Art, Transcending Technique

Paris, May, 14^th 2006

This article is meant to bring together some thoughts about Art in general, and more precisely in my own experiments how it relates to technique (after all, the very origin of art is Latin ars, or technique), and our own very intimate thought processes.

Perception in Art, a play of Māyā

We are all familiar, sometimes from early infancy, with a lot of optical illusions. Some of them play only with our perception of distances, depth and perspective, others play with the remanence of light in the eye, thus simulating movement…

What they all do is to remind us of the illusory nature of the human senses — as with the analysis Descartes made about plunging a rod in water.

The first goal of the artists was often to recreate this illusion in a satisfactory manner. The traditional account about Zeuxis (Ζεύξιδος) talent (Greek painter ca. 5th cent. BC) is revealing^[12].

And many of the most striking artists indeed successfully captured the very essence of the illusion to recreate reality (Impressionism, Pointillism etc.), and make it alive through the eye of the viewer.

Understanding

So, to be successful at recreating the reality, the artist must hone his ability to perceive the very essence of the depicted subject, in a word, to break through the veil of the illusion.

There is a character in Chinese that sums up the steps of such an endeavour. It is the character 解 [jiě] which is etymologically composed of the horn 角 , and a knife 刀 over an ox 牛. Its meanings are

1. analyze, dissect
2. comprehend, understand
3. cut free, liberate

The notions this single character encapsulates is best illustrated in one of the chapter of Zhuang Zi 庄子.

(adapted from Lin Yu Tang’s translation)

Paying Attention

So we see that the education of the vision is not only a matter of sight ; a key is simply to pay attention to reality as it is.

Many people would readily say that they are paying attention to their surroundings, but reality can be other that what they perceive.

Perception is a personal action, responsible for most (if not all) of the individual inner reality.

As long as thought processes (not even specifically speaking of judgment here) are not brought to a halt and seen as but another object of contemplation, they irremediably tint the experience, as a superimposed lense over the inner eye.

We will discuss more about that subject later, but one can remember that accounts on crime scenes often differ from one person to another. It’s easy to get judgmental about it, but as long as one has not experimented the shift in perception, it is difficult to grasp.

A good visual example of such experiments can be found at the following addresses : they mainly show that human perception can be easily fooled by unnoticed changes.

Change Blindness |
Demos

Et facta est Lux^[13]

In visual arts, we mainly deal with light as a medium, thus it is important to understand about light (and its counterpart, shadow). But as we have seen, the kind of understanding we are dealing with cannot be attained without the direct experience and attention.

The holographic Cosmos

Holograms are not only nice science-fiction decorum, they are very real physics objects.
One of their most fascinating properties is that each part of the hologram (the illuminated photographic plate) is able to restitute the whole of the initial image. It can also be used to record on the same medium different types of information.

They are powerful reminders of the illusory nature of the duality (illusion of separation) beyond the buddhist metaphor or the scientific curiosity.

In fact, we usually perceive our world as separate entities, while art is about (re)integrating them in a coherent whole.

Another level of understanding

Mathematically speaking, we can say that our awareness is working at another equivalent (dual) level of reality than third dimentional reality, where we can perceive the very nature of forms —as in Plato metaphysics, where the intelligible world of “forms” or ideas is separate from the perceptual world we see around us.

Robots are not yet able to easily recognize a face among all the potential faces in the universes in various positions, with different expressions, different environments, lightings and so on, whereas a baby learns very early to recognize faces.
This is mostly because they are programmed to function strictly on the third dimentional level.

However, we can give them access to some other levels of understanding. For instance, French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier works showed that an image is composed of periodical spatial waves of different wave-lengths (the same as a complex sound is a superposition of harmonics, i.e. periodical waves). The interweaving of these waves is one of the factor that creates the depth of a picture.

• Greater waves are accountable for the bigger patterns (flat blurry areas)
• Short waves are those constructing the finer details and the abrupt “changes” in the picture.

As one can see, the subjective measurement of such factors (what is an abrupt change, or a fine detail ?) is something we do very naturally, while it requires an objective setup for a machine.

Not so incidently, Fourier (dual) decomposition of an image has very similar properties as an hologram, that is any change on the dual image when reverted will give a change on the overall image keeping the original image recognizable. This is the base of most of the filters you have on your favorite digital program^[14].

How does this applies to painting then ? It gives a tangible basis on feelings that e.g. a sharp outline can impact drastically the whole image, as much as big flat areas.

True Colours

I watch the orange light
wash the meadow and the trees
I feel my heart ignite
so I get on my knees
to hear the cricket song
to feel the earth
and know that I belong
in this Maxfield Parrish light
destined to perish with the night… (lyrics by Kirtana)

As such, color is not as fundamental as contrast in a picture, but it is of course quite appealing in its infinite variations. Its use gives another level of depth on an image and we can remember the masterful use of dazzingly vibrant colors by Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966).

Green is blue

We have all played with coloured pencils, and we are somehow more accutely familiar with colours (wholeness) than we are with contrast (duality), to the point that we forget that it has a lot to do with our culture and language.

For instance, we do forget that blue and green were not necessarily distinguished as two different colors in ancient Mediterranean cultures. In fact, the very word blue comes from the Frankish blao (> German blau) and azur comes from the Arab ازرق azraq.^[15]

In China, we also have one word 青 [qīng] meaning both blue and green…

Colors are thus but artificial separation made for the purpose of simplicity and communication on the continuous spectrum of colors :

As such, the indigo color, for instance, was defined by Isaac Newton when he divided up the optical spectrum to seven colors (which was congruent with the tradition seven notes, days, astronomical bodies etc.).

