Gustave Moreau's Golden Venus

Venus sortant de l'Onde (Venus rising from the waves) - detail - 1866, Gustave Moreau.
Geometry, 2023, DS.

 

“It is the language of God! One day the eloquence of this silent art will be appreciated. I have lavished all my care and endeavour on this eloquence, whose character, nature and spiritual power have never been satisfactorily defined. The evocation of thought through line, arabesque and technique: this is my aim.”

- A quote from Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), one of the most important, and most regarded of the French Symbolist painters, found on this Musée National Gustave Moreau page.

Taken at face value, we can assume Moreau is referring to art, specifically painting, as the "language of God" and "this eloquence." The remainder of the quote, however, seems to indicate a somewhat different context. He uses the word "arabesque," for instance, which loosely interpreted would indicate an ornamental, decorative design pattern, predominately Islamic, but, during Moreau's time - especially in the art world - arabesque was a popular term in which spiral flourishes were often key elements. They were not always "golden," - the spirals in the ancient Roman arabesque panel inset left are not golden spirals - but spirals were, nevertheless implied by the term.

Interestingly, in the Wiki entry for arabesque, however, there is this (ambiguous) line: 

"...proposed connections between the arabesque and Arabic knowledge of geometry remains a subject of debate; not all art historians are persuaded that such knowledge had reached, or was needed by, those creating arabesque designs, although in certain cases there is evidence that such a connection did exist."

Well, Arabic geometry aside, in Moreau's time arabesques were (literally) all over the place. In two words: art nouveau... a decorative style based on the "sinuous curves" and whiplash lines often found in nature. Art Nouveau was nothing if not sexy! It was blatantly erotic, "hidden in plain sight," transforming mundane objects into opulent, undulating feasts for the eyes - and the libido.

Inset right is a French turn of the century interpretation of a Venus mirror - artist unknown - in this case a hand mirror.* Its gorgeous entirety can be found here.

"Fin de Siècle is an umbrella term embracing symbolism, decadence and all related phenomena (e.g. art nouveau) which reached a peak in 1890s. Although almost synonymous with other terms such as the Eighteen-Nineties, the Mauve Decade, the Yellow Decade and the Naughty Nineties, the fin de siècle however expresses an apocalyptic sense of the end of a phase of civilization. The real end of this era came not in 1900 but with First World War 1914."

- Via the Tate Museum online Fin de Siècle section. Interestingly, as we saw in the Renaissance and the Baroque period, certain kinds of "sinuous lines," flourishes and patterns seem to emerge and reemerge for artists and artisans during pivotal points in human history. And we'll see this again.

"My discovery of the Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris when I was sixteen years old shaped my likes and loves for the rest of my life. It was there, in certain women's faces and figures, that I had the revelation of beauty and love."

- Written by André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, in 1961, several years after an important exhibition of symbolist drawings in Paris took place; an exhibition he, in fact, sponsored. He wasn't merely a champion of Moreau's oeuvre, however, he felt that Moreau was genuinely a proto-surrealist... and, possibly, a kindred spirit.

While, throughout the modern, war-torn world, Moreau and the symbolist artists had fallen into obscurity, it wasn't long after Breton's exhibit that the rest of the art world caught on. For a fuller description, read Wiki's entry for Gustave Moreau.

Inset left (above) is the beautiful spiral staircase in the Musée National Gustave Moreau (cited by Breton in the quote). I believe it may be a period piece original to Gustave Moreau's home in which the museum in Paris continues to be housed. For a beautiful group of interior photos, including his studios, see the Film France location pages starting here. It's a charming place and, like André Breton who "haunted" it while still alive, well, I'd haunt it, too. (Imagine walking down that spiral staircase - a metaphysical experience!)

For another art nouveau, Venus-related  treat (inset right), feast your eyes on this Italian, late 19th century marble and alabaster lamp found here. While one is tempted to see this piece (and it's potential spiral) as kitschy, tongue-in-cheek, and more profane than sacred, I think the sculptor's intentions were good, and his lamp is a tribute to Venus. But, why Venus? In most readings - including astrological -  Venus symbolizes harmony, love, sensuality, natural beauty and, ultimately and essentially, all of the arts. She represents the true patron... and the spiritual matron.

