Chi, Energy, and Painting

Have you ever felt drawn to a particular painting, sculpture, or handmade thing but you weren't quite sure why? It could be that the item was made by an artist who infused his or her chi into the work. The spirit energy per say of the artist; focused emotional energy implanted in the piece while it was being made. The artist puts an impression of his spirit and mental energy into the work.

Even with all the best technique in the world, a painting that lacks chi also lacks a certain vitality, that kind of ephemeral underlying energy that draws me to some work. This idea makes me think of this quote from painter Francis Bacon:

"I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail leaving its trail of the human presence... as a snail leaves its slime." - Francis Bacon

In Hindu culture this idea of energy is called prana, which translates literally to life-force and is involved with the practice of yoga. This energy also plays a vital role in Asian medicine, and in Chinese calligraphy painting. They believe that chi, also sometimes referred to as ki, qi, or gi, is in every living thing. It is like an energy flow or simply life energy.

QiGong is a systematic method of working with the qi energy of the body, (QiGong translates to breath work or energy work) and is related to the practice of infusing calligraphy with qi energy. Breathing that correlates with the brushstrokes and the flow of energy is what can infuse the calligraphy with the artist's chi. The main principles of calligraphy are: good tools (paper, brush, ink), a good posture, your emotions synergized with the brushstroke, balance, and rhythm.

The concept of chi is not dissimilar to what physics tells us - that everything is comprised of atoms; of energy. Although some physicists probably frown upon QiGong has a science, some believe it is related to the quantum physics concept of zero-point energy. Physicist Charles Seife defines zero-point energy as: "The energy caused by the spontaneous creation and destruction of subatomic particles, even in the deepest vacuum. It is a prime suspect for the cause of the cosmological constant."

Upon various blogs and message boards where I and other artists share their work with each other, there is a somewhat common phrase used sometimes in discussing the work. It usually goes something like - I would love to see the painting IRL (in real life) - or - I am sure IRL it is even better. This is because you cannot feel the true essence of a work without seeing it in person.

The best Giclee print in the world although very nice, is still a lifeless copy of the original painting. Vincent Van Gogh's work is a prime example. I have stared at this one original of his - Olive Grove, at my local museum many different times. Certain times when I am alone with the work and/or focused into it without distraction, I begin to see an underlying radiating energy.

I think that all handmade items have an element of this; the chi of the artist infused with the work. And whether you want to call it prana, chi, qi, zero-point energy or anything else, this life force energy is real, and is a vital and malleable thing. Check out this related post: All Matter is Energy.

Digg It!

The Symbolist Movement of the Late 1800's

My last post included a work from French symbolist painter Odilon Redon. I would like to discuss the Symbolist movement in more detail with this post. They are a group of late 19th and early 20th century artists and poets, including Jean Moreas (who published the symbolist manifesto in 1886), Charles Baudelaire, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, and Paul Gauguin among many others.

Odilon Redon, Cyclops, 1904.

Originating in France, with many German influences as well, it consisted of not just artists, but poetry and other arts also. Here is a quote from Jean Moreas from the aforementioned symbolist manifesto:

"In this art, scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena will not be described for their own sake; here, they are perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals."

- Jean Moreas, Le Manifeste du Symbolisme, Le Figaro, 1886

Symbolism was a reaction to the realist or naturalism movement that also originated in France in the mid 19th century. (Which in itself was a reaction to romanticism, the cycle never ends!) The symbolists sought to express a more ideal reality, rather than the rigid and emotionless works of the realists. One of the main influences of artists in the symbolist movement was their dreams. Let's hear from the French poet and symbolist Charles Baudelaire on this point:

"Common sense tells us that terrestrial things have but a faint existence and that reality itself is only found in dreams."

- Charles Baudelaire, Les Paradis Artificiels

I couldn't agree more with those words. If you read my last post on the fact that all matter is energy, this would imply that dreams on some level are indeed real. Yes some dreams are just because you ate pizza right before bed, but some dreams are much more than that. Some are also just a reflection of your mind, and the things it observes every day. In any case my dreams have provided me with inspiration and a re-interpretation of my own ideas in ways my conscious mind would of never done.

