Attentive Equations

Yesterday, I returned from a deeply meditative week along the Plattekill waterfall. This artist-in-residence program, sponsored by the Catskill Center for Conservation, entails a small, simple, rustic cabin at the top of an 80′ waterfall in the Platte Clove. A clove is a Dutch word for an incredible deep cut in the mountains, so deep it conveys a feeling of an abyss. Through these deep cuts flow many incredible waterfalls- the majestic Kaaterskill falls, as well as the Plattekill falls flow out of the escarpment and into the Hudson River. The sublime beauty of this landscape attracted many painters of the 19th century including Frederic Edwin Church, the author and inspiration of the Hudson River School of painters.

It was a great privilege to be a part of this history. Although I have painted at these falls in the past, I never had enough compressed time to really work on a serious piece that would describe the proper scale of the waterfall. When one looks at such a large waterfall, it is so difficult to conceive of its true size. Achieving a sense of scale is imperative to conveying the magnitude and therefore the sublimity of the space. Working on a larger scale, a scale that freely describes the elegant length of this single stream of falling water, enabled me to capture its true magnitude.

One always approaches a new painting with certain desires. My hope was that this image would convey an intimacy and grandeur, not only in the realm of nature, but also act as a mirror reflecting the depth and sublimity of soul- a glimpse into its inherent solitude touching upon what remains inexpressible, beautiful and hidden from our everyday perceptions. Although, the falls are ever-flowing without ceasing, there is a sense that time stands still- a feeling for the infinite. With this openness toward the image and its potential for expression, I began.

The first day when I arrived at the cabin, I hiked down the deep ravine to plan my image. Since I had been there before, I had a sense of what I wished to do. I wanted to paint the falls in the late afternoon as the sun was waning on the far side of the cliff. This back lit the upper portion of the falls, outlining the large rock formations at the top as well as capturing the late light coming through the trees. It also put the deep gulf of the falls into shadow- not a deep shadow, since there was plenty of reflections on the wet rocks of the blue dome of the sky. But it conveyed a feeling of depth to the plunge. I also was interested in giving the space a grand but intimate feel. Last year, some trees had fallen from one of the overhanging cliffs during the winter and I wanted to incorporate these beech trees on the left of the composition. There was also a extremely large Maple on the right side- light and airy hung its leaves. These two trees, that I would have to peer around to some degree to paint the image, I hoped would give that  feeling of intimacy to the composition (glimpsing around something in the foreground is a very Japanese technique made popular by the 19th century, Hokusai). Lastly, I wanted to have an idea of the color chords I would use. What combinations of color would convey the most refreshing and accurate sense of the light. So I did a quick color sketch that I meditated on in the evening.

Beginning such a large landscape on sight is a little intimidating. Such a massive whiteness amid the rich color of the natural world gives one pause- as one can see from the photos of the process. So I tried to plunge right in. When laying in a canvas there is one thing I always try to do, especially on a large canvas- it is what I call “finding the key”. It is a term I use to initially work a small area within the framework of the canvas that gives me the value range as well as the color and contrast that is necessary to bring off the image. I also wish it to convey an initial sense of the inherent emotion in the image. I usually choose an area near the point of focus as this area must contain all of these attributes. Whereas, objects that move away from the central point of focus will contain less contrast, looser edges and less intense color. Once I have a handle on this, which is crucial, I have a key to base my lay-in on.

The lay-in takes a lot of time and one must have patience and not rush through the process trying to cover the white, empty canvas so one can see the proper relationships. Although, I worked over 4 hours the first day, I was not able to completely cover the canvas. It took two days and over 9 hours to do it. But if this lay-in is solid, the painting is clearly mapped out and the subsequent days are all about refining the image and conveying its emotional tone.

Clips from Plattekill Clove, August 2011

(link above leads to a series of video clips of the painting in progress)

For me, the last day, the last brushstroke is the most difficult. I always seem to reach a point where I could almost begin the painting again. It is a place in which the moment I have tried to convey is passing and the next moment or scene, as in a play, has approached. Then it is time to stop, reluctant though I am to end such an experience. This deep and heightened state of consciousness, I desire to hold aloft and suspended- eternally. When one has found, symbolically, an image that penetrates beyond the mere appearance of things one wants to hold it and re-experience its beauty and dynamism again and again. But we are time bound and eventually our mind and spirit cannot contain its essence any longer and we must let go. The artist moves between these heightened moments, always at a loss, wandering in the in-between. He lives and yearns for the heights, an intimate and profound experience of the world. It is paramount to “living”. All other time is but a “nostalgia” for this moment to return.