***

This is actually my third attempt at creating this post. Mysterious, digital mishaps destroyed the previous two. Well, let's hope "three's the charm"... because I'm superstitious, and most likely will take it as a sign that this post should not - for whatever cosmic reason - be published at all.

The Golden Meme is a rascally thing. Just when I thought I would refrain from spiral hunting in regards to more contemporary artwork, numerous contemporary artworks with spirals appeared! Just like that. While I realize I am not obligated to reveal my findings - and there are arguments for not revealing them at all - well, here I am. And, I am here for one reason: Venus. Because, Venus, in all her many aspects is a deeply pentagonal expression, and it is often through her that this enigmatic "golden" tradition (which I've been glued to for the past few years) was enabled, via some artists, to perpetuate itself for (at least) several hundred years. My only hope is for this tradition to continue in the spirit and with the reverence intended by its originators.

Botticelli was one of the artists involved... and one of the earliest in the more modern leg of our journey, which most likely began in the Italian Renaissance. As it was, many young artists in the following centuries made pilgrimages to Italy, which is one way the Golden Meme -  the pentagonal art tradition - survived and multiplied through time and space. This is my theory, anyway.

Gustave Moreau was also one of these artists... 

(continued after the jump)

A Virtual "Can of Worms"

Worm's Last Memory - digital - 2009, DS. Geometry: 2022, DS.

Admittedly, Grace Jones is a tough act to follow... but, what must be done, must be done.

It seems I have made an unwelcome discovery and this is it: yes, one can embed a golden spiral in a visual image without even realizing it... and I have proof!

The proof amounts to golden spirals found in 5 of my own images - 3 of them executed prior to 2010 and the other two created in 2015, and 2016. There's only one problem: I wasn't introduced to the pentagonal golden spiral until March of 2021!

Inset left and right (below), from 2016, is the side panel of the music box with 2 potential GTSs.

Question: Why is it that a golden (pentagonal) spiral will discreetly appear in an image when  - at the time it was created - the artist had no conscious knowledge of the particular spiral involved? Is our design sense somehow wired to the melody of the golden ratio? Is this why the ratio was referred to as the "divine" - in that it is subliminally embedded in our consciousness?

Finding a golden spiral is not exactly the same as creating one, but the twain do meet somewhere within the process. And, this might be a factor. In the case of finding a golden ratio in ones own work, while it allows an artist to remember more of the actual creative process, it also brings something else to the table, a sense of the mysterious; a connectedness. This is, at once, satisfying... but, ultimately, a bit spooky. Is it a muse thing? An encrypted message...?  If so, from what?... or who? 

I keep thinking of it as a kind of organic thing.. a more sentient form of Sacred Geometry; the sub rosa beneath the sub rosa... like a maze of underground catacombs inhabited by ghosts. Then again, maybe the spiral is just a design artifact, making its appearance wherever a golden triangle appears.

At the same time, well, what new madness is this? In other words, is it anything but a strangely human (and yet, inhuman) construct which is essentially of the imaginal realm?

And, how does this reflect on all the spirals I've been finding in other artist's work?

Yes, well, I am unable to answer any of these questions, but have posted all five images in which the GTS was found (3 are below the jump). As for the worm .jpg (above), I found it was imperative to replace the space of my own crop (!) to accommodate the spiral! The image isn't working perfectly within the spiral but it's very, very close... and it is working with the golden triangle.

In the Company of Green Women (III): The Illumined and the Illuminators

Zelus Dei - Illumination from Hildegard von Bingen's Scivias - 1151 or 1152 - found here.
(Note: click on images in this post for enlarged views)

"I looked and behold a head of marvellous form ... of the colour of flame and red as fire, and it had a terrible human face gazing northward in great wrath. From the neck downward I could see no further form, for the body was altogether concealed ... but the head itself I saw, like the bare form of a human head. Nor was it hairy like a man, nor indeed after the manner of a woman, but it was more like to a man than a woman, and very awful to look upon.

It had three wings of marvellous length and breadth, white as a dazzling cloud. They were not raised erect but spread apart one from the other and the head rose slightly above them ... and at times they would beat terribly and again would be still. No word uttered the head, but remained altogether still, yet now and again beating with its extended wings."