La Terre est bleue comme une orange^[16]

We are so much accustomed to say things like “grass is green, sky is blue…” that we no longer notice the influence on our actions of these beliefs erected as absolutes. As we have briefly seen, an image, as the world itself, is a whole (a holon would said Arthur Koestler), and parts are to be understood in relation to the whole and vice versa.

The ambiant light rarely makes the blades of grass green, and they may appear even red in the sunset. Unless we learn to observe the plays of light, we are only bound to restitute but our own conceptualization of the world, and not the world as it is.

To finish with this quick overview, I will attempt to deconstruct some of the explorations I have made with the digital medium, so as to clarify some points.

Processes

The practise of artistic endeavours of any sort is of great help to understand how we work, how we see and literally construct the world.

One of the great advantage on the digital medium over other traditional media is that it allows for greater freedom in exploration, without the drawbacks of a fixed physical structure that we can ruin at any moment.
In retrospect, one can find not the least being hindered by the material, but limited by the granted plasticity, because of the boundless spectrum of evolution potentials and the impossibility to fully explore them.

I mostly have identified three different “methods” of exploration that can be mixed together to yield quite interesting results, no only in an objective point of view.

The naïve

The French word naïve comes from natif, naturel (native, natural). So this technique is based on a very natural approach, where we imprint on the medium our mental construction.

With this naïve approach, we do very much as a child would do : part by part, as our mental construct dictates : for instance, a man is made of a body, a head and four limbs ; his head has two eyes etc. This is for most people the most natural way to draw, so natural they do not even question it (merly discard it and judge it as inadequate).

This may seem a bit exaggerated, but we can see this method exemplified and much refined in cartoons or of course, historically in the Cubism movement (~1910), whose stance was precisely to represent things as they are known, a radical break from traditional idea of art.

As Carlos Castaneda’s mentor, Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian, stated in Tales of Power, this is the world of the tonal :

In a sense, this method could be that of the left brain, the rational (which in truth extends much more than to just the brain). This is the natural by-product of our evolution from a child to an adult ; because we need to differentiate the things in the chaos Don Juan speaks about, to ultimately understand them. This is the first meaning of 解, analysis.

The directive

Once the laws are understood and integrated, another method sets into motion. We can then create what we think we know towards a defined goal.

Many have devised so many techniques to explore representation, some truly interesting.

• try to draw blindfolded : it exaggerates the flaws and can be revealing
• observe as long as you want a subject, and draw from memory
• draw alternatively the same subject “with your left brain” and “with your right brain” : for instance, draw outlines versus draw with shadows (blots of black).

If thought as a final step, it can become one of the most frustrating thing for an artist, as unavoidably arises the feeling to be struck, finding oneself repeating the same patterns over and over, without being able to reinvent oneself.

This step is the step of technique, which when mastered can become dry and arid. This is the second meaning of 解, apprehension.

The contemplative

Man is a creature of sense and signification ; faced with something formless, he will naturally give it meaning (or try to find some, when the rational mind forbids such deemed “infantile” behaviour).

The experiment of Rorschach ink blots is very significative. In a certain measure, it can be seen as a primitive application of the very ancient methods of scrying (from the Old English word descry meaning “to make out dimly” or “to reveal”) which, through gazing into seemingly neutral surfaces, let a door open to inner feelings and visions.

This process is something quite natural, that children are familiar with when they play with the forms of clouds in great exuberance of imagination.

Practices like meditation can help go beyond the mere identification with the visions, and allow to observe this process unfold.

I found that it is a very useful method for the artist, because it sustains and develops inspiration. It is the realm of the Symbolism, that movement born in the end of the nineteenth century as a reaction against Naturalism and Realism.

Most of the time we are amazed to find how apparent randomness is truly meaningful.
Lots of drawings on this site are made using this technique.

Some variations of this technique are

• to try to make sense of some random patterns whether made by you (blots of colors), or naturally (patterns made by stones, clouds etc.)
• represent some visions or dreams. This pertains to the very ancient tradition of mandalas (from sanskrit maṇḍala, circle), a mapping of consciousness made into drawings used in buddhism to allow its creator to tap into some of his allegorical potentials.

This method can be viewed as a step of integration and liberation (third meaning of 解), a movement towards the nagual.

Conclusion

As we have seen (in a quite cursorily fashion, I admit), art is another lense through which we see the world, which can give us great lessons on ourselves and how we interact with the world.

In the end, much as Socrates’ maieutics (the teaching of delivering truth latent in the mind by questions asked by the teacher, as a midwife would deliver a baby), it is a way to draw inner knowledge from oneself by means of observation, and actualize them.

Notes

• ^  About his legend :

  Zeuxis Greek painter from Heraclea […] None of his works survives, but ancient writers describe him as one of the greatest of Greek painters and there are many anectodes about his remarkable powers of verisimilitude — [in a contest with Parrhasius recorded by Pliny, he] painted some grapes so naturalistically that birds came to peck at them. Victory seeming to be his, he called on Parrhasius to draw back the curtain concealing his picture, but this turned out to be a painted curtain. Zeuxis conceded the contest; he had deceived the birds, but Parrhasius had deceived him. […] According to legend, Zeuxis died laughing while painting a picture of a funny-looking old woman.

  Ian Chilvers Oxford Concise Dictionary of Art & Artists

• ^  from the French poet Paul Éluard, “Earth is blue as an orange” is the first verse of a poem in L’amour la poésie
• ^  And this explains that the sharp outlines are muddled in some images with low compression, because JPEG algorithm works with the periodical patterns of an image, eliminating high frequencies (short wave-lengths).
• ^  Reference to the Latin expression from the Bible : Fiat Lux, et facta est Lux « Let there be Light, and there was Light »
• ^  See Bleu, histoire d’une couleur by anthropologist historian Michel Pastoureau

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