Sergei Chekhonin, The Union of Art Workers Aids the Starving. Poster, 1921. ‘In 1921 the Volga region was hit by a terrible famine – the result of an unprecedented drought. Posters, slogans, and newspaper articles called on people to help the starving and to share their last crust of bread with them. People did everything they could and more.’
Image: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
René Magritte, Les Idées Claires, oil on canvas, 1955
‘Kant failed to see…(that) the being of something is found in its appearances, not in the thing considered (artificially) in so far as it does not appear! For Hegel, we are not cut off from the reality of things – appearances give us that reality.’
Glenn Alexander Magee, The Hegel Dictionary, Continuum, London, 2010, 120
*
A man that looks on glasse
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe
And then the heav’n espie1
*
Routeburn Track, New Zealand
Note
1. George Herbert, in W.K.C.Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, 464. Lenin wrote ‘From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice, – such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality. Kant disparages knowledge in order to make way for faith: Hegel exalts knowledge, asserting that knowledge is knowledge of God. The materialist exalts the knowledge of matter, of nature…’ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol., 38 (Philosophical Notebooks), Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976, 171 ↩
Konstantin Yuon, ‘A New Planet,’ 1921. Tempera on cardboard, The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
‘…it is not difficult to see that ours is a birth-time and a period of transition to a new era. Spirit has broken with the world it has hitherto inhabited and imagined, and is of a mind to submerge it in the past, and in the labour of its own transformation. Spirit is indeed never at rest but always engaged in moving forward. But just as the first breath drawn by a child after its long, quiet nourishment breaks the gradualness of merely quantitative growth – there is a qualitative leap, and the child is born – so likewise the Spirit in its formation matures slowly and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit the structure of its previous world, whose tottering state is only hinted at by isolated symptoms. The frivolity and boredom which unsettle the established order, the vague foreboding of something unknown, these are the heralds of approaching change. The gradual crumbling that left unaltered the face of the whole is cut short by a sunburst which, in one flash, illuminates the features of the new world.’
G.W.F.Hegel, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Trans., A.V.Miller, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977, 6-7
*
In beginnings and in ends,
artists, let your faith be strong.
Know where hell and heaven await us.
It is your gift to measure all you see
with dispassionate eyes.
Let your gaze be firm and clear.
Rub out the incidental details
and you’ll see the splendour of the world.
Find out where the light shines
and you’ll know where lies the dark.
Let all that’s sacred in the world,
and all that’s wicked, pass in unhurried flow
through the fire of your heart and the cool of
your mind.
Alexander Blok, from the poem ‘Retribution’
Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Georgy Vychegzhanin, plate with the monogram ‘RSFSR.’ 1921
Sergei Chekhonin, plate with the emblem of the RSFSR. 1921
Bazilka Radonič, ‘The New Government.’ Plate. 1921
Alexandra Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya, ‘Bell Ringer.’ Dish. 1921
Sergei Chekhonin, ‘Coral Ribbon.’ Plate. 1919
Source: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Stamp of the RSFSR, The Liberated Proletarian, 1921
Bottom image: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Rudolf Vilde, Plate with the inscription ‘Be daring now and forever.’ 1921
Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Charles Meere, ‘Australian beach pattern’, oil on canvas, 1940, Art Gallery of NSW; ‘a tableau of beach goers whose athletic perfection takes on monumental, heroic proportions…the myth of the healthy young nation symbolised by the tanned, god-like bodies of the sunbathers.’
Nikolai Yakovlevich Belyaev, ‘They are Happy’, oil on canvas, 1949. ‘A scene of joyous, patriotic children, the work is full of life and colour.’
Auguste Rodin, ’Le Penseur’, 1904, bronze, Musée Rodin, Paris. A testament to mystical ‘reason’.
* * *
First proposal for a course on the impact of mysticism on art and art theory at the WEA, Sydney, 2009
17.02.09 I took my proposal for my course ‘Cubism and its Mystical Heritage’ to the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) in Sydney.
30.09.09 In reply to my query, I received an email from the WEA thanking me for my application and stating that they would be in touch later in the year.
I never heard from the WEA regarding my course proposal again.
My proposal is below
* * *
‘Cubism and its Mystical Heritage’
Outline
Through an extended lecture focusing on a period in visual art history, I would deal with a theological/mystical current of the greatest significance running through Western culture that has been ‘ignored’, ‘forgotten’.
My primary intent would be to explicate the philosophy of Plotinus and exemplify his significance and impact through an analysis of a pivotal moment in Western art. My secondary intent would be to stimulate those attending to think not only about this, about the concepts used and their significance in our culture, but about some of the ramifications of that current, in particular:
– the relations between this current and dominant classes and their ideologies
– the relevance of this current to the full potential of the brain – towards a better understanding and positioning of ‘reason’ in relation to ‘lesser’ brain functions (e.g. ‘the emotions’).
—
There is a ‘lost’ or more precisely, ‘buried’ theological tradition in Western culture – of most interest to me, in its philosophy and visual arts – running from, to take a useful cut-off point, Plato to the present. It is identified by what god is not – ‘the ineffable’, ‘the inexpressible’ – ‘the rhetoric of purity’, ‘the rhetoric of silence’.
In philosophy the key figures for my purpose are Plato, Plotinus, Nietzsche and Bergson. But there are many others – including Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida and other postmodernists (this tradition overhung Lyn Gallacher’s talk on postmodernism on Radio National’s ‘Artworks’ 06.07.08).
In the visual arts Plotinus’ philosophy and particularly his immensely significant simile of the sculptor labouring at his material finds expression, for example, in the work of Michelangelo and Rodin, in Gerome’s ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’ and in twentieth-century Modernism.
Since my primary philosophical focus is the philosophy of Plotinus, I would begin with his inspiration – the philosophical theologian Plato. I would substantiate and expand on this assertion through reference to his dialogues – particularly their mystical elements.
I would then spend some time on The Enneads because:
– Plotinus, in terms of his influence, is one of the most significant philosophers of the West – his importance is certainly comparable to that of Plato. That he has been ‘overlooked’ is the most extraordinary failure by academic philosophers and this ‘overlooking’ has not been accidental – it goes to the heart of a ‘patriarchal’, one-sided understanding of ‘reason’ – something that feminist philosophy has to some degree addressed.
– key concepts of his philosophy will be central to my argument. Their echo and specific recurrence in the work of later philosophers, particularly and most importantly for my argument, in that of Nietzsche and Bergson has, again, been misunderstood.
I would then look at the mysticism at the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy – what, e.g., links The Birth of Tragedy to The Anti-Christ:
– his aesthetics of life was directly based on that same simile of Plotinus’ which is almost literally repeated in the Birth of Tragedy.
– it is commonly understood that Nietzsche, by writing that we have ‘killed’ god, argued for the end of god. This, again, is a great error which has had great consequences, most important and profitable to consider. Nietzsche in fact argued for the opposite – another god, ‘Dionysus’.
The last philosopher I would look at would be Bergson whose philosophy is saturated with Neoplatonism. The ‘life’, ‘vision’, ‘duration’ and ‘movement’ etc. of which he wrote did not refer to this world but directly, through the use of those same concepts in The Enneads, to ‘another world’ at the core of which was god the self.
I would then move to ‘the pivotal moment’ of Modernism – Cubism – and argue that its concern is not with this material world but with the expression in art, through particularly the influence of the philosophies of Nietzsche and Bergson, of Neoplatonism, of the philosophy of Plotinus.
Cubism is the attempted evocation of a particular reading of god, not of the material world.
I would argue, through the analysis of form and content of examples, that the purpose of that art was not for the viewer to better aesthetically ‘grasp’ people and objects in this world, but in ‘another’ and by so doing, to engage us with this mystical tradition which has ‘god’ as self at its heart.
Suggested reading
Plato, The Republic, Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984
Plotinus, The Enneads, Trans. S. MacKenna. London, Penguin, 1991
F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Trans. S. Whiteside, London, Penguin, 2003
F. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, Trans. R. J. Hollingdale, London, Penguin 2003
H. Bergson, Creative Evolution, Trans. A. Mitchell, Lanham, 1983
Planned Learning Outcomes
Through a focus on a ‘pivotal moment’ in Western culture, attendees would become aware of a theological/mystical current running through our culture to the present, and of its significance. They would become aware of the tremendous importance not only to the work of philosophers and artists who came after him of the ignored philosophy of Plotinus and question both its significance and its ‘forgetting’, but in so doing question, towards a more rounded understanding of the concept, their understanding of ‘reason’ itself.
First proposal for a course on the impact of mysticism on art and art theory at the Centre for Continuing Education, the University of Sydney, 1999
Second proposal for a course on the impact of mysticism on art and art theory at the Centre for Continuing Education, the University of Sydney, 2008
Michelangelo, ‘The Atlas Slave’, marble, c. 1530, Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, Florence
* * *
Second proposal for a course on the impact of mysticism on art and art theory at the Centre for Continuing Education, the University of Sydney, 2008
30.07.08 Sent course proposal titled ‘Cubism and its Mystical Heritage’ to CCE by registered mail and by email
10.11.08 Between these dates I made several calls to the CCE to find out what was happening with my proposal. I was eventually told that both copies had been lost so I re-sent my proposal by email and took two hard-copies to the CCE, giving one to the woman at reception and she signed each page of the copy I kept.
19.12.08/7.45pm. Was rung and asked about my teaching experience. When I replied that I have not taught this course before, I was told ‘don’t ring us, we’ll ring you’ and I never heard from the CCE again regarding my proposal.
17.02.09 Took proposal to the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) in Sydney. I never received a final reply.
My second proposal is below
* * *
‘Cubism and its Mystical Heritage’
Please describe any other information about yourself that you think is relevant to the course proposal
The subject has been a focus of mine for many years and through my degrees.