*

"From my infancy until now in the seventieth year of my age," she says, "my soul has always beheld this light, and in it my soul soars to the summit of the firmament and into different air... The brightness which I see is not limited by space, and is more brilliant than the radiance around the Sun... I cannot measure its height, length, breadth. Its name, which has been given me, is 'Shade of the Living Light.' ... With that brightness I sometimes see another light for which the name Lux Vivens has been given me. When and how I see this I cannot tell; but sometimes when I see it all sadness and pain is lifted from me, and I seem a simple girl again, and an old woman no more."

- Two quotes from Hildegard von Bingen, via "The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard;" from Studies in the History and Method of Science (full text), 1921, edited by Charles Singer

Frontispiece from Scivias depicting Hildegard von Bingen receiving "divine" inspiration.

O virtus Sapientiae

O Wisdom’s energy!

Whirling, you encircle

and everything embrace

in the single way of life.

Three wings you have:

one soars above into the heights,

one from the earth exudes,

and all about now flies the third.

Praise be to you, as is your due, O Wisdom.

- Antiphon for Divine Wisdom by Hildegard von Bingen. This was one of her many musical compositions which are still being performed to this day.

"Therefore the whirlwinds tell me lies in many voices, which rise up within me, saying, 'Who are you? and what are you doing? and what are these battles you are fighting? You are indeed unhappy, for you do not know whether your work is good or bad. Where will you go? and who will save you? and what are these errors that are driving you to madness? Are you doing what delights you? Are you escaping what distresses you?... It would be better for you if you did not exist!' 

And after these whirlwinds have risen up thus within me, I begin to tread another path that is hard for my flesh to bear, for I begin to practice righteousness. But then I doubt as to whether or not the Holy Spirit has given this to me, and I say, 'This is useless.' And I wish to fly above the clouds. How? I wish to fly above the faculties and start things I cannot finish. But when I try to do these things, I only stir up great sadness in myself, so that I do no works, either on the heights of sanctity or on the plains of good will; but I bear within me the disquietude of doubt, desperation, sadness, and oppression in all things."

- Hildegard von Bingen from Book 1, Vision 4, Scivias, (1151/1152).

"Claricia was a German illuminator who included a self-portrait in a South German psalter produced circa 1200 CE. In the self-portrait, she depicts herself swinging from the tail of a letter Q with her name inscribed over her head. Her uncovered head, braided hair, and style of dress (close-fitting tunic, long-waisted dress, long flowing sleeves) suggests that she was a lay student at the convent." - via the Wiki article.

"Nuns created artwork that varied in style, function, market, and quality, like all artists everywhere. Some nuns made private devotional drawings, and some crafted products in a variety of media for sale outside the convent. They had opinions about their work, too. In an early sixteenth-century letter to her brother, a nun in Nuremberg asks him if he would show some of her embroidery to his friend Albrecht Dürer, otherwise known as the Elvis of the northern Renaissance. In another letter she says, 'I have no recreation except painting; if I could only have Dürer for a fortnight so that he could instruct [me].'"

- Whitney Burkhalter from “Nuns Can’t Paint”: Sexism, Medieval Art, and Dudes on Mopeds.

Self-portrait -  1493, Albrecht Dürer

(Note: Now, girls - and some boys - wouldn't you, too, wish to have
this man "for a fortnight..." ? I would!)

Illumination, Roman du Bon Chevalier Tristan, Fils au Bon Roy Meliadus de Leonois
- 1340, Jeanne Montbaston

"To accommodate the demand, book-making, writing, and illustrating expanded out of monasteries and into secular production houses.  These commercial scriptoriums were prevalent in most major cities, but especially Paris, by the 1300s.  Furthermore, a great deal of the actual painting of these manuscripts was done by women.  Yet another female-dominated industry in the middle ages that you might never have guessed."

-  Merry Farmer from: Medieval Monday - Illuminated Manuscripts.

From: La voie de Povreté ou de Richesse (The Way of Poverty or of Wealth) -1400s, France
Previously attributed to "a follower of the Bedford Master", it is now attributed to the "Fastolf Master". 

“I know a woman today, named Anastasia, who is so learned and skilled in painting manuscript borders and miniature backgrounds that one cannot find an artisan in all the city of Paris – where the best in the world are found – who can surpass her, nor who can paint flowers and details as delicately as she does, nor whose work is more highly esteemed, no matter how rich or precious the book is. People cannot stop talking about her. And I know this from experience, for she has executed several things for me, which stand out among the ornamental borders of the great masters.”

