coloured dots on it. The onlooker might think it unimpressive, and he laments; “I wish we made art like in the old days, with real skill, realism, actual things depicted. I hate all this abstract stuff.” But he is wrong, the problem is not that this work is too abstract, it is that it isn’t abstract at all. It expresses nothing, and the viewer isn’t affected at all. The artwork consists of the wall and the lines, but this wall and these lines, they express nothing else. It is expected that in this way the viewer starts to wonder what these lines could mean, but there is no impact, no impression, no affect, no inspiration affected by the lines themselves. And so there is no abstract content, no invisible force shining through, but only the artwork in its pure materiality. The lines express nothing, they are just lines presented in their mere material element, and the true force that the artwork is supposed to bring forth, this becomes the responsibility of the observer.

For Kandinsky, abstraction has nothing to do with the visible colours, forms, and so on; these are only means to express certain forces that affect the viewer. The entire purpose of art for him was to express the invisible through the visible. The problem with much ‘abstract’ art is that it is reduced entirely to its visibility; a few lines on a canvas, but nothing is expressed. It is the same trouble with sculpture and how the found object stands in contrast to the essence of sculpture. The sculptor goes to work on visible matter to bring the invisible into visibility through a specific configuration of the visible. In this way, sculpture is man’s fight against the mere object, against the found. The sculptor takes the found object and transforms it so that what is not merely found can show itself. Nietzsche says: art, the countermovement to decadence. In its most simple sense because all decadence is the result of a certain weariness, a tired spirit that rests with things as they are, obedient, not taken by the desire to become more than it is. It is a lack of spirit and a lack of movement, but art shows that greatness is achieved through an active transmutation. In other words, art expresses the Promethean essence of man and life. 

A popular justification used by various artists; when asked what their work means, they will say: “it is meant to make you think about X.” But if you want to make someone think, then make them think. There should be little freedom here. 

Some yearn for a time when art was more complex in all its elements, but they do not understand the problem. Things are not necessarily too simple or too ‘barbaric.’ Things are not simple enough, “and I do not mean this in the sense in which we use “simplicity” as a euphemism for “simple-mindedness” —but I mean the sort of fine and good character that has developed in accordance with an intelligent plan.” (Plato, Republic, III, 400e)

We have drifted away from this noble simplicity, and the way forward is towards it once again. It is all about what one takes the problem to be. And perhaps all great solutions happen through a certain levelling of the problem, a certain destruction, a movement of simplification. Such was the Greek solution, and such was the Christian solution to the Greek problem. In the confusion of gods and different schools, there is enormous force in the affirmation of one God and one divine paideia. In the end, what emerges is again a great confusion of various schools and systems, and so the Modern movement is again a great ‘no’ against this confusion. An affirmation of simple truths and a desire for action. These intellectual movements are always preceded by great explorations, the instinct to get away from the stifling energy at home, a great ‘no’ against the “iron prison” in favour of open seas. Both the flourishing of Greek culture and the Modern age are preceded by times of great exploration. Individuals driven by a great ‘no’. Why? Simply to give life some room to breathe. This is the same reason behind art; to beat away at matter so that life can shine through. Against domestication, for life.

When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, mountaineer George Mallory famously replied: “Because it’s there.” This is all there is to it. Higher life needs no justification other than itself. Exploration of space, to see and feel what is out there. A childlike wonder, free from the moral reasoning commonly used to justify the mere desire to live. Plotinus, attempting to answer the deepest question brought forth by his philosophy —if Being is One, perfect and whole in and of itself, why is there anything else?— he says this is so because Being “dared” to depart from the one, and because Soul dared to depart from Being. That is all, this original daring, ‘tólma’, that expresses the best in all of life and the deepest drive; the mere desire to see what is out there, to explore, to live life to its highest expression. But this assumes a certain dissatisfaction if you will, at the core of Being, a certain feeling that things are not fine as they are. An intuition that there is more out there, and that there is nothing worse than staying as one is. And why not, why not see what else is possible? And so this daring that leads man to the greatest heights, a ‘yes’ towards life, this daring is at the same time a great ‘no’ to what came before, a ‘no’ to one’s home, however perfect it might be. Similarly to how Plato speaks of daring, tólma, as this disposition of spirit that characterizes the thinker who dares to question prior ways of thinking. Only in this way can something ‘new’ ever be discovered. And only in this way can something true and powerful be uncovered that has been hidden underneath common opinion. Of course, this daring comes with great danger. Mallory died on Everest. And driven by the desire for truth, many a thinker has led man into error. 

Today then too, a great ‘no’ is expected, not in the name of something ‘new’, but in the name of what has been forgotten. Not to re-affirm and re-instate ancient systems, I lack the instinct for the arrogance required by such an undertaking, but to affirm the most ancient that has been suffocated by current systems. This is the classical instinct, which has nothing to do with the time in which one is born, but with the degree to which one can distance oneself from this time, in favour of a knowledge much more direct and much more certain. The classical is entirely opposed to classicism. The classical is life-affirmative. The classical affirms life against system. Modernity was a reaction against Antiquity in the name of the principles of antiquity. Post-modernity was a reaction against modernity in the name of the principles of modernity. What is next? When the principles on which ancient and modern thought are founded are the very same, when the principles for the emergence of any thought whatsoever are the very same? This is the method of abstraction; to ‘abstract’ from the inessential so that one only remains with what always subsists underneath, only keeping those elements strictly necessary, those things that can not be abstracted from without ending up in nothingness. 

It is this simplicity, this radical instinct for abstraction that I see as most worthy of being re-affirmed today. The baroque, the romantic, there is little use for this, and it might even be destructive. In many ways, postmodernism is the baroque of today. All are anti-classical. By necessity, only the road of noble simplicity remains for us, abstraction. Abstraction is characterized by immediacy, we seek to abstract from particular representations so that certain qualities can be presented directly. Just as the highest abstraction in philosophy, the Idea, is characterized by the greatest immediacy: beauty = beauty. Not in some realm “beyond”, but because beauty is immediately recognized as beauty by grace of the presence of beauty. Indubitable. There should be no shame in admitting the Western soul is characterized by an instinct for abstraction. Before anything else, abstraction is the great attack on all that prevents life from going where it must.