Jean Delville, Orpheus, 1893.

Although I don't dig all of the work by the symbolists (still too real for my taste), I dig that they made efforts to break away from expressing or rather merely recreating the physical material world, and expressing more spiritual truths and ideals. I know I have harped on this point before, about that criticism of some modern art that goes, "a five year old could paint that" or "I could do that". That kind of thinking misses the point entirely on non-objective art. The point is not a showcase of how well you can recreate life with paint and a brush, the point is to express whatever the hell I want to and if you don't like it, go look at something else! Alright I got a little excited there, but I don't create to get validation, I create to express myself, and in so doing, learn more about my self.

Native American Art of the Pacific Northwest

Today I am featuring a style of art that has always fascinated me; Native American art of the Pacific Northwest, specifically Haida Art; the work of Johnny Kit Elswa. The Haida people come from the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia near Alaska, which they have occupied for at least eight thousand years. Their highly developed designs and style arose partially from the fact that the islands lacked the more valuable resources of the mainland. They developed their sculptural and design skills which they used to make their art, to trade for what they needed.

Tekul or cirrus clouds, Johhny Kit Elswa 1883

Traditionally, the Haida art style or North Coast art style consisted of (among other things) sculptural works like totem poles, canoes, chests, masks, shields, and jewelry. Their drawings and paintings were made with porcupine quill brushes, and natural pigments found from minerals. Often depicting birds, super-natural beings, whales, fish, bears, and many other animal-forms. I think one reason that Haida art is still popular and still being made is that it reflects the spiritual culture of the people in a beatiful, highly expressive style. One of the first westerners to encounter the Haida noted that:

"Haida were so intertwined with the super-natural world before contact that we used to have to sing and dance hard to prove we were human."

Koot Sparrow Hawk on its Nest, Johnny Kit Elswa 1883

The highly stylized forms with natural colors reflecting spiritual, mythological and super-natural motifs is the reason that I like Haida art anyways. Those are two of the things that I try to bring to my art: an abstracted personalized style (their art was very direct and purposeful though obviously) that reflects the underlying spiritual reality of the world.

Johnny Kit Elswa 1883

"We do not inherit this land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." -Haida saying



Photo source: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Note: the above images are used in fair use; lo-resolution images used for critcal review. Also these images are in the public domain under U.S. and most if not all international copyright law; (life of the author + 70 years, and 120 years since the creation of item). Also note the case of Bridgeman vs Corel, which states that slavish or exact reproductions of an item in public domain does not contain a copyright.

Discussing Wassily Kandinsky's Essay: "Concerning the Spiritual in Art"

I was reading an essay recently by that most famous of early abstract painters (at least in my book) Wassily Kandinsky, published in 1914 as: The Art of Spiritual Harmony, (translated by Michael Sadler). I was particularly struck by the second part of it entitled; "The Movement of the Triangle". It describes a diagram that is a simile for the life of the spirit. I didn't see a diagram anywhere so I thought I would make one, because I don't know about you, but I am a visual learner. Sometimes I can read something twenty times and not really get it, until I map it out for myself. Along with my diagram, I have also selected what I consider the most vital elements of Kandinsky's "The Movement of the Triangle" and presented them below: (Click above for full essay.)

"The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment."

And then here is my diagram:

(Note: the article is in the public domain, but the diagram is © by Ed Tajchman 2008.)

Kandinsky goes on to say:

"At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted."

and a paragraph later....

"In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole. But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will tomorrow be stretching out eager hands."

Wassily Kandinsky

You can see from diagram a. above the artists and their vision; they create spiritual growth; spiritual food as Kandinsky says for the artists on the level below them, and thus move the whole of understanding forward. You can also see in diagram b. the ones on the bottom, inhibiting the growth of knowledge and understanding.

One modern example of the latter is, (I won't name any names) but think about the work of several of those very successful commercial 'painters', (you know who I mean). The ones who create overly-cheesy, 'safe', repetitious, massively reproduced work. I too If I so desired, could paint pictures of puppy dogs and sunsets and cottages and sell them for profit.