This past week I visited the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian. Anyone who has been there will know it is primarily a gallery of Asian art and particularly, Japanese paintings. But it also houses the famous “Peacock Room” by James McNeill Whistler. There is also an adjoining gallery of Whistler paintings. In this gallery there were about 30 pieces. Some of his well known portraits- large, formal, tonal- were exhibited as well as a nocturne which he is famous for. But there were several studies that were less well known and from his late period. I am always fascinated with an artist’s last works when they no longer care about success and all of its trappings; when they are confident to paint what is calling forth to be painted from within. There is usually less formality and more heart and soul. Whistler’s work was comprised of all of these things.

This late work was beautifully refined and elegant and contained an utter simplicity that was exceptional. The “Peacock Room” contained all those aspects of Japanese art that was popular at the time- richly gilded walls with magnificent peacocks in gold and turquoise, hand carved shelves and decorative work, a formal painting of a woman in a kimono- refined and elegant but hardly simple. The late work takes all of these characteristics and refines it in a crucible of simplicity that speaks of a beauty that is born within- a flower in bud moments from opening. A seminal Japanese aesthetic.

There was a series of female figures that were studies for a mural piece. I particularly like the “Venus” completed the year of his death. It depicts a female nude standing on the beach in a late light, with drapery blowing behind and gently caressing the figure. The flesh is beautifully cool amid a subtle warmness. It is grace itself.

This same grace he carries to two portraits of a girl. One titled “The Red Glove” and the other simply “A Girl”. The format for both was a narrow vertical canvas in which the girl easily slipped into, with space above her head- sensitive, thoughtful and utterly simple- extremely touching. It contained all the simplicity of Japanese painting- refined and elegant- but also very American- very Whistler.

In a lower gallery there was a series of drawings in which Whistler inventoried his own collection of Japanese vases with his signature butterfly icon. Within his personal collection of drawings were a group of female figures on toned paper in pastel. I had seen one of these drawings last year at the Met in a drawing show. Even though it was very small, 3″x 5″, it was very powerful and I took note of it. It was wonderful to see the rest of them in a group. A beautiful graceful outline of the figure with the utmost simplicity of modelling in two or three colors on a warm brown paper.

Whistler achieved a style which spoke of an “immensity” hidden within the simple. In this way he holds in his work a true Japanese aesthetic. The Japanese as well as the Chinese did not work directly from nature. But instead observed nature carefully and then absorbed all that they had observed and then attempted to describe all those characteristics within the image. This image was produced away from his subject and at a time when the artist felt that he had come to know his subject intimately. Whistler takes from Japanese painting the sense of  meticulous observation re-imagined with ease, containing within itself all the possibilities of that object- it’s beginning, it’s growth and dissolution- and abbreviates those things into a simple image. Looking around the museum, there were countless Chinese and Japanese images that spoke of the same sense of “immensity” manifest in the simple rendering of an object. By observing the small and specific character of a thing, one inherently sees the connection it has to “all” things and it becomes a reflection of “life” itself and to “living”. This is really Whistler’s contribution to western aesthetics, that one might feel the “immensity” that is life itself and take us beyond mere craftsmanship and bless us with a beauty that is sublime.

Summer is the perfect time to look about one’s outdoor spaces and see one’s self reflected there. In a garden, one’s inner life overflows to the outside world. A gardener allows one’s environment to become affected by the mystery that lies within. It becomes a space overflowing with one’s own nature – Claude Monet’s garden becomes his contemplation as well as a reflection of his inner state of being manifest in a physical form. They both feed off of one another- a swinging between the yin and the yang- creating an intense harmony of soul. Monet never felt the need to leave this garden toward the end of his life because it was a true reflection of himself and satisfied his inner need as well as providing  meaningful contact with the world. The garden is a place where color, harmony, design, intuitive relationships and choices are sought after, a place of creativity ( man’s rightful activity).

