“Therefrom
the function of an open art as an epistemological
metaphor: in a world in which the discontinuity of phenomena has put in crisis
the possibility of a unitary and definitive image, this suggests a way of
seeing what is lived, and seeing it, accepting it, integrate it into our sensibility.
An open work fully faces the task of offering an image of discontinuity: it
does not describe it, it is discontinuity itself. It stands as a mediator
between the abstract category of scientific methodology and the living matter
of our sensibility; almost as a kind of transcendental scheme that allows us to
understand new aspects of the world.” Umberto Eco[1]
The Six-Petalled Rose - The Primitive Themes of The Artistic Soul
Fernando
Henrique Catani
Introduction
I drew up, in a master´s degree thesis
on education, based on didactic explanations on the periods of the History of the
Art at a training course for teachers, an imagistic scenario comprising some
sort of poetic/aesthetic alignments inherent to the artistic images. They were appellations, well-established notions
that could be related to most identified works during the periods of the
history of the art in its most trivial apprehension (Primitive art, Ancient
art, Medieval art, Renaissance art, Modern art and Contemporary art). I
borrowed this description so that most participants could achieve this
knowledge, which would allow them to identify instantly the meaning, for it
being common sense, and later continue with a more thorough approach.
Based on this, I developed a way to approach this artwork, as well as
its creation process, focusing on the ability to elaborate the education
activities, which hints at perceiving both the internal and external quality
that every image retains, in addition to the processes involved in the creation
that I named poetic/aesthetic dispositions[2].
Influenced initially by James Hillman assertiveness: “the spirit is on the peaks and the soul is in the valleys¨[3],
I noticed that by observing the artworks and even the deconstruction of its
process of artistic creation, elements of an inner aspect arise that would reveal
an underlying poetic impulse, which I deemed connected to the soul, as well as
an outer aspect that is an aesthetic manifestation I understand is linked to
the spirit. Both phenomena, jointly, can expose the psychological aspect
involved in the art-making process and, as a result, the artwork itself. This
relevant aspect would be set between those boundaries since the patina of a
materialized aesthetic surface up to the surge of a poetic intensity. From the
spirit of the world, conspicuous, fearless and illuminated until the rustic,
dense, protected and obscure soul.
Due to this initial context, it was
possible to establish the archetype concepts presented in this work, allied to
my intuition on my understanding of the primitive aspects of the artistic soul,
aroused by reading Gaston Bachelard[4],
where the imaginator[5]
character must find oneself while moving around one´s imagination with an
atavistic desire, and undeniably ideal pattern, by its growth and spiritual
development. Based on the profound provocation comprised in the suggestions of
this rustic, primitive, absurdly simple[6],
nonetheless, apparently impenetrable, to the invocation for an uncertain
spirituality, anonymous, so ancient that one would be unable to establish a
specific date, I started to visit the inner part of my imagination. There, I
could find, in synchronicity, just as Carl Jung warned, which strikingly, in
truth, the own living human imagination, the memory of a world with no
divisions, everyone and everything was within.
Renamed, rectifying their values, I
described the capacity of every element I came across, so that I could recreate
the world within the same ritual from countless centuries of this mythological
human experience. At this exceptional moment, which would no longer wade after
the fatidic decision to submerge into the unknown, I encountered my own hidden
stone and I was able to catch a glimpse of its mythological aspect. Because
every element in there is always eternal, beyond what is known, I rewrote its
name in order to share with others what I am, the others and the world. I
present my view of what I appreciate as an archetype that can be considered as
very significant and important for any work dedicated to the psychological and
sociological richness of the contemporary imagining character: The Six-Petalled
Rose.
This context reveals, after all, the
six primitive aspects that circle around this artistic soul, born and triggered
from each poetic/aesthetic dispositions
pair, and therefore, demonstrated as: rhythm
and ritual generate the Time primitive aspect, reflection and mythology the Divine aspect, devotion and religion stand for the Sacrifice, identity and humanity would be the Truth; dynamic and society are the primitive aspect of the Being; equanimity and panculturality view
generate the Union aspect. I understand that constitutive archetype, which I
call A Vision of the Artistic Soul,
can support and broaden my own studies, research and actions within the
aesthetic education area and the psychological, social and cultural
re-education, as well as produce and provide knowledge to researchers and professionals
involved in these subject and work areas.