- Christine de Pizan, from The Book of The City of Ladies, (1405), via Mary French's article: Lady Truth and the Author: Female Networking in Medieval Manuscripts.

***

As you may have noticed, I've a new ploy for getting myself to post these days; I put up the images first - which is half the battle anyway - and this forces me to add my "narrative glue" sooner than I would have otherwise. Unfortunately, sometimes even this maneuver back-fires, and I drum up additional information, and more links, and so many bits of disorganized data, that the whole task becomes hopeless.  And, in the case of medieval women, this has been true from the first and second posts in this series - plus the post that started it all - straight through to this one. And why is this? In four words: it's those rabbits again. I can now pronounce, from deepest experience, that whatever else the Sign of the Three Hares may mean, it - without one single doubt or hesitation on my part - is a magical symbol. It is a symbol of increase. Period. And, as Elmer Fudd might've said, when confronted with three Bugs Bunnies (!): Be vewy careful.

And, so, we come to the medieval scribes, mystics, and illuminators - specifically the invisible feminine side of the medieval equation. And, like myself, you were probably under the impression that this was primarily an empty set, containing one or two obscure female anomalies of little import. In which case you - like myself - would be wrong. And, really, if you follow this blog at all, it should come as no surprise... considering that even very contemporary women of artistic achievement have already seemingly fallen through the cracks of History (emphasis on "His")...

The Shadow Self and the Mirror Image

"Some artists fear the judgement of failure: the manuscript unpublished, the painting unsold; and others the judgement of the marketplace: bad reviews, poor sales, disappointed fans. Some fear specific kinds of judgement: the lowered esteem of colleagues or certain critics, the negative opinions of family or friends. And for others, the harshest judge of all is the one who whispers inside our own head: You aren't any good. You don't know what you're doing. What makes you think you can write/draw/craft/compose/perform? You're mediocre. You're a fraud. You're a fool...

Only perfection will silence these critics -- or so we secretly believe, and since there's no such thing as the "absolutely perfect," we're damned before we've even begun..."

- Terri Windling from her blogpost When Every Day is Judgement Day , January 7, 2015

"Psyche has two main functions. It is both a non-material "hard disk" that stores memories as well as a non-material digestion organ that masters fear. Psyche can be of different complexity and can in this respect be compared to a mirror globe that has more or less reflectors on its surface. A globe with less mirrors gives a simple image of reality whilst a globe with many mirrors gives a highly complex image of reality. It is obvious that a highly complex psyche is able to represent reality more sophisticated but on the other hand is more prone to picture distorted images of reality."

- Gordon Praxis from Functions of the Psyche

***

I've just come back from a long, enforced hiatus from the internet recently. As it stands, operating out of the particular area of New Mexico in which I currently reside, reliable ISPs are hard to come by. But, that wasn't the only reason I avoided getting an internet connection; in the end, I just wanted to attend to my own projects without the added distractions cyberspace involves. In the past , I would've doubted that going cold turkey from the virtual world was even possible. But, I'm here to report that not only is it possible, it isn't a half-bad exercise.

For instance, within the past two months, I reworked and finished the first draft of a manuscript; a YA novel which had been sitting on "the back burner" for a period of over ten years. Had I been caught in the glare of that giant disco-ball we call virtual reality, this wouldn't have been possible...

Forevermore, Dr. Evermor - In Praise of a Steampunk Pioneer

"Dr. Evermor's Forevertron, built in the 1980s, is the largest scrap metal sculpture in the world, standing 50 ft. (15,2 m.) high and 120 ft. (36,5 m.) wide, and weighing 300 tons. It is housed in Dr. Evermore's Art Park on Highway 12, in the town of Sumpter, in Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States."
(Photo found here.)

"I don't think there’s any damn need to alter anything at any given point in time, because any kind of shape or form can be anything! It’s all in the way you look at it! I make that vast statement in the many birds I've created here. Those special bird bodies out there – I’ve got electric motors in them. Who says you can’t have electric motors in a bird to make it a power-bird? It’s a rebellious forum that I am presenting in all these things. If an art teacher says, “You can’t do that, you've got to have a bird body shaped like a bird body, I say, “The hell with that, I’ll put any kind of body I want on it!"