The garden becomes a primary platform that allows one to be at ease with the world. It allows nature to affect us with its beauty. This beauty becomes a conduit for reverie, a dwelling place of images, a fluid space for the imagination. In Coleridge’s, Anima Poetae, he muses, “In looking at objects of nature while I am thinking…I seem rather to be seeking, as it were asking for a symbolic language for something within me that already exists, than observing anything new. Even when the later is the case, yet still I have always an obscure feeling as if that new phenomena were the dim awakening of a forgotten or hidden truth of my inner nature.” (1805) Harmony with the world overflows to creativity and invention. Ancient Greeks studied philosophy in a garden for good reason. Such a space presented those who sought wisdom with wisdom itself- the harmonious organization of the world.

Great outdoor spaces are a combination of human endeavor and the free movement and flow of nature herself- entering the same space and manifesting herself freely in her rambling way, unhindered by human effort, softening all human architecture and incorporating it into the rhythm inherent in nature. Epic and sublime spaces join the forces of man’s  influence on the landscape as well as concede control over to nature herself. Epidarus is an example- a theatre space with the over-arching sky and grand mountains  as background. This theatre exist in the conscious presence of the gods – a space that recognizes their dwelling place and the realm of their activity and authority over man and the world. The Greeks recognized Sophia(wisdom) as a balance between man’s effort to understand nature and one’s relationship to the gods.

In gardening, one must allow for the unexpected- a seedling dropped by a bird appears; the flower you wanted turns out to be the wrong color; the plant you thought would fit perfectly takes over and some things refuse to grow- Nature is ultimately in control and one can only carefully tend it to go in a certain direction. I find this analogous to painting- once involved in a piece it tends to take on a life of its own, the artist acting as a secondary force to its manifestation and in many ways the painting turns out surprisingly different but appropriate from one’s original intentions. A landscape begun on a bright day, which never seems to return, leads to a more moody piece- more effective and deeply felt- than that clear, blue sky day. Nature has lead one to accept her own designs. Painting the landscape, one must accept the ebb and flows of nature like the tide. It is best not to force one’s intentions but accept what presents itself freely before one’s consciousness. “The spiritual, mental, and imaginative movement that takes place (in the poet’s or artist’s) mind never loses touch with what the eye perceives in the appearances that surround it. Indeed, it is in and through the appearances that the movement takes place, culminating in a Zen-like vision of other more boundless worlds than the one perceived by the ocular organ…Sometimes the most intense journeys- the most visionary journeys- take place while one stays put, in moments of stillness unscorched by “passion’s heat”.” (Robert Pogue Harrison, Gardens, An Essay on the Human Condition,p.119)

In Baudelaire’s, Salon of 1846, he reflects on the words of E.T.A.Hoffman: “It is not only in my dreams and in the reverie that precedes slumber, but also in my waking thoughts that I hear music, that I find an analogy, an intimate union of colors, sounds, and scents. All of these elements unite as if they had sprung from the same flash of light, to join together in a marvelous concert.” The imagination, at its root, joins or binds together all sensory experience so that a painter as well as a poet can experience the same phenomena and be able to describe it in similar terms; it, essentially, conveying an equivalent inner imaginative experience. Again, Baudelaire states, “The imagination is an almost divine faculty which perceives at once, quite without resort to philosophic methods, the intimate and secret connection between things, correspondences, and analogies.” (Baudelaire, “Further Notes on Edgar Poe”, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, p.102)

If one takes music, which is quite abstract, one finds that great music evokes analogous ideas in different persons. Again, Baudelaire argues that, “… for what would be truly surprising would be to find that sound could not suggest colour, that colour could not evoke the idea of a melody, and that sound and colour were unsuitable for the translation of ideas, seeing that things have always found their expression through a system of reciprocal analogy…” (Ibid., “Richard Wagner and Tannhauser in Paris”, p.117)

I have found in my own experience, that poetry provides a perfect suggestion for reverie and allows me to explore ideas for painting quite freely. There is an analogous relationship between poetry and painting- both call forth a singular image. It is a smooth path to the imagination through poetic image both suggested or implied. It also provides a fertile ground for the imagination to present the unexpected. By providing a pathway to reverie one can be open to those things that lie hidden in memory or the unconscious. When we experience effective dreams they, similarly, present something that is not premeditated presenting images with surprising efficacy.

