Unurthed

The seven of Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals on exhibition at the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, reproduced in the museum’s 2009 Mark Rothko. My notes below, having recently visited.

Moving counter-clockwise from the entrance of the dedicated Rothko Room, these paintings seem to manifest a sequence of transcendental frictions.

Untitled, 1958 (p87). Click for larger version.

Brightly corporeal, the first painting’s ponderous frame conveys the brutal physicality of unattended reality and repels scrutiny, yet the narrowest ways in the series provide an impetus to attendance.

Sketch for “Mural No.1″, 1958 (p89). Click for larger version.

Transcendental journey underway, the second painting unveils a horizon full of indistinct yet hopeful pattern as new eyes adjust to peering into depths.

Untitled, 1959 (p100-101, above from postcard).

Yet on approach, the third painting’s frame, darkest in the series, highlights sinister details, and our transcendent purpose is fearful and confused.

Mural, Section 1, 1959 (p98-99, above from postcard).

Attention is compelled inward as the fourth painting flatly reflects our judgment, a boundary between attendance of the world and ourselves.

Sketch for “Mural No.4″, 1958 (p90-91, above from postcard).

The fifth painting presents choice (the left cavernous, the right whorled) behind a living, ascending frame that is the consequence of reflection; the horror of the third painting recedes.

Mural Sketch, 1959 (p96). Click for larger version.

Painting six reveals the futility and surreality of many worlds as the colors of the thickening frame and way begin to blur; in the lower left paint flows upwards.

Mural Sketch, 1958 (p88). Click for larger version.

The only blue in the series, iridescent and supernatural, paints the instrument of transcendence and frames realization; yet the way retains its color, and one is still, in the final painting, approaching.

A diagram from Odhams Press’s 1955 The Wonderful Story of You: How Your Body Works, How Your Mind Works.

	EPIPHENOMENALISM Mind a mere by-product of body
	PHYSICAL MONISM Body a mere precipitate or condensation of mind
	PARALLELISM Mind and body on parallel lines, but no connection between them whatever
	TWO ASPECT THEORY Mind and body two aspects of the same reality
	MATERIALISM Body alone exists. Consciousness is merely a physiological process
	SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM Mental processes alone exist
	INTERACTION The view of Common Sense. Mind and body both exist and act and react one with the other

“Obviously mind and body influence each other to a very great extent, and many theories have been put forward to explain how they are related. Some of the most important of these theories are illustrated in diagram form above” (p197).

A diagram from Rawson’s The Art of Tantra (see previous post) delineating “the essential process… whereby man’s world of reality is developed… as it is conceived in the… Sankhya philosophy of Tantra” (p181).

“Sankhya Tattva diagram, illustrating the manifestation processes of creation” (p182), cf. earlier post on the three gunas. Click for larger version.

“Many Hindu Tantrik images represent the first division of the creative urge into male and female, white and red… Without the division there can be no love, no activity or field of action, no puja can be made… Since the time of the oldest Upanisads, subject and object have been called ‘I’ and ‘This’… equated with male and female, Siva and Sakti, male and female dancer…

“The lower levels of the Sankhya diagram define all the various sub-functions and categories through which the original flow of Being-energy is channelled and subdivided to make up the experienced world of forms and time. It is, in fact, a full phenomenological ‘synthetic a priori‘ system, and it matches the pattern of the subtle body remarkably… An important point has always to be remembered. In every experience of every objective ‘This’ by every experiencer the female quantifier is absolutely necessary; but so too is the male reservoir of energy, which supplies the ‘Being’ from the side of the objective, the unitary consciousness of self from the side of the experiencer. Within every yoni, every active world-as-woman, is buried the lingam, the phallus, without which there would be no energy to inflate her pattern. To a primary male spark of Being (Prakasa) the Goddess offers Herself as the ‘Pure Mirror in which He reflects Himself’ (Vimarsa). There are innumerable icons in India which represent the Divine Pair either as a male and a female, He with erect organ, She holding a mirror, or as a single double-sexed being, divided down the centre, the right half male, again with an erect organ, the left half female.