"This is a very different kind of art, because there’s never anything imposed on the piece itself - the parts are always used as they are. Thus, you have to put a little twist or torque into it, in order to get some kind of human communication between the finished piece and the more or less rigid, sterile, pre-existing shapes and forms. You have to get some kind of magic going there, and we have a lot of people who have come here, taken pictures, and then they go home and produce things. There are fifteen to twenty people out there trying to do Evermors, but they fail on just that issue of getting enough energy flowing so that the piece has a little magic."

- Two quotes from Dr. Evermor found in this interview.

Tom Every was a depressed man in 1983. At the age of 45, after a disillusioning battle with Big Brother, and in a state of chronic dissatisfaction with the burgeoning commercialism and de-humanizing artificiality he sensed in the modern world, Tom  - a former demolition expert, born in Brooklyn, Wisconsin - turned to the one thing he knew well: scrap metal; vintage industrial machinery. His epiphany arrived in the form of a fictional character - and a story - which emerged in his psyche at the time... the story of "Dr. Evermor", a Victorian inventor from Eggington, England, whose singular purpose was to build a spacecraft to the stars. But, this was no ordinary spacecraft; nor was its proposed destination found on any official celestial map. This vehicle was designed to propel Dr. Evermor to the center of creation - the phenomenal, virtually-timeless lap of "God"- on a magnetic beam of lightening within a magnetic force field, both conjured and fabricated by Evermor, for his first and final solo-mission.

The Language of the Birds (& the Memory of Sound): Automatism

Wings of Light - oil on canvas - 1984, Roberto Matta

"Fulcanelli's main point, the key to unraveling the larger mystery of alchemy and the cathedrals, lies in an understanding of what he calls the "phonetic law" of the "spoken cabala," or the "Language of the Birds."

"What unsuspected marvels we should find, if we knew how to dissect words, to strip them of their barks and liberate the spirit, the divine light, which is within," Fulcanelli writes. He claims that in our day this is the natural language of the outsiders, the outlaws and heretics at the fringes of society.

It was also the "green language" of the Freemasons ("All the Initiates expressed themselves in cant," Fulcanelli reminds us) who built the art gothique of the cathedrals. Ultimately the "art cot," or the "art of light," is derived from the Language of the Birds, which seems to be a sort of Ur-language taught by both Jesus and the ancients. It is also mentioned in the Sufi text, entitled "The Conference of the Birds," by Attar the Chemist."

- excerpt from Reading the Green Language of Light  by Vincent Bridges

"Whilst some artists emphasised automatism’s role in discovering hidden aspects of the artist’s psyche, others, such as Roberto Matta, valued it as a means for uncovering hidden aspects of objects and for the exploration of what lies beyond the confines of the visible world. Its optical image is just one aspect of the existence of an object. Galaxies, crystals and living matter go through processes of creation, existence and destruction. They exist in time, change with the passage of time and can be observed from multiple perspectives. Conventionally, however, they are only depicted at a fixed point in their history, from a single point in space and, inevitably, with a palette limited to colours which reflect light of a visible wavelength.

To his attempts to use automatism to give form to those things which cannot be seen except as an inner vision, Matta gave the name ‘psychological morphology’, a phrase Colquhoun used to describe her paintings of the 1940s.  For the painters involved in this theorising – primarily Matta, Esteban Frances and Gordon Onslow-Ford – the possibilities were, literally, endless; ‘It is a Hell-Paradise where all is possible’ wrote Onslow-Ford. He continued; ‘The details of the farthest star can be as apparent as those of your hand.  Objects can be extended in time so that the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly can be observed at a glance."

- excerpt from Richard Shillitoe's excellent online article: Occult Surrealist: Ithell Colquhoun and automatism

"We are still living under the rule of logic, that, of course, is what I am driving at. But in our day, logical procedures are only applicable in solving problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism still in fashion only allows us to consider facts directly related to our own experience. The aims of logic, in contrast, escape us. Pointless to add that our very experience finds itself limited. It paces about in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to free it. It leans, it too, on immediate utility, and is guarded by common sense. Under the flag of civilisation, accompanied by the pretext of progress, we have managed to banish from the spirit everything that might rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, fancy, forbidding any kind of research into the truth which does not conform to accepted practice. It was by pure chance, it seems, that a part of our mental world, and to my mind the most important, with which we pretended to be no longer concerned, was recently brought back to light."