On hearing Wagner’s Tannhauser for the first time, Baudelaire expresses the profound impact it has on him. It is the perfect description of the power of an art form to transport the imagination of the listener or viewer to a new and unexpected experience. “I remember that from the very first bars I suffered one of those happy impressions that almost all imaginative men have known, through dreams, in sleep. I felt myself released from the bonds of gravity, and rediscovered in memory that extraordinary thrill of pleasure which dwells in high places…Next I found myself imagining the delicious state of a man in the grip of profound reverie, in an absolute solitude… an immensity with no other decor but itself.” (Ibid.,p.116)

Baudelaire describes his experience as one who, “has undergone a spiritual operation, a revelation.” This experience, because it was so unexpected, releases the imagination from its ordinary bonds, and transports the listener/viewer to another place that is intimate and profound – creating an isthmus between one’s inner life and the world. One knows when one has touched this place because ever after there is a deep longing to return to this intimate place. It is a “nostalgia”, a longing for that profound contact with the self.  “It is in this gift for suffering, which is common to all artists but which is all the greater as their instinct for the beautiful and the exact is more pronounced…”, (Ibid.p.119) that propels one to seek again this visionary experience that forever binds the artist to the path of the imagination. Nothing else will satisfy the soul any longer.

A retreat is always a necessity for an artist. It is so important to have time away and time for contemplation. In the end, contemplation is the labor of the artist and painting is the fruit of that time of silence. Baudelaire states quite truly that only in idleness can greatness come. Idleness provides  the imagination a moment to perceive and manifest images that are always present but our mind is closed to.

Last week, I painted the dunes and beach heads of Cape Cod. I painted small pochades, which are quick studies that give a feeling of immediacy. One can live in the moment and be open to something new, yet unperceived. This was a nice change since I spend a long time on my figurative paintings. They begin in contemplation; move to idea sketches; then to more developed drawings, choosing the pose that is the most emotive; then onto a color study; and finally the larger more developed piece is begun and worked through. A long process that takes months at a time. So this immediacy of the pochade was a welcome change. It was also refreshing and invigorating.

I cannot say enough about the power of reverie for the health and well-being of the imagination. Without the imagination there is no life, no vitality in one’s work. Baudelaire states, “The imagination is an almost divine faculty which perceives at once, quite without resort to philosophic methods, the intimate and secret connections between things, correspondences and analogies.” (Baudelaire, “Notes on Edgar Poe”, The Painter of Modern Life, p.102) It is these intimate connections that the artist must concern himself with. Why waste your time on anything else.

All of the pochades were painted in oil on Bainbridge board #80, double thick, measuring 6″X 8″. The area I found most beautiful because of its wildness was from Nauset Light to Head of the Meadow to Race Point. This upper area of the Cape remains mostly untouched similar in feeling to Thoreau’s description of his walk across Cape Cod so many years ago.

Memory wells up from an unknown place- dark and hidden, unexpected.  It is a deep spring emerging from an underground source. A place where sight is obscured- things come out of the darkness and return there. One can only see things in glimpses and images appear as glyphs, mysterious elusive fragments. The Ancient Greeks referred to this residing place of memory (memoria) as the underworld, a “theatre of images”.
Memory and the dream connect us to this underworld experience.

Orpheus is the mythic figure of this world that takes the nekeyia, the underworld journey. It is a,”descent into the realm of the intangible dead and the return to the world of incarnate experience.” ( Cobb, Archetypal Imagination, p.205) He becomes a figure that brings together two opposing forces- where the conscious life descends into the dream. The poet Lorca says, “metaphor links two antagonistic forces by means of an equestrian leap of the imagination.” (Ibid,p.238) Orpheus emerges from these depths as a progenitor of metaphor, seeking to draw out the image that joins (Eurydice) these opposing forces that coexist within us- the conscious life and the world of images hidden within our being waiting for the moment to emerge from darkness and obscurity into the light of awareness. This creative act, this ability to draw out life, image, allows Orpheus to become the poet/artist whose work “adds to creation” through the power of the imagination. Gaston Bachelard states, “Imagination is always considered to be the faculty of forming images. But… it is especially the faculty of changing images. If there is not a changing of images, an unexpected union of image, there is no imagination, no imaginative action.”(Bachelard, On Poetic Imagination, p.19)