“Philosophy, however, must not be allowed to delude itself with its own constructions. Whilst it may theoretically assume an original spark within the reflection, the moment it seeks to attribute to that spark any character or form it falls into delusion. For: ‘Whatever power anything possesses, that is Goddess… Into the hollows of her hair-pores millions of cosmic eggs constantly disappear… She grants the desires of sadhakas by assuming various forms in play.’ But ‘She who is absolute Being, Bliss, and Consciousness may be thought of as female, male or pure [neuter] Brahman; in reality she is none of these.’ Even these are simply forms She assumes to make sadhana possible” (p181-183).

Speaking of caducei in Tibetan Tantrism (see previous post), a Basohli painting collected in Rawson’s The Art of Tantra.

A ca. 1700 (in one part, invisible) caduceus (p84). Click for larger version.

Two prefigurations described in Julius Evola’s The Yoga of Power (Lo Yoga Della Potenza, 1968).

“Some texts of Tibetan Tantrism mention technical details pertaining to specific visualizations. I will mention two exercises. The starting point in both exercises is the realization of the form of the vacuous body, which contains the caduceus formed by the pingala [the masculine, solar channel of life force, or prana, found in occult corporeity], ida [the feminine, lunar pranic channel], and sushumna [the channel through which kundalini ascends after having been awakened]” (p171).

Tibetan short a, p171.

“In the course of the first exercise, some letters of the Tibetan alphabet are used as the support and as the instruments of the magical imagination. These letters are the short a, which corresponds to Shakti [the feminine form of the divine], and the long a, written ham and pronounced hum, which corresponds to Shiva [the masculine form of the divine]… The two letters, shown in the illustration[s] above [and below, respectively], must be visualized in this fashion. The feminine a is inside the muladhara-chakra, at the base of the spine, and is brown. The masculine a is located in the sahasrara-chakra, at the top of the head, and is white.  In the course of this exercise, one performs a short retention of breath between inspiration and expiration. During inspiration the apprentice should visualize his breath to run down, through the pingala and ida, and finally to reach the letter a that is located in the muladhara-chakra. When the breath reaches the muladhara-chakra, the letter takes on a more vivid color and becomes bright red, just like a fiery charcoal turning into flame. The apprentice is supposed to concentrate on this image and to feed it with prana especially during the retention of breath. After that, he must exhale, while imagining his breath ascending along the sushumna in the form of a blueish current” (p171-2).

Tibetan long a (ham), p171.

“In a second set of exercises the apprentice must imagine a vivid, vertical flame rising vortically from the letter a located in the basal center (chakra). After each breath this flame grows by an inch, so that after ten complete breaths it has reached the chakra located at the naval. After ten more breaths it has reached the heart; after ten more, the larynx; and thus all the way to the top of the head, where the apprentice must visualize the flame becoming one with the masculine letter ham…

“The second exercise differs from the first only in a variation of the visualization process. Soon after imaging a flame emanating from the muladhara-chakra, the apprentice imagines that the letter situated on the top of the head is beginning to melt, dripping a substance that feeds the flame and that makes it rise higher and higher. Eventually the flame fills the entire sushumna up to the sahasrara-chakra, in which the fusion, of better, the transfiguration, of ham takes place. The forced then assumes the nature of bodhichitta, according to Vajrayana terminology” (p172).

“In the abovementioned Tibetan exercises, the repeated visualizations are supposed to originate a process of induction and of arousal. The images, which are prefigurations of the real process, work to make this process real. Thus, at a given moment, they are substituted with real states and with real manifestations of powers. The texts insist, however, that between the prefiguration and the experience there will always be a hiatus, and that the moment of awakening represents something discontinuous and unforeseen. The images will be transformed and act of their own initiative, as if they were animated and carried around by an extraneous force. When the process of visualization eludes the control of one who starts it, awakening is near” (p173).

Three paintings by Serge Poliakoff reproduced in Michel Ragon’s 1958 Poliakoff.