With the aim of moving towards, it
is to organize a thorough study on this intuition, this insight. The main
objective of its intention could be to develop and to demonstrate the veracity,
the fundamental need and the application of these six primitive aspects, as a vital
archetype, as an unprecedented and accessible view of the artistic soul during every
creation process and, as well, the essential importance of these primitive
themes when artworks approaching and observing occurs.
A draft of The Poetic/Aesthetic Dispositions
and The Primitive Themes
Kayapó-Xikrin People
(Graphics for body paintings)
Rhythm and Ritual (Primitive) – The Time. Body Painting and the Apology of Time - The
Ritual is a literalized metaphor of Rhythm consciousness. The aesthetically
created Ritual is always anchored in a need for a Rhythm and in it vibrates a
very specific power, the theme of Time. Time can appear in both horizontal and
vertical expression. Its horizontality, however, is an illusory element that
can only be proved by the maintenance of some materiality. Though, durability
always reveals a melancholy, because it is possible to restore materiality, but
only when acting vertically through the reorganization of its load, its
possible weight. His maintenance project is one that sustains the burden of
Time on materiality and constantly reorganizes its stability. The poem is
vertical. Time does not pass, it is carried. Time is a verticality that scares,
like a hurricane. That is why its unfolding has a notion of destructive power,
of madness, destiny and fatality.
Exekias (Greek plate representing Dionysus - 530ac)
Reflection and Mythology (Ancient) - The Divine. The Boat of the Divine and the Tree Mast - A
deep sense of Reflection on the world and an intense will to explain how it is
organized. It is not a rational reflection, but a poetic reflection. There is
an inner impulse, an inner replication, to understand the world and to relate
to it through a creation of figures and metaphorical contexts that explain this
world in a specific way: Mythology. A deeply reflective poetic impulse that
creates mythological aesthetic explanations about the world that are like
metalinguistic unfoldings of the own psychological interiority. Through the
reflexive impulses that force mythological aesthetic creation is the power of
the theme of the Divine. This is the theme of heights, lack of air, vertigo,
smallness, silence, abandonment, a very special kind of death and, above all,
the fall, potential sinking. This theme then points to eternity, but here the
eternal is not what lives forever, but what, in its mystical fall, is
incomprehensibly out of the sphere of living and dying.
"Martyrdom of
St. Vincent" (unknown author in the basilica of San Vicenzo in Galliano - 1007
AD)
Devotion and Religiosity (Medieval) - The Sacrifice. Martyrdom is the Conscious Surrender to
Sacrifice - Devotion is fundamental to the aesthetic creation because it
guarantees the depth of the expression of Religiosity. The aesthetic work is
essentially spiritual and this is nourished by the relation Devotion and
Religiosity. The imaginator is a
devotee and with this creates expressions of Religiosity to maintain the
voluntary work of his spiritualization, in an explicit Sacrifice, at all costs.
Here nothing can be condemned, for everything can be overcome. That is, the imaginator does not give up on his
project, but finds ways to overcome any need to continue to glorify it.
Sacrifice occurs through the movement of this disposition because it surrenders
and surpasses itself and, fundamentally, because it does not believe in its
condemnation. The closeness between a certain madness and precipitousness to
the Sacrifice is driven by an inner conviction, a devotion that hopes to prove
its faith by the unleashing of its act of Sacrifice to the world. Sacrifice
always aims to affect and transform the other by imposing a situation and a
religious path to oneself. By transmuting himself into Sacrifice it would be
possible to transmute the whole world.
El Greco - "Sacra
Famiglia" (1580)
Identity and Humanity (Renaissance) - The Truth. The Incarnation of Truth in a Man - The
Challenges of Humanity require a poetic impulse that internally elaborates an
Identity cell. An individuality that in its movement is capable of being
unprecedented has the power to consolidate, with each creation, the first
moments of a conception of the existence of this Humanity. Here, everything
that concerns to the human being and its possibilities is important. I am not
important because it is linked to one or another tradition, but because it
carries the power of a complete and irreplaceable innovation in itself. This is
the movement of the imagination that seeks to colonize what is still
mysterious. That movement that intends to aesthetize the borders of the world.