Art becomes the symbolic glyph that activates soul. The poet/artist sees objects in the world as “living glyphs” capable of efficacy. “The figures and objects in a picture, which to one part of your intelligence seem to be the actual things themselves, are like a solid bridge to support your imagination as it probes the deep, mysterious emotions, of which these forms are, so to speak, a hieroglyph, but a hieroglyph far more eloquent than any cold representation, the mere equivalent of a printed symbol.” (Delacroix, Journals, p.213 Phaidon version) These glyphs speak of a deeper and richer meaning than words can convey. Lorca states again, “language is founded on images…A poetic image is always a transference of meaning.” (Cobb, p.238)

Orpheus is the archetypal figure who, “deepens imagination by imagining always greater depths to be ensouled.” (Ibid,p.247) He is the one who draws us into the depths at any moment. Bachelard expresses it well, “the fundamental word corresponding to imagination is not image, but imaginary. The value of an image is measured by the extent of its imaginary radiance…In the human psyche, it is the very experience of openness and newness.” (Bachelard, p.19)

This newness or re-imagining comes with an experience of deep loss. Orpheus loses Eurydice just at the moment he can posses her again. He experiences the “refining fires of loss” in the very act of forming the image and bringing it into conscious awareness. (Cobb, p.250) With the poet’s ability to join that which seems compelled to be separate,  in drawing out the metaphor of image, the poet/artist suffers. The image arises from the depths, yet, it is only a partial glimpse of a larger truth. The image returns to its source leaving the poet/artist with a feeling of incompleteness, conscious of his own inability. This loss or division pervades every artist work, “experiencing the humiliating inferiority of uncertainty and the impairment of potential… a sense of infirmity goes with soul.” (Cobb, p.250) But we all need a poet/artist that “can carry our suffering and give it voice.” (Ibid,251)

Because of this inherent sense of impairment, the poet/artist is haunted by a nostalgia, a deep longing, that can never quite be eased. “The experience of beauty is an experience of nostalgia or pothos. It is a longing for the literally unattainable… There is a great bottomless well of grief in our existence as human beings, and the garden of the soul is watered by the overflowings of these wellsrings in the soul’s experience of beauty.” (Ibid,62)

Memoria is that storehouse of images, a residing place of beauty and the voice of imagination calling us to wake and arise. One is called to be attentive to this voice that speaks through all things and “can bring recovery to an ailing world.” ( Ibid, p.253) As Blake proclaims, “the imagination is not a state: it is human existence itself.” (Bachelard, p.19)

Many times we relegate those things that we hold in our memory as artifacts of a past time. We rarely give those images their due. The literalism that is such a part of the American culture, hinders one’s ability to allow the imagination the freedom and spontaneity that it yearns for. This part of our own personal history, we do not take seriously. But as artist, shouldn’t we?

Henry Corbin always insisted history is in the soul, “History making is a musing, poetic process…proceeding as an autonomous, archetypal activity, presenting us with tales as if they were facts. And we cannot transcend history not because we cannot get out of time or escape the past, but because we are always in the soul and subject to its musings.” (As quoted in, Noel Cobb’s, Archetypal Imagination, p.204)

There was a time prior to the twentieth century when imagination and memory were seen as one and the same thing, Ars Memoria. Memoria was the old term for both. It included the idea of memory, imagination, the unconscious and reverie. James Hillman writes, “Memoria was described as a great hall, a storehouse, a theatre packed with images. And the only difference between remembering and imagining was the memory images were those to which a sense of time had been added, that curious conviction that they had once happened.”(Hillman, Healing Fiction, p.41)

My favorite poet, Baudelaire, built his  theory of “correspondence” on ars memoria. The imagination is activated by nature provoking the memory and drawing forth correspondences between our own latent memories or the unconscious and images presented before the mind of the poet/artist. Baudelaire’s poem “Correspondences”,

Nature is but a temple whose living colonnades

Breath forth a mystic speech in fitful sighs;

Man wanders among symbols in those glades

Where all things watch him with familiar eyes.

