CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

hh Ti ll' ( ', \\1 ' ;\ (; .. \ IN,\ I ':\ 1': 1
sym ho I ic sha pes. This narrow s 1 yli za tiOIl revc a Is t II l' a 1 '1 is 1 s! ILl II ill ,I.', II i III "i{'lt '
off from the wealth of empirical reality and creating til l' symboli(' tolli·
verse. The aridity of linear precision is one of the hallmarks 01 Ihl • .
turning point, calling to mind the Yoruba, who assoeiale lillC wllh
civilization: "This country has become civilized," literally mea liS, ill
Yoruba, "this carth has lines upon its facc." The inflexiblc forms 01 Indy
alienatcd society arc everywhere apparcnt; Gordon Childc, for ex""'pit-,
referring to this spirit, points out that thc pots of a Neolithic village arc
all alike. Rclatedly, warfare in the form of combat scenes makes its lirsl
appearance in art.
Thc work of art was in no scnse autonomous at this timc; it serwd
socicty in a direct sensc, an instrument of the necds of the ncw
collectivity. Thcre had been no worship-cults during the Paleolithic, hut
now religion held sway, and it is worth rcmcmbering that for thousands
of years art's function will bc to dcpict thc gods. Meanwhile, what Gliiek
stressed about African tribal architecture was true in all other cultures
as well: sacrcd buildings camc to life on the model of thosc of the
secular ruler. And though not even the first signed works show up before
thc latc Grcek pcriod, it is not inappropriate to turn here to art's
reali z ation, some of its gencral fcaturcs.
Art not only creates the symbols of and for a socicty, it is a basic pan
of thc symbolic matrix of estranged social life. Oscar Wilde said that art
docs not imitate life, but vice versa; which is to say that life follows
symbolism, not forgetting that it is (deformed) life that produces
symbolism. Every art form, according to T.S. Eliot, is "an attack upon the
inarticulate." Upon the unsymbolized , he should have said.
Both painter and poet have always wanted to reach the silence behind
and within art and language, leaving the question of whether the
individual, in adopting these modes of expression, didn't settle for far too
little. Though Bergson tried to approach the goal of thought without
symbols, such a breakthrough seems impossible outside our active
undoing of all the laycrs of alienation. In the extremity of revolutionary
situations, immediate communication has bloomed, if briefly.
The primary function of art is to objectify feeling, by which one's own
motivations and identity are transformed into symbol and metaphor. All
art, as symbolization, is rooted in the creation of substitutcs, surrogates
for something else; by its vcry nature, therefore, it is falsification. Under
the guise of "cnriching the quality of human experience," we accept
vicarious, symholic descriptions of how we should fee I, trained to need
such public images of sentiment that ritual art and myth providc for our
psychic security.
'r ' "
I· t'
Llle Ul elVl lza IOn IS ' .
1 1 1.t\U'NI'" II' Il H I'. \I I , /
- . lived '.lllulsl WlH1UV in a ull·diulli PI' sYIIIllI1b. NIII,
"
" ,.
1 ' t'fi I ' 'hllOlo"irai adivi\y htlt aesthetic ham a.! c (,,1110 s ,
on y sclen IIC (II
.
l
. ,, .
.
n' 01
'uns irituaHv, lt iswiddy avcrrcli, tor
..f i tfll l\ Iii /al inti, nl {" eX'tH I.: s s \d .q u ,tm'lt·tcm a tic l fioures account f or the
example ' . . ' . 'Thcre is Cezanne's famous dictum to .-'trcat nature Y
-- . Ill'll '\ lt1llth:{ IHllll )(':r (, f
_ efficacy
"t ,II I.
cylinder , Il. .
Imp.d " L , .
I, , .) I H ,weI U
II . sphere anu c ,
t · th . ·,cute angle 0 a roa
0 ,
h the
. • th ' cone " and Kandinsky's Judgcment that the
_
t. t ' ngle on a circlc produces an c tect no
f G d touehino the fin ocr of A am m
.1' I than the !mger 0 0 0
" J'l "The sense 0 a sym J
\1" 1,, 1,I"bc o. .
_H:JII:;\ation mto another sym )
"_01 always displaced.
though art IS no u
.
t ··
d
"
.
d . 't
t. . bell as Charlcs Pierce conclude , IS I S
,
' , .
' bol thus an endless reproductIon, WIth the
t f ndamenta Y con
II ccrned wl'th beauty its inability to
. k'd many unfavorable comparisons.
", . .1 "ature sensuou ly
S " :,a; V
l
t a thorne ; Shelley praised the " un pre-
I"onloght IS scu pture,
.
" f
",,·dltated art 0 e
k V I" • pronounced the sea marc
th skyl ar ·· er ame
r...'"ltifu] than all the cat e rabs. .
]
11 1 1wcrs, etc" cyon .
'h d '1' And so on with sunsets, snowtlakes,
-'
d ts 'of art Jean Arp in fact,
b d the sym 0 lC pro uc . ,
. 'd "the most perfect picture no I g
Ii IIllC ,
''1'l 'ro x lm
,
. ation a dry porrodge.
.
"
" th ' n) morc than "warty, threadbare
d 't' I to art" As compensation an
h o ld onc respon pOSI lve y . . ,
Why t en w u
I ,,,lliative, be cause our rc a
1 tionship to nature and life is so deficient an
I · II s an authentIC one. s. (1 ,
I Isa ow,
wloat one has not ee .
.
A ' '!vI therla n t put it "One gives to one's art
•
.
" 1
bl f " g to on"'s e )wn cXlstencc. t IS
b n capa C 0 glvlfl ..... ,
lrue for artist and amilcnce a I e, ar , I
lied desire.
Art should be conSI cr .
sense of Nietzsche's apor : sm,.
I.k ' t rke reiioion arises from unsalls-
0 '
" d cd a religious activity and category also in the
"We have Art in order not to pensh of
the widespread preference for metaphor
Truth." 1Is consolatIon exp al ;; thc enuine artic l e. If pleasure were
over a dlfect relal10nshlp
h eleascd from evcry res ral , .
some ow r
,
t . ';t the result would be the antitheSIS
. freedom docs not exist outside art, however, a.
of art. In domonated
llf
fraction of the riches of being is wclcomed. '1
d form
d
sO even a uny, e .
,
create on order not to cry,
I d Kl
" revca e cc.
. d rf ' 's hoth important and on
. , . ' te realm of contnve l e t . .' .
ThIS separa
comploclty Wlth the actu
separation It corr e s P JI1 d S tO
elements are not, an canno
.
d
d
.
d
. , . d
, al ni htmare that prevails. 1n its onstltullonahze
.
g
r ' on and ideology in general, where Its
t l ! tuali zcd' the w ;"k of art is a selection
, .
. mblic terms. Arising from the
of possibilities unre c
f a ; x
e
v i e f ms to religion not only by reason
sense of loss re erre
'
.d I
f ·t onfinement to an I ea sp ·
o I S C
consequenccs, hut 1t can hence
here and its absence of any dlsscntmg
,
j' d
' . be no more than thoroughly neutra lZe