“How can we describe a picture by Poliakoff? It is, for instance, a surface in which are incorporated a rounded and a right-angled shape. But all about it is asymmetrical. It is a fact that this type of painting is very hard to describe; for it is made up of nothing. No memory of known shapes can be found in it. It is the world of silence and of ‘pure painting’. How can one describe silence?” (p12-13).

Oil painting, 1952 (p19). Click for larger version.

“A Poliakoff picture generally comprises a few simple shapes. A kind of light emanates from a central mass. The passage of the colors from dark to light and the effort of vibration in the texture are two characteristics of his pictures.

“A Poliakoff picture has no depth, no ‘sky’, no perspective. Thus, in the same picture, a yellow may be hollow or in relief. And a red placed next to that yellow can likewise be hollow or in inverse relief.

“The reason is that his forms stem from space, and space, as he likes to say, ‘creates the form’” (p31).

Oil painting, 1953 (p23). Click for larger version.

“Next to space comes the matière. Poliakoff covers his canvas with successive layers—three or four at most—of thin paint, applied with extreme sensitivity. His creations, which owe nothing to organic forms, thus produce a curiously sensorial impression.

“This effort to bring the paint alive is characteristic of Poliakoff’s work.

“‘The matière of all the great painters lives’, he says, ‘even in the case of Malevitch. I was much struck when I saw his famous white square on a white background. It proved to me once again the outstanding part played by the vibration of the paint. Even in the absence of all color, a picture whose paint vibrates, remains alive’” (p34).

Oil painting, 1956 (p41). Click for larger version.

“This ‘pure painting’… is the painting of silence. The Poliakoff miracle is that he knows how to make silence vibrate.

“He says:

“‘When a picture is silent, it means it is all right. Some of my paintings start making an infernal din. They are explosive. But I am not satisfied until they have become silent. A form must be listened to, not seen’” (p36).

A painting by Tao Chi collected in The Wilderness Colors of Tao-chi (1973).

Mountain-Blocked Clouds, ca. 1700 (plate 10). Click for larger version. The inscription is a couplet by Du Fu followed by a commentary by Tao Chi: “It is good not to have any houses here, / Yet to have mountains blocking the clouds. / These words are unusual, and this painting is also raw! There is a feeling beyond feeling, and yet no hint of an ordinary painting.”

“The unifying principle Tao-chi advanced for the understanding of painting as well as cosmic creation was called i-hua, which means both ‘the single stroke’ and ‘the painting of oneness.’ I-hua was at once the symbol and realization of primordial growth—the process of nature in both the general and specific senses. I-hua also constituted the very practical operating procedure in painting: the completed design depended on the direction and configuration of the first single stroke from which everything else grew. The accidental effects that Tai-chi sought in his work were directly related to this concept of ‘single stroke’ painting, or painting of ‘myriad strokes that are ultimately reunited in oneness’” (Fu’s & Fong’s introduction).

Said Tao Chi: “When the brush is united with the ink, yin-yün (cosmic atmosphere) is created. When yin-yün is undivided, it is like chaos. In order to open up chaos, what else should I use except the ‘single stroke’? Even if my brush is unlike the usual brush, my ink unlike the usual ink, and my painting unlike the usual painting, there is always my own identity in it. It is I who use the ink, the ink does not use me; I who wield the brush, the brush does not wield me; I who grow out of the womb, the womb does not discard me. From one, ten thousand thing come, yet from ten thousand things I must come back to one. By transforming the ‘single stroke’ into yin-yün, all things under heaven may be accomplished” (Hua-yü-lu, chapter 7).

Three paintings by Jean Miotte collected in Ruhrberg’s Miotte.

Brumes, 1992 (p229). Click for larger version.

“Miotte means his gestural structures to exist between states of solidity and liquidity, between the physical and the evanescent, the tangible and the elusive. His investigations arise out of his preoccupation with that gap in perception that occurs between memory, which seemingly solidifies everything, and seeing, where the world can in certain circumstances remain liquid, always be in a state of continuous change and transformation” (p17, Yau’s introduction).

“From this [Miotte] concluded that artistic work, the ‘making,’ as he unpretentiously refers to it, takes place between the ‘will to an action and the content of the gesture that articulates it’” (p27, Ruhrberg’s forward).