 

Like dwindling echoes gathered far away

Into a deep and thronging unison

Huge as night or as the light of day,

All scents and sounds and colors meet as one…

Dream and reverie (a conscious dream) also invokes the ars memoria, allowing the musing mind, “sudden wellings up, epiphanies of images, incursions of things undreamt of, sources of hidden insight and exhilarating inspiration.” (Ibid.,p.208) In Ancient Greek mythology, the figure of Mnemosyne, mother of the muses, is identified with memory and the imagination, the basis of all creative endeavors. Carl Kerenyi says of her, “She is memory as the cosmic ground of self-recalling which, like an eternal spring, never ceases flowing.” Reverie connects one to that storehouse of images just as nature can aid in this process of “self-recalling”.

The Irish poet, W.B. Yeats found that symbols had a similar effect on connecting the imagination to memory. In an essay on magic, Yeats describes three doctrines which he believed were handed down from ancient times and are the foundation of nearly all magical practices. “First, that the borders of our mind are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another and create or reveal a single mind. Secondly, That the borders of our memories are shifting, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of nature herself. Thirdly, that this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols.” (Cobb,p.220) Symbols touch a part of ourselves that is hidden and draws forth from that dark and hidden place memories, unconscious emotions and images that activate the imagination. In such a state the artist finds that there are latent memories and images that are constantly residing right below the surface of consciousness and are archetypal, in that their significance can be felt by all. This storehouse of images- scents and sounds is accessed through nature, reverie and symbols and through this  “self-recalling,” the mother of the muses becomes our guide. As an artist, she is the one I desire most to accompany me.

Lorca

Periodically, I return again and again to things I have written about before in hopes of bringing to the surface a clearer idea of the subject for myself. Duende is just such an idea. Lorca, himself, spent years coming to terms with Duende beginning with Cante Jundo and Deep Song- Andalusian music- and later using it to describe all art, especially poetry. “These black sounds are the mystery, the roots fastened in the mire that gives us the substance of art… The duende, then, is a power, not a work; it is a struggle not a thought.”   ( Lorca, Deep Song and Other Prose, p.43)

Duende is tied to death. This knowledge is bound to the creative process by the artist’s awareness of the passage of time; the passage of earthly, material beauty; and the longing for perfection. Death grounds one to the earth- the immediacy of reality and the awareness of the power of life. Death tears away all of the blinders one has and firmly sets one in the here and now. There is an inherent  power and vitality surrounding this knowledge. It transforms a work into a surge of new life. Lorca acknowledges the pain in deep song, which the gypsies called pena pegra, “black pain”- “…which is far deeper than any personal pain, and it was this which undoubtedly opened Lorca’s psyche to the universality of suffering and the need to find a language which would get beyond the limitations of the personal. The poetic image is such a language.” ( Cobb, Archetypal Imagination, p.97)

The poetic image that is firmly grounded in death leads one to an awareness of something that goes beyond the personal into ” the interiority within all things… The fantasy of hidden depths ensouls the world and fosters imagining even deeper into things.”(Ibid., p.97) This ability or insight into the interior life of all things allows the artist a unique perspective that roots his imaginal life to the world. The Sufi’s referred to this as the isthmus that leads the artist from the world of objects to the world of images. And it is image that must be the source and wellspring for the artist. Noel Cobb beautifully describes this state,

It appears that when duende touches soul and soul touches death, it brings a new quality with it into living- a fuller, deeper resonance to experience and thought. With its roots deep in death and the underworld, duende nourishes the soul with life-giving images. (Ibid., p.102)

This play between the imaginal life of the artist and his experience in the world, where death lies, gives the artist a heightened attentiveness to even what appears ordinary and superimposes upon these common events the extraodinariness of living itself. But Lorca warns,

“… that there are neither maps nor discipline to help us find duende. We only know that… he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry that we have learned, that he smashes the styles… With idea, sound or gesture, the duende enjoys fighting the creator to the very rim of the well… the duende wounds. In the healing of that wound which never closes lies the invented strange qualities of a man’s work. ( Lorca, Obras Completas, Vol.1,p.10994)