The Conundrum of the Workshops 
by Rudyard Kipling

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Wherefore he called to his wife and fled to fashion his work anew--
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons—and that was a glorious gain
When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"
The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an alien tongue. 

They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they talked and they fought in the west,
Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red Clay had rest— 
Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"

The tale is old as the Eden Tree—as new as the new-cut tooth--
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

When the flicker of London's sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mold--
They scratch with their pens in the mold of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start
When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it art?"

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great rivers flow,
And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through,
By the favor of God we might know as much—as our father Adam knew.

Art transcends form. Great Art transcends form greatly. If “significant form” indeed exists perhaps it exists as a perfect essence through which Art reveals itself when informed intent is conveyed perfectly through skilled expression. The “skilled” part found not only in technique, but in the perfect realization of all choices that move toward the desired and finally expressed concept.

Cesar Santos creates images that at once delight the visual mind as they give form to vibrant questions. Are these images an insult hurled at modern and contemporary art by a master of traditional painting technique? Are they a painter’s biting inside joke? Or, are they perhaps secret homage to the imaginings and explorations of the 20th century? Do these images, through inclusion, further immortalize the work of the 20th Century artists that many figurative painters in 2011 wish had never been made at all?

Considered inspection of his body of work reveals that no branded artist labeled “traditional” or “modern” is spared conscription into Cesar’s world. From Rembrandt to Calder, Velazquez to Bacon, Santos conjures the imagery of these iconic personalities and casts them as 21st century celebrities in his own showpieces. Not merely a realist transcription of nature, these pieces tantalize as complex and compelling narratives, pulling you into this painter’s story and the questions he is asking himself and us.   

For centuries philosophy has exerted profound influence on visual art. Art and Artifice is inextricably tied to the production of meaning. In the early/mid 20th century, some philosophers explored the mutability of meaning, the limitations of linguistics, and the empty illusions of mass culture. The French philosophers of the mid/late 20th century such as Baudrillard, Lyotard and Deleuze, in extension of such ideas, explored thinking and concepts that still echo and influence today's 21st century art scene as they are even now being digested and understood. Sometimes it is said that within this current art scene "nihilism" abounds, and irony rules the day. Some believe that modernist and post-modernist philosophers sought to prove there is no real meaning, no real truth. Perhaps, but if 20th century philosophers showed that there is no real consistent meaning or truth because context changes, then they also showed that though the content of meaning changes and shifts, the container, the essence, the ideal form of meaning itself always continues to exist, in one form or another. That in itself seems a consistent truth. 

One important element postmodern philosophy explores is "difference as a means of production”, and is an idea appearing in the writings of Giles Deleuze. This concept suggests that “difference” is not a means of negation, but a productive mechanism unto itself. In his Difference and Repetition (1968, English 1984) Deleuze critiques our faculty of representation. As noted art theorist Robert Williams explains Deleuze thinking, "The emphasis that representation puts upon the principles of identity, resemblance, opposition and analogy works to suppress the real role of repetition and difference in the subjective constitution of reality. For Deleuze, difference is the basic condition of being, and repetition is an effect of it's 'productive power.'" Unlike the “Hegelian Dialectic” that requires two different forces to be in opposition, Deleuze sees that any two combining forces merely need be “different”, and opposition is not a requirement for a new meaning, or reality, to be born. This idea is not unlike the more ancient concept of "Syncretism" that is the blending of two or more belief systems, cultures or religions to form a new synthesized reality. These discrete elements need not be in opposition, merely different. 

Irrespective of Cesar Santos specific intent for each painting and whether or not his sensibility fully acquiesces to the syncretistic position his current efforts hold, it is clear he is an artist who embodies the most relevant avant-garde state of the continuum of visual art. A student of modern and contemporary art for almost eight years, as well as a student of the grand masters and classical painting technique in Florence Italy, Santos cannot help but be a product of his experiences and passions. From his visual mind, all he has absorbed and considered about visual artistic culture is brought to us through his brush, for our consideration. 

Alone, the exquisite poetry and craftsmanship of these paintings may guarantee their position as timeless art able to survive the coming centuries. Equally important, as a specific reflective snapshot of the broad artistic synthesis currently underway that is uniquely and immediately relevant to this early 21st Century, these images will most surely be considered as important works and assure their valued inspection for generations to come.

M.C. Guilmet
New Mexico
October, 2011

 

When is a cow, not a cow? When one has never learned through visual perception, what a cow 'is'.

Almost from birth, a human being starts to acquire visual information and process that information into abstract concepts of people, places, things, situations. Roughly one-third of our brain is dedicated to acquiring knowledge through visual perception. Our sense of sight is the most efficient manner through which knowledge is acquired.

There are approximately 30 different cortical areas of our brain that handle a different aspect of visual processing such as "line" or "color" or "movement". The visual brain continually acquires information, discarding some, searching for constancy, retaining essential information and comparing it to stored 'records' of all prior knowledge obtained. Plato theorized that particulars were formed from ideals.
We  now understand our brains work in opposite: ideal concepts are abstracted from particulars.
 