Au delà, 1956 (p67). Click for larger verison.

“It becomes clear that… space—although diversely treated—is a dominant theme. The unfamiliar, the previously unknown, the individual cosmos of the sensibilities beyond rationality, are given visible shape by the liberated gesture, by form. The profound and immediate experience of the distilled emotions within the painting allows pure energy to become concrete and produces an echo in space of the magical powers of the universe. Titles such as Au delà [above]… clearly point to this” (p27-28, Ruhrberg’s forward).

Carré d’or, 1954 (p63). Click for larger version.

Says Miotte, “I see my work as a projection, resulting from intensely experienced moments, the consequence of confrontation with experience, and from internal conflicts. Painting is not a rational theorizing or intellectual observation, painting is an action, a sequence of movement carried within one’s self and whose origin is internal” (p33).

A woodcut diagram by Giovanni Battista Nazari from his 1599 Three Dreams on the Transmutation of Metals (McLean’s edition, translated by Doug Skinner).

Narrates the dreaming protagonist before Raymundus’s arch: “Although I looked over this construction with great delight, and reflected upon its occult secrets, my mind could not climb high enough to discover its meaning. Lost in these thoughts, I raised my eyes again toward the divine edifice; and saw, in the circular frieze of celestial lapis lazuli, these words, engraved and gilded: OUR SON THE KING HAS THREE FATHERS: THE FIRST CAUSES GENERATION, THE SECOND MULTIPLICATION, AND THE THIRD PERFECTION; AND OUR SON IS A POWERFUL KING, WHO FEARS NO OTHER KINGS.

“These words stimulated my desire to understand all of this; so that I could go no further. I gently asked the blessed Damsel to explain the structure, and she replied, ‘Pilgrim, follow me behind the locked door, and I will show you the explanation that you ask.’

“When we arrived, she opened the door with her occult secrets; we entered, and she showed me a large stone of  polished marble, on which I saw a description of the genealogical tree of the aforesaid king, with this diagram” (p119).

Nazari’s genealogical tree, p122. Click for larger version.

“The more this picture confounded me, the more I wanted to learn its meaning. Whereupon the gracious Damsel, seeing me so puzzled, said, ‘I know, my Pilgrim, that you would like to learn the meaning of the structure that you saw, and I find this desire of yours worthy of your request. Listen, then, and know that my explanation of it will also clarify the wonderful work that you saw in the middle of the flowering field; for those words engraved in the frieze of the circular lapis lazuli are the writings of our faithful compatriot N.; which concern the nature of those three fathers, who you can see inscribed on the tree, marked with the letters D, E, and F.’

“‘But come to the fundamental point of our argument: first you must know who engendered these fathers, who they are, and the nature of them. To begin with, then, let me tell you that our Chaos (B) begat the first father, and that this Chaos is the son of Nature (A). This first father was already mother of the second father of our king, Chaos (B) being the father. This mother (G) does not generate; the father does.’

“‘Let us proceed to the second father, who is the cause of the multiplication of the son, our king. And I tell you that he is the son of our Chaos (B). This son is the father and brother of the first father: thus, the first and second fathers are brothers; they are not, however, only two sons, two fathers, and two brothers to our king, but also one son, one father, and one brother. This father was also the mother of the third father, Chaos being the father: for this mother does not generate; the father does.’

“‘The third father is the cause of the perfection of our king, our son; this father is generated from the second father, by means of Chaos (B), his father and brother, but is still brother to the second father. Therefore, they are not only three fathers and three sons to Chaos (B), and three brothers, but a father to our king, a brother, and a son to Chaos (B). Our Chaos (C) has six sons, who are not only his sons, but brothers and sons.’

“On hearing the excellent Damsel’s obscure explanations, I felt as if I too had become a Chaos, from my confusion; for her words scaled the highest limits of the natural art of philosophy, to heights that reason can barely attain. Eager for a clearer explanation of all this, I humbly asked the gracious Damsel, who gently replied as follows.