Truth is not knowing what is or what is not, but the approximation to the
unjustifiable drama of the implacability of life. The past, the future, and all
things are at the same spot, at the same instant. Truth reveals and raves
before the unbearable and unjust totality of existence, in the astonishment over
this implacability. The Truth is impartial and crazy. A tragedy that does not
try to seem acceptable. From this fatal encounter, from this unjust material
cycle, no one can escape.
Alfredo Volpi (late 50's)
Dynamization and Society (Modern) - The Being. A Being and the Internalization of the World - In
the notion of a dynamization of the elements of poetry and artistic aesthetics
for the entire environment of the Society is the need to break the forms of
arrest, of an artistic expression in only certain privileged locations. Dynamic
poetics yearn for community. And, in this sense, it longs for humility. The
desire of the imaginator now is to
expose to everyone the ideas that he believes may affect the world, mainly
because he really came to live for it, and that this world belongs to everyone.
Being here is not recognizing oneself, but just the opposite, finding the
immense and incorruptible moment of not recognizing, but participating. To be
is to be in the unbearable and unjustifiable fragility of life without any
guarantee of continuity. It is plunging not into its own history, but into the
saga of consciousness. To be is to jump, to naively jump into the dark. The
theme of Being is the theme that can rescue irrationality as a fundamental
poetic quality, previously pursued by the pretension of reason. This
anticipation is important because reason will never be a primitive theme,
precisely because it denies the ineffable soul/spirit state.
Wim Delvoye - “Art
Farm” (2003/2010)
Equanimity and Panculturality (Contemporary) - The Union. The Tattoo on the Pig:
the mystical union between the sacred and the hated - Panculturality is not
defined by the agglomeration of countless cultures side by side like a
kaleidoscope, but, on the contrary, by a dilution of cultures in a single
aesthetic situation. The poetic impulse of Equanimity is well defined in
contemporary pancultural aesthetics. One can no longer believe that differences
and diversities only have to live in tolerance, but that, much deeper than
that, point to a single human experience. The recognition that there are no
differences because they are no longer seen, because the essence of the
existence of the other in the same, and of the same in the other, has already
been found. A shallow idea would say that the Union is moral perfection, that
perfection is distant and that is why Equanimity is important to find out it.
Perfection is certainly an element of the Union, but it is in the movement of
the present, in the denial of any model, that any possibility of seeing
imperfections is broken. It is precisely the poetic power that alerts us to the
realization that there is nothing that I can trust on to decide what is
perfect. So that question now becomes useless. The theme of the Union here is
one that shows a denial before an affirmation. To unite is to abandon any
moralistic model of transformation in the future to live an active transformation
in the present.
A possible iconology to reveal these Primitive
Themes in a tattooing worldwide movement.
Robert Ryan (finished
tattoo work – 2018)
Asked why I had my tattoos, I
invented an answer: The tattoo is prior to reason, so, there will be no
reasonable explanation about that. In fact, I know that the tattoo itself
contains the answer, but it would be too much for a superficially positive
mind. From this simple and implacable fact, I dedicate myself to its iconology
for its deeper symbolic contents, using the instruments I developed in my
Master thesis: A Vision of the Artistic
Soul, in an archeology of poetic memory, between borders that go from the
patina of an aesthetic surface materialized until the pulsation of a poetic
depth; from the foundations of the rustic soul, dense, protected and obscure,
to the crystallizations of the spirit of the world, manifest, fearless and
enlightened.
It would be little to observe this
phenomenon, the tattooing, only in the singularity of its socio-cultural
environment or even for its unusual paraphernalia; I try, then, to describe
this archetypal scenario, in an ethereal palimpsest of poetic/aesthetic
alignments. What, then, would lay some of the possible Primitive Themes in this context?
Thus, the purpose of this
communication is to show an iconology that demonstrates the potentiality of
traditional tattooing in incorporating and revealing these six primitive themes
as an artistic movement, a very important artistic movement of our days. Its
psychosociological meaning is important because of the metaphor towards the
work in search of knowledge, simultaneously superior and deep of oneself,
inherent to its spiritual freedom process. In the same way, its semiotic
meaning becomes important here because this archetype is an epistemological and
metaphorical reference to the work process of soul-spiritual liberation[7],
long before the socio-cultural issues that it adds, that I believe that through
the poetic/aesthetic experience of the psycho-sociological creative process of
the imagination, from an intuitive resistance to surrendering to the labyrinths
of the personality committed by subjective suffering, or even physical pain, to
the highest escalation of yearning for an experience of philosophical
excellence, in the pure objective convergence of the incarnation of the
conflicts of an ultimate heroism.