By giving in to the temptation to create solely for money though, and not taking risks, you limit your vision and growth as an artist. And therefore impede the progress of our understanding of reality as a whole, by not fully exploring the gifts you have been given. I'm not saying success is bad of course, but I prefer risky work; ones who create out of a desire to express themselves in a new and unique way; broadening the nature of our understanding of this world.

But that's just one aspect (from my perspective) of a very broad dynamic that Kandinsky is speaking of. So, hopefully I was able to offer up a little bit of spiritual food today for you with this post. If you read this much you might as well read the whole article, (link is at the top) it is a very fascinating read.

Helen Frankenthaler; Post-Abstract Expressionist

This is a beautiful quote from Helen Frankenthaler and describes well, her artwork:

"One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute."

-Helen Frankenthaler

An abstract painter who in her work embraces a kind of natural abstract beauty and grace, rather than the very gestural and painterly works of her predecessors. Frankenthaler is an immensely important artist of the 20th century. She was the first artist to just soak-stain raw canvas, developing her own innovative methods for this process. Some would call her work Color-Field painting; a movement that followed after Abstract Expressionism.

She knew the influential New York art critic Clement Greenberg, who through she met Willam deKooning and Jackson Pollack. And Here we have a direct link from the two chief abstract expressionists, Pollack and deKooning, and the chief pioneer of the movement that would follow after them. In her work we find a poetic voice that embraces spiritual essence over matter, and abstract over representational.

Give Me Soulful Art, Not Objectivity

Marc Chagall (1887 -1985) is one of my favorite artists of all time. The following quote is a simple and direct statement but it says a lot. His work definitely has a surreal, abstract even ethereal quality to it. Good art doesn't need to be objective, true expression is a reflection of one's soul.

“Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else.”

-Marc Chagall

I was looking at an online gallery of paintings the other day on a blog and they were so proud of this work that was an image of a table with a bowl on it. They were getting off on it with all kinds of praise in the comments section of the post. I mean honestly though, geez, who cares about a painting of a frickin' bowl and a table? Not me, not unless it's clear the artist is giving me something new, something from inside of him; something realist painters seem to be afraid of, or unable or unwilling to do sometimes.

Carl Jung on Creativity

I really relate to the ideas presented in the following passage of Carl Jung's:

"...There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of the creative fire. It is as though each of us were endowed at birth with a certain capital of energy. The strongest force in our make-up will seize and all but monopolize this energy, leaving so little over that nothing of value can come of it. In this way the creative force can drain the human impulses to such a degree that the personal ego must develop all sorts of bad qualities...in order to maintain the spark of life and to keep itself from being wholly bereft...[these negatives] of artists resembles that of illegitimate or neglected children who from their tenderest years must protect themselves from the destructive influence of people who have no love to give them--who develop bad qualities for that very purpose and later maintain an invincible egocentrism by remaining all their lives infantile and helpless or by actively offending against the moral code or the law."

(-Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 1933.)

I identify with that idea of the creative self protecting itself; of striking out against people and situations which inhibit my creative self or monopolize my time. Even acting out in subconscious ways; The part of the self that seeks to create is another part of one's self with it's own needs which it will seek out in various ways. Has I said, I find this moving because it's so very true for myself. Read this article where I found the quote: How Art Creates the Artist.

Alex Grey on Themes of His Work

Some would call Alex Grey the most important artist alive today. To quickly summarize his painting, (check out his website, it's awesome: Alex Grey.com), I would say he illustrates spiritual dimensions. I find his art very conceptual, but at the same time very real and down to earth, he's not completely inventing anything, he's revealing the nature of reality to his audience.

"Pointing to those subtle and casual dimensions beyond the physical is part of the purpose of my work. Interweaving the dimensions together - physical, emotional, conceptual, psychic, subtle, and spiritual has been part of my intention, my mission of art, always with the hope that it resonates with people and affirms their own deeper understanding of themselves and the world."

(Alex Grey, Transfigurations, p. 106.)

He's painting realistically and symbolically the concept and reality of spiritual and physical dimensions, which of course is an amazing thing. It's interesting to me the contrast between his paintings and those of Mark Rothko for example, both spiritual and pointing to the same things, just in two entirely different ways. If you haven't purchased an Alex Grey book, you absolutely should, see the link to his website at the top.