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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Don’t paint faith into a corner

Donald Clegg

Note: This column is not actually about painting; appearances can be deceptive.

Paintings, as the saying goes, are “lies that tell the truth.” A representational painting lies by saying that it really is something – say, the sand and sea – not just a two-dimensional plane.

Abstract paintings are actually works of realism: The unrecognizable marks are just that, unrecognizable marks. They are what they are.

But beyond this surface dichotomy lies a deeper one. Both types of paintings may depict something beyond themselves.

An abstract painting may suggest something from the real world that belies its abstraction. It may, in fact, in some way seem to be more real than a representational painting. For example, Mark Rothko’s flat planes are deeply suggestive.

And a representational work may well “re-present” only as a kind of afterthought, as the painter’s concern is elsewhere. In his early career, Claude Monet would paint a tree in slashing strokes of color; later on, it was more like a tapestry. In both cases, it was an excuse for color, nothing more.

That is a kind of abstraction. As Paul Cezanne said, “He was only an eye, but my God, what an eye!”

Therefore, the distinction between abstract and representational painting may be a false one, as one becomes the other. Which is to say, all paintings, like all words, are metaphor, because they are what they are not – and are not what they are.

To clarify, think of the ways in which words mean more than what they say. One of Robert Frost’s poems asks, “What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.”

Only the quest for the Universal Idea.

If words were not metaphorical, “For once, then, something” would have no other meaning than simply “For once, then, something.”

Although it is true that every word (and every brushstroke) is something other than itself, it is very often useful to absolutely minimize its otherness. Technical illustration is best when it says nothing beyond, “This is a diagram of a heart.”

And I want metaphor absent from the instructions on how to assemble my new shelving unit. No artistry need apply to this category of expression: that is, there should be no extraneous information, or knowledge, beside the very particular.

This suggests that there are at least two fields of knowledge: knowledge that is known (illustration, rote instruction) and knowledge that is unknown (metaphoric, artistic).

Knowledge that is known is very useful in keeping airplanes, for instance, in the air. Engineers are to be preferred to artists in the building of a plane. An artist, however, conceived of building a plane.

Artistry comes from an Idea and it is the very nature of Idea that it is unknown until it appears, rather like Athena from the head of Zeus, full grown, if not full-blown.

Artistry is fragile; many Ideas lead to stillbirths, and since not all that is new is worth keeping, this is as should be.

Artistry that survives to become real passes into knowledge that is known once it is thoroughly understood. The nature of artistry is that, as it seeks and finds and becomes the new, that new “new” then reveals the old, in a new light.

This, then, is how we know the old anew. It is transformed yet retains its identity. Today’s landscape painting bears little resemblance to that of a thousand years and more ago, but the tradition of landscape painting lives on.

Now, equate “belief system(s)” with known knowledge and rote instruction, and “religion” and “religious” with unknown knowledge and artistry. “Idea,” obviously, with “God.” Substitute freely.

The unknown (and possibly unknowable) might be the Meta-Idea, the Idea beyond all Ideas. However, should we simply stop with an idea such as that, we have abandoned all artistry.

Artistic religious practice requires an open universe, continually rewriting the past and future, in light of an ever-changing present. To lock it into a belief system – that is, to cloak it in dogma (“God said”) – results in a sterile, unchanging definition of “God.”

In a sense, religion needs no God, only “god.” If that.

Donald Clegg, a longtime Spokane resident, is an author and professional watercolor artist. Contact him via e-mail at info@donaldclegg.com.