Ritual

spective, tantric imagery is not an arbitrary invention derived
from the chaos of artistic manipulation because, in the last analysis,
behind the symbols are the purest abstractions revealed and
visualized during contemplation.
In a quest for unity, the tantric artist identifies with the universal
forces and is driven to find a truer reality beyond appearances by
which a synthesis can be achieved between the external world and
the interior model: a macrocosmic vision which allows the artist to
come into familiar contact with the space-time continuum. The
world of art and the world of experience, though different in their
very nature, are not separate entities. Art is not wholly divorced
from experience; a thread of continuity binds one world with the
other. The tantric artist is not alienated from nature, but is very
much in unison with the order which constitutes it. His art is a
projection of an intrinsic consciousness permeating the outer and
the inner worlds. In this sense the artist is a link between art and life
stretched to a point between life and cosmos.
The art of tantra expresses this unity amidst the diverse physical
forces which constitute nature, and the many is thus harmonized
into a whole. The appearance of unity is a reality to the artist and is
reflected in the images he creates. To break the dimensional limits
of a work of art in the quest for a psycho-physical unity with the
essential forces of nature is a universal urge, not subject to the
limitations of time. The contemporary artist Lucio Fontana
comments: 'I do not want to make a painting. I want to open up
space, create a new dimension for art, be one with the cosmos as it
endlessly expands beyond the confine of the picture.' 12 The
continuity which effects cohesion and unity illustrates that
synthesis and gives art a universal significance. In the words of
Aurobindo, it reveals:
a fourth dimension of aesthetic sense,
where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all-
Most tantric images tend to stress the analogies between the
individual and the cosmos, and the life forces which govern them,
and in a way mirror Aurobindo's statement. They are reflections of
something taking place in real life and constantly reminding us
through the visions of the yogis what our true nature is.
In this form of representation, tantric images have a meditative
resilience expressed mostly in abstract signs and symbols. Vision
and contemplation serve as a basis for the creation of free abstract
structures surpassing schematic intention. A geometrical
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