“‘You will learn, Pilgrim, that these three Fathers, united with their wives (who are begotten by the fathers of our king, our son), and who are not only three, but one single wife, and one husband, beget this son, our most powerful king, who is very fertile in the begetting of countless offspring. And this divine mystery happens in this way: the first youthful father (D), united with his wife and daughter (G), who is white when hidden and black when revealed, is the cause of generation.’

“‘The second father, similarly united with his wife and daughter (H), who is red when hidden and white when revealed, is the cause of multiplication: that is, he is the reason that our king, our son, is so gifted in virtues, and so filled with good, that he can multiply the virtues and good of his other brothers, and destroy their every infirmity.’

“‘The third father, not unlike the others, united with his wife and daughter (I), who is citron when hidden and red when revealed, is the cause of perfection: that is, he is the reason that the king, our son, is born of such perfection that he can perfect his imperfect brothers by the power of his own perfection.’

“The Damsel pursues her explanation; for greater clarity she gives the meaning of each letter or number noted on the tree sculpted on the stone, as follows.

A. Nature generates our Chaos B and C. The former begets the three fathers D, E, and F; the latter generates six sons.
B. Our Chaos has three sons and three daughters, who are sisters and brothers.
C. This Chaos has six sons, who are brothers and sons.
D. The first young father, generating his wife, is the cause of generation.
E. The second father, generating his wife, is the cause of multiplication.
F. The third old father, generating his wife, is the cause of perfection.
G. The first young wife, to the first father.
H. The second middle-aged wife, to the second father.
I. The third old wife, to the third father.
K. Chaos, father of the daughters, fathers, and sons of our Chaos.
L. The third powerful king, contracting, multiplying, and perfecting his brothers.
1. The mother alone.
2. The father alone.
3. Because of them.
4. The first father, young and saffron.
5. The second father, virile and pure white.
6. The third father, old and white.
7. Chaos B and K: the same thing.
8. The first wife, born in Aries.
9. The second wife, born in Cancer.
10. The third wife, born in Libra.
11. Chaos B and C: the same thing.
12. Because of the fathers.
13. Because of the mothers.
14. The white brother.
15. The red brother.
16. The black bother.
17. The sparkling white brother.
18. The ashen brother.
19. The pure white brother.

“When the honest Damsel had finished speaking, I, unable to fully understand her explanation, asked for an example to clarify it. And she, willing to satisfy my request, replied:

“‘My Pilgrim, if you consider the profound secrets of nature, you will see that this king, our son, is generated by the first father (D), multiplied by the second (E), and brought to perfection by the third (F); although there is but one father, who generates, multiplies, and perfects. But let me offer an example.’

“‘Water and flour without yeast is not true bread; thus bread requires water, flour, and yeast. In like fashion, just as neither flour and yeast without water, nor water and flour without yeast, nor water and yeast without flour will generate bread; so too we cannot make our bread without our water, our flour, and our yeast, all first created together. We see, therefore, that our water is the cause of generation, our yeast of multiplication, and our flour of perfection; all of which bring our bread into being. And because our flour and water are created together, and our yeast with our flour and water, we can determine that our water is our flour, and that our flour and water are our yeast, except for their form…’

“‘It was not without some mystery that N. had the aforementioned sentence inscribed into the circular stone. Furthermore, you should know that Raymundus has put all of the science of my magistery into the aforesaid structure, in imitation of the alter to the god of Hermes, which you saw earlier. But this work of Raymundus’s explains that of Hermes, and vice versa; therefore, if you know the hidden secrets of the numen of Hermes, you need no further explanation. But let us move on’” (p119-124).

A drawing by Edward Ardizzone (see previous posts) from Percy Young’s 1957 Ding Dong Bell, a collection of nursery rhymes divided into eight taxa: Animals, Birds and Insects, Flowers and Trees, People, Places, Things, Nonsense, and Evening.

Places chapter heading, illustrating the rhyme Coming to Town (p81).

And Over the Hills, a Places rhyme (p88):

Tom he was a piper’s son.
He learnt to play when he was young.
But all the tune that he could play
Was ‘Over the hills and far away’.
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.