Consider for a moment the cow in the upper right corner. If a human being is born blind and stays blind, they will never understand the reality of what a cow is in the same way that a seeing person understands that cow-reality. Assume this person blind from birth is now 10 years of age, and their sight is suddenly restored. What will they see when they look at this cow immediately upon gaining their vision?

They will not see a cow. Only patchwork shapes. They will have no knowledge of what the shapes represent as there is no concept or 'meaning' of 'cow' for them already formed through visual perception. The same for a real cow standing out in a field. The cow and everything in the field will appear as so many lines, splotches, and blobs. There is no innate common knowledge of a cow. For human understanding, the appearance of a cow does not exist outside the brain's acquired knowledge of it through visual perception.

The form and meaning of a 'cow' is learned in our brain. The "essence" of the appearance is acquired. In 2011 it is a neurobiological doctrine that ideal forms do not exist without a brain. Not cows, not cubes, not spheres, not triangles. "So what?", you may ask. This conclusion reflects a new understanding for an important and long argued philosophical question about the nature of human knowledge, therefore "truth" and "meaning". 

In 1688, the philosopher John Locke received a letter from one William Molyneux, a scientist and politician, in which a question was put to Locke regarding a very specific problem. Prior to the 21st century, this question was an open riddle whose outcome carried the conclusion for one or the other of two opposing views of epistemology. This question caused much debate through the years. 

William Molyneux's wife became blind not long after they were married. His scientific work involved optics, and he wrote a treatise on optics and the psychology of vision called Dioptrica Nova (New optics) (1692). A few problems in optics at the time surrounded reconciling theories about light and actual perception. Optics showed the inversion of the retinal image, but we perceive it right side up, why? The retinal image is flat, but we perceive distance and depth, why? Problems like that. Earlier theories, such as with Descartes, had imagined that the answer to these problems was some innate mechanism in which the ‘soul’ turns the image right side up, and that unconscious ‘natural geometry’ accounts for 'depth' perception. Apparently Molyneux was not satisfied with these Cartesian or Rationalist answers.

Likely while writing Dioptrica Nova, Molyneux read an essay by the philosopher John Locke, published in 1688 called “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this essay Locke had theorized that someone who did not possess a particular sense could never in any way be familiar with the ideas, or realities, associated with that sense. Ideas acquired by a singular modality would not be the same as ideas acquired by multiple modalities. Color is one example. Without the sense of sight, a blind person would never be able to understand the idea or meaning of color, even with all other senses intact. 
Molyneux sent Locke a letter in which he asked:

“A Man, being born blind, and having a Globe and a Cube, nigh of the same bignes, Committed into his Hands, and being taught or Told, which is Called the Globe, and which the Cube, so as easily to distinguish them by his Touch or Feeling; Then both being taken from Him, and Laid on a Table, Let us Suppose his Sight Restored to Him; Whether he Could, by his Sight, and before he touch them, know which is the Globe and which the Cube? Or Whether he Could know by his Sight, before he stretch'd out his Hand, whether he Could not Reach them, tho they were Removed 20 or 1000 feet from Him?”

Simply put, the question posed to Locke asked that if a person who had been born blind and had learned to distinguish physical form such as cubes and spheres only by touch and name, were suddenly to regain their eyesight and SEE, would they be able to immediately recognize these familiar objects and distinguish these objects by sight alone? The answer to this problem carries tremendous weight.

John Locke was an Empiricist. In its extreme view, Empiricism believes that when you are born the brain is a “tabula rasa”, a blank slate. The empiricist takes a position there is no such thing as a common rational idea or intention that exists as innate human nature, and that all knowledge and understanding is primarily acquired through the senses.  Locke believed that we could not know the essence of things beyond the boundary of sense data, or the causal basis for the data we perceive. Locke offered that there is simple knowledge', that is knowledge acquired directly from experience in the world and knowledge that is simple is itself irreducible, such as the properties of “round”, “hard”, “and shiny”. 

Locke believed that all 'complex' knowledge was then constructed, or abstracted, from the particular concepts of simple knowledge into increasingly complex concepts of contingent particulars. Empiricists believe that any knowledge acquired is done so only through our senses and that experience acquired thus is the ultimate primary source of all concepts and knowledge. Any belief outside this as to causation, is 'super added'. Even belief in an expectation for causation(as in God) was theorized to be learned from experiential genesis.
 
“Herein therefore is founded the reality of our Knowledge concerning Substances, that all our complex Ideas of them must be such, and such only, as are made up of such simple ones, as have been discovered to co-exist in Nature. And our Ideas being thus true, though not, perhaps, very exact Copies, are yet the Subjects of real (as far as we have any) Knowledge of them.”
 
The predominately accepted theory of knowledge in Locke's time was Rationalism. There are a few flavors of Rationalism, but at the extreme polarized view to Empiricism, Rationalism supports the belief that knowledge is realized by means other than sensory experience. Rationalism believes that we are born with innate concepts and knowledge that are either part of our nature or given to us by God, and that sensory experience only realizes these innate truths, it does not provide them. If a cube and sphere are innate objective concepts independent of sensory learning and only realized by our senses, then a person should be able to tell the difference upon seeing them without learning them.
 
So you can imagine the impact an answer would have provided to the course of philosophy had Locke been able to produce an actual experiment with a human being to answer Molyneux. The predominant problem in realizing an