- excerpt from Andre Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto

***

M'onde - oil on canvas - 1989, Roberto Matta

(Continuing where I left off), have you ever come across a particular scene (via a movie or some other form of entertainment)... which goes something like this: a man is walking down a city street shouting oaths to an invisible entity, and the passersby think he's mad... deranged,* but, in reality, the invisible entity actually exists - the man really is communicating with someone or something - and the passersby are merely missing the overall picture (?). If it isn't already, it ought to be the standard metaphor for all creatures "paranormal". Ghosts, aliens, fairies, Yeti, whatever. Some of us see them, some of us don't. The ones who do are immediately labeled delusional... while the ones who don't - for the most part - file their nails and sit complacently on their sofas, in the safety of a bedroom or living room or media room, watching bogus "reality" shows on whatever pixelated screens they possess. But, meanwhile, there's an elephant in that room. Or, maybe a bird. A wild bird which has flown into the room and has begun plummeting against the walls in panic and desperation. And, because no one knows quite what to do - and the program is over anyway - they wander into another room and close the door.

End of metaphor.

Artists, on the other hand, stay in that room... with the elephant... with the bird... with no pixelated screens to distract them. That is, unless they're a certain breed of digital artist, but, at this point, the screen is blank, apart from maybe a shadow of a large ear, or dim trails from a flapping wing, or the bright glints of light on a splintered beak. Images from the unconscious are hard to pin down. They're anomalies in a different language... poetry in unspoken words. You might say, (re: quote above) an unspoken cabala, the true language of the birds... and, invisible birds, at that.

The Jewel - Image and Premonition

The Jewel - Digital - 2006, Dia Sobin

She looks like some exotic, tattooed, Middle-Eastern cat-woman - possibly a court card from the Tarot of the Cat People - and was the first of my enigmatic hybrid creatures; but, I have a strange amnesia about this image, and how it emerged. And, it's difficult to talk about, because it's emergence coincided with the death of my mother in 2006; a harrowing, catastrophic period in my life (and hers), which I'd give anything to forget.

But, the point of this post - and the one which will follow it - is an attempt to discuss the paranormal aspects of art, specifically, art as imagery. Which is not to say the word "paranormal" appeals to me, because it doesn't. I prefer to refer to all of the weirder, inexplicable, and/or misunderstood varieties of human experience as transdimensional* - precognition, telepathy, ghosts, aliens, UFOs, faeries, the whole lot. In other words, I feel that all these human experiences are very real, and valid. Why we fail to understand them is because, in spite of all we think we "know", we don't "know" enough. We may never know enough.

Thoth... and/or, Why it is That Artists Die in Art School

(Color translation of) An Automatic drawing - pastel on paper - 1973, Dia Sobin
(original drawing at the bottom of the post)

I came upon a scrapbook of old drawings of mine recently - very old, pre-art school drawings - of which the above is an example. It was a colored version (executed in pastels) of a black and white automatic drawing I did around the same time. I did a lot of automatic drawing in my pre-art school days. I liked this one because it was less abstract than the others... it was a recognizable symbol and I knew it meant something, although, at the time, I was unable to identify it. Years later I would come to the conclusion that it was a representation of Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian moon god of knowledge and wisdom, who was both patron of the arts and sciences as well as an important occult symbol. My teen-aged self had dipped into the collective unconscious and Thoth is what emerged.

The drawing is obviously not an example of high art. It is primitive, at best, looking like something pried off a cave wall. And, yet, therein lies its power... a vitality and immediacy that I've somehow lost along the way, and will never again recapture. But, why is this?

Because, shortly thereafter, I went to art school.

A Cosmic Nest (w/ footnote) (& A Restored Musical Link)

A Cosmic Nest - digital - 2013, DS
(Click to enlarge.)

"... I also realized (in the dream) that the universe was not infinite, but, was like a round area bordered by a ring of space which was a different dimension bordered by other dimensions. (?) The Saturn-shape comes to mind.

Also, there are other universes next to this one... as there are other galaxies and solar systems. The pattern of eternity (this universe arrangement) would look like a field w/ all these Saturn-shapes polka-dotting it."