The great proposal, then, is to
suggest that the tattooing today reincarnates the great question of a living
artistic movement, not of the Art, which has become an embalmed entity in the
mortuary museums, but one of those movements that support the great creative
power of the artist in daily life that, if it is not the largest, is one of the
greatest artistic movements of these days. We cannot say which work or which
artist is the most important, whatsoever, but there is a great proposal
circulating worldwide between the conventions, in the trips of artists between
studios all over the world and on the social medias. And, at that moment, the
tattoo reactivates what this Art entity, this giant ball of egoism and pride,
no longer finds. The tattooing attitude reinserts the direct power of the
artist, in fact, was one of the elements that kept him alive for all these
years. In this way, with a watchful eye to this undeniable entropy[8],
we will be reframing this movement, but with unpublished signifiers, and that
is the most important signification that I wish to point.
I just want to start this reflection:
The tattooing world is a living expression when it resumes the rhythms and
rituals that sacralize the daily life in the verticality of our TIME; It adds
all the synonyms of the DIVINE to reflect on our context and reinvent the
mythology of our moment; It is a devout resistance in abandoning the domination
of moralistic condemnation in the metalinguistic SACRIFICE of its religious
revolution, victorious in the present; It is honest in its TRUTH when it is
relentless in exposing the themes of identities, reassessing and reaffirming a
new and urgent sense of humanity; It is public, plebeian, and anarchic when it
dynamizes the values of another community that recreates attitudes and
traditions of society denying the trivialization of the BEING and the quotidian
of everyday life; And it is transgressive when it feeds this powerful
equanimity in the world, circulating without frontiers, in its panculturality,
always handmade, always in a direct exchange of experiences of real life, of our
sensibility, extreme physical proximity between artist, collector and observer,
in a UNION of meanings totally unprecedented in the artistic movements.
In that way, the poetic/aesthetic
phenomenon of tattooing is, then, this movement which also constantly takes up
the meanings of those Primitive Themes
in a spectacular way and even more: it exposes them and places them as a new
meaning, bringing them together and regrouping them into an alternative organization
of living. And, from the center of the Rose
of Six Petals, emanates them, this rustic soul, that spirit of the world
that never will leaves us. Let’s see!
[1] (Eco 1968, p.158)
[2] From this tension
emanates the preparation, the approach I understand as the maximum icons, that
is, the interface where all archetypes could be recognized once. Back to the
first philosophers’ arche up to the
daydream for the absolute principle.
“Thus, I managed to connect the `ritual´ aesthetic with the `rhythm´ poetic
impulse mainly on the images and context assigned to the period known as
Primitive art. The `mythological´
aesthetic with the poetic `reflection´ impulse that were more apparent on the
images and context of Ancient art. The `religion´ aesthetic with its constant
poetic exercise of `devotion´ occurred in a more evident way during the period
known as Medieval art. An intense
aesthetic experience of `humanity´ that suggests a poetic `identity´
consciousness has always been clearly evident in the achievements broadly
disseminated during the period of Renaissance art. The aesthetic focused on building the `society´ striving for the
`dynamization´ of poetic meanings appeared with greater strength in the modern
art creations. And, finally, the `pancultural´ aesthetic supported by the
poetic `equanimity´ determination was more powerful during artistic situations
widely known as the Contemporary art.” (Catani, F. H. 2011, p.28).
[4] “Indeed, the ancient conditions of daydreaming are not
eliminated by the contemporary scientific know-how. The scientist himself, when
leaving his workplace, returns to primitive valorizations. It would be useless,
however, to describe, in the history´s timeline, a thought that never ceases to
contradict the scientific history teachings.To the contrary, we will dedicate
part of our efforts to show that daydreaming does neither cease in recovering
the primitive aspects, nor stop operating as a primitive soul, despite the
elaborate thinking, something against the instructions established by
scientific experiments.” (Bachelard, G. 1999,
p5).
[5] The name I gave to
the fundamental character of the contemporary, current human being in (Catani 2011).
This perspective establishes a human quality that is crucial for this work,
which is that this human being is today, above all else, an imagining
character. Here too the path to comprehend this specific quality starts from
the reflections from James Hillman: “The
growth of the soul is also described as imagining, that is, to observe and hear
using the imagination that sees its image through an event. To imagine
means to liberate all events from their literal comprehension toward a mythical
appreciation. Growth of the soul, in this sense, is equivalent to
deliteralization; the psychological attitude that is distrustful of the given
level and ingenious regarding events and refuses it in order to explore the
metaphoric and dark meanings of the soul.” (Hillman, J. 1983, p.55).
[6] This reference to
Alchemy appear during my first initiative of reflection on the subject of the
Soul, inspired on a very special imagistic work: the Mutus Liber, The Silent
Book of Alchemy (Carvalho 1995), and mainly in its peculiar quality to indicate
the psychological aspects of the human poetic imagination, which displays an
exceptional artistic beauty, materialized on metal engravings that describe the
symbols and procedures of the basic initiation of the philosophical alchemical
work. These
illustrations and the essay included with the edition list the most important
terms, the archetypical and metaphoric propositions of alchemy, which is the
cornerstone for the elaboration of my work based on psychological alchemy
concept. This subject is of great interest to me mainly due to its unusual
singularity aspect, simplicity and psychological primitiveness that suggests
the spiritual development is possible to all human beings independent from, for
instance, as implied in V.I.T.R.I.O.L. “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando
Invenies Occultum Lapidem”. Explore
the inner side of Earth. By rectifying, you will discover the hidden stone.
This is the anonymous and famous formula amongst the alchemists and it is the
indication of the first step, a founding order of Alchemy´s unreachable
history. However, I approach the philosophical, poetic and metaphoric aspect of
suggestion and reaching a liberation experience, of that I believe to be and
defined as the main human psychological problem: the relationship between fear
and illusion (Catani 2011, p.15), as well as the development work and the
personal growth. The alchemical achievement I admit offers one more spiritual
achievement, the intuitive and spontaneous meeting the soul´s rusticity, rather
than a complex laboratory techniques system historically associated with exact
science. The response from Alchemy that is of interest to us here is, thus,
only the exact instant when “In the dark
night the young man dreams and searches. He is awakened by the angels in order
to start the Great Work” (Carvalho 1995, p.38). I propose this to be the
greatest human psychological moment, the rest comes later.
[7] The development of
a definition for the process of spiritual liberation, which also represents the
basic introduction to the constitutive methodology of the propositions on my
theory/practice work of education, was coined and subsidized by descriptions
assigned to Plato, in his work Teeteto
(Plato 2010), regarding the Maieutics Socratic method: the work to bring the
human soul to light.
[8] “We are therefore examining the possibility of transmitting
information that is not an usual meaning through the use of conventional
language structures that oppose the laws of probability that regulate it
internally. Consequently, in such a case, information would be attached not to
order but to disorder, at least to a certain kind of habitual-and-predictable-non-order.
We have already said that the positive measure of such information (as distinct
from meaning) is entropy. But entropy is disorder in its highest degree and -
in its respect - the coexistence of all probabilities and none, then the
information given by an intentionally organized message (poetic or common
message) will be perceived only as a form very particular disorder: a disorder
that looks like disorder as part of a pre-existing order.” (Eco, U. 1968, p.109)
Bibliography:
Bachelard, G., 1999. Psychoanalysis of Fire. São Paulo: Martins Fontes
Carvalho, J. J., 1995. Mutus Liber, The Silent
Book of Alchemy. São Paulo: Attar
Catani, F. H., 2011. A Vision of the Artistic Soul. M.Ed.Campinas:
Unicamp
Eco, U., 1968. Obra Aberta (The Open Work). São Paulo: Editora
Perspectiva
Hillman, J.,1 983. Archetipal Psychology.
São Paulo: Cultrix
Jung, C. G., 2002. Sychronicity. Petrópolis: Vozes
Platão, 2010. Teeteto. Porto: FCG