Course outline
Through an extended lecture focusing on a period in visual art history I would deal with a theological/mystical current of the greatest significance running through Western culture that has been ‘ignored’, ‘forgotten’.
My primary intent would be to explicate this current and exemplify its significance and impact through an analysis of a pivotal moment in Western art.
My secondary intent would be to stimulate those attending to think not only about this, about the concepts used and their significance in our culture, but about some of the ramifications of that current, in particular:
– the relations between this current and dominant classes and their ideologies
– the relevance of this current to the full potential of the brain – towards a better understanding and positioning of ‘reason’ in relation to ‘lesser’ brain functions (e.g. ‘the emotions’)
Format
The format would be an extended lecture/discussion using slides, with break, over 3 hours
Strategy for learning and teaching
The strategy would be to make what was delivered as relevant and interesting as possible to those attending. Discussion and the input of those attending would be most important.
Outline
There is a ‘lost’ or more precisely, ‘buried’ mystical tradition in Western culture – of most interest to me, in its philosophy and visual arts – running from, to take a useful cut-off point, Plato to the present. It is identified by what god is not – ‘the ineffable’, ‘the inexpressible’ – ‘the rhetoric of purity’, ‘the rhetoric of silence’.
In philosophy the key figures for my purpose are Plato, Plotinus, Nietzsche and Bergson. But there are many others – including Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida and other postmodernists (this tradition overhung Lyn Gallacher’s recent and good talk on postmodernism on Radio National’s Artworks).
In the visual arts Plotinus’s philosophy and particularly his immensely significant simile of the sculptor labouring at his material finds expression, for example, in the work of Michelangelo and Rodin, in Gérôme’s ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’ and in twentieth-century Modernism.
Since my primary philosophical focus is the philosophy of Plotinus, I would begin with his inspiration – the philosophical theologian Plato. I would substantiate and expand on this assertion through reference to his dialogues – particularly their mystical elements.
I would then spend some time on The Enneads because:
– Plotinus, in terms of his influence, is one of the most significant philosophers of the West. His importance is certainly comparable to that of Plato. That he has been ‘overlooked’ is the most extraordinary failure by academic philosophers and this ‘overlooking’ has not been accidental – it goes to the heart of a ‘patriarchal’, one-sided understanding of ‘reason’ – something that feminist philosophy has to some degree addressed.
– key concepts of his philosophy will be central to my argument. Their echo and specific recurrence in the work of later philosophers, particularly and most importantly for my argument, in that of Nietzsche and Bergson has, again, been misunderstood.
I would then look at the mysticism at the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy – what, e.g., links The Birth of Tragedy to The Anti-Christ:
– his aesthetics of life was directly based on that same simile of Plotinus’s which is almost literally repeated in the Birth of Tragedy.
– it is commonly understood that Nietzsche, by writing that we have ‘killed’ god, argued for the end of god. This, again, is a great error which has had great consequences, most important and profitable to consider. Nietzsche in fact argued for the opposite – another god, ‘Dionysus’.
The last philosopher I would look at would be Bergson whose philosophy is saturated with Neoplatonism. The ‘life’, ‘vision’, ‘duration’ and ‘movement’ etc. of which he wrote did not refer to this world but directly, through the use of those same concepts in The Enneads, to ‘another world’ at the core of which was god the self.
I would then move to ‘the pivotal moment’ of Modernism – Cubism – and argue that its concern is not with this material world but with the expression in art, through particularly the influence of the philosophies of Nietzsche and Bergson, of Neoplatonism, of the philosophy of Plotinus.
Cubism is the attempted evocation of a particular reading of ‘god’, not of the material world.
I would argue, through the analysis of form and content of examples, that the purpose of that art was not for the viewer to better aesthetically ‘grasp’ people and objects in this world, but in ‘another’ and by so doing, to engage us with this mystical tradition which has ‘god’ as self at its heart.
Reading:
Plato, The Republic, Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984
Plotinus, The Enneads, Trans. S. MacKenna. London, Penguin, 1991
F.Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Trans. S. Whiteside, London, Penguin, 2003
F. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, Trans. R. J. Hollingdale, London, Penguin 2003
H. Bergson, Creative Evolution, Trans. A. Mitchell, Lanham, 1983
Learning outcome
Through a focus on a ‘pivotal moment’ in Western culture, attendees would become aware of a theological/mystical current running through our culture to the present, and of its significance. They would become aware of the tremendous importance not only to the work of philosophers who came after him of the ignored philosophy of Plotinus and question both its significance and its ‘forgetting’, but in so doing question, towards a more rounded understanding of the concept, their understanding of ‘reason’ itself.
Evaluation
I would refine my presentation of the subject matter to make it as attractive and significant as possible to those who were interested in it. An expansion of the presentation would be one way to do this. The provision of processed material might be another.
First proposal for a course on the impact of mysticism on art and art theory at the Centre for Continuing Education, the University of Sydney, 1999
materialism, mysticism and art 