- quote (recounting an actual dream) from a 1975 personal journal, via an excerpt from: "Temp L (The Temple Drawings)" - unpublished project record -1982, Dia Sobin



"Many modern theories of fundamental physics predict that our universe is contained inside a bubble. In addition to our bubble, this `multiverse' will contain others, each of which can be thought of as containing a universe. In the other 'pocket universes' the fundamental constants, and even the basic laws of nature, might be different.

Stephen Feeney, a PhD student at UCL who created the powerful computer algorithm to search for the tell-tale signatures of collisions between "bubble universes," and co-author of the research papers, said: "The work represents an opportunity to test a theory that is truly mind-blowing: that we exist within a vast multiverse, where other universes are constantly popping into existence."

- via this Science Daily article, dated August 3, 2011

***

Flat Disks vs. Bubbles

Everybody dreams, and dreams come in a variety of flavors: mundane, romantic, other-worldly, prescient, wish-fulfilling, historical, etc.  The truly transpersonal "cosmic" dreams are rare, but, when you have one, you tend to want to share it. It took me over 30 years to "share" this one of mine... and then, only because it inspired an image, "A Cosmic Nest" (above).

The Trans-figure

By definition, figurative art is defined as art representing objects or figures from the "real world". Transfigurativism could refer to just about everything else which, indeed, has form, but never can and never will be found in the corporeal world as such. In its broader aspect, I suppose, this might include any variety of fantasy art. But as I've already intimated, there's a hierarchy involved.  This does not, however, in any way, refer to the quality of the art so described.  There is an immense amount of fantasy work out there which is wonderfully crafted and beautiful to behold. But then, the figures it represents can be recognized along fairly conventional lines w/ standard varieties of perception and mental references. Drawings of unicorns, dragons, angels, for example, are fairly easy to recognize. They represent items from the collective mythos, as do the robotic humans, demonic constructs, faerie folk and three-headed dogs.

Transfigurativism in its highest state, however, is something else. That is, not only does the trans-figure represent something incorporeal, but it represents something that has never been seen before - that is, something which even falls outside of the mythological range. It has, in fact, never been visualized till the artist drew it out of the aether, and it will never be seen anywhere else again unless someone tries to replicate it. In ways, there are many similarities to visionary art, but unlike that genre, there is never a "moral" to the story, neither illustrated nor implied. Once again, in its highest state, there is never a "story" to begin with.

Transfigurative art is also closely related to varieties of Abstract art and Surrealism, and in many ways the disciplines converge. They diverge when the word "imagination" becomes the descriptive term, because the transfigurative image is not "imagined", nor can it be "imagined". It is simply the object that is, and is wholly self-referential. It defines reality on its own terms. and this "reality" is not a matter of dispute.

Of course, you're going ask me, well, if all the above is true, then where does a trans-figure come from? It comes from synchronistic accidents, trance-states, "automatic" states and any state which enables the artist to receive, retrieve or draw upon unconscious material. The trans-figure is an emergent, an original impulse, and the first and last of its kind. In a strange way, more or less, it seems as if it is drawn out of nowhere, but at the same time is wholly and authentically itself. It is often a weird, other-worldly image... alien and "other", but, in its own way faintly recognizable on a collective subliminal level... for example, it is similar to the bio-morphic ghost images that appear to unfold behind your eyes as you fall asleep, but not the recognizable images that appear in your dreams. If a trans-figure is successful, it can be felt, and felt to exist within its own trans-dimension, but, fundamentally it is not an "idea". By "felt", however, I'm not referring to emotional states in the ordinary sense. Trans-figures seem to transcend recognizable human emotional states as there is no reference to material that might cause, describe, or express an archetypal emotive reaction or response.

Incidentally, the image above is the last panel of the triptych described in the "Alchemy 1:01" post. It is a difficult process to describe; how this and its 2 sister images emerged, except to say that they did, in fact, emerge, and my role as an artist was merely to document what I was observing on a subliminal level. It's as if the original object - the mysterious bone - was, all the while, saying to me: "look at me... no, really look at me". If this all sounds rather "airy-fairy", then so be it. My guess is that many serious artists have been "called" to the craft, so to speak, for similar reasons, though, perhaps, it's not an issue they care to discuss. "Drawing from life" then, is a relative expression... there is "life", and then again, there is "life".

There is also the matter of the "muse" which might further define the transfigurative process.. But that subject will be addressed in a later post.

See Alchemy of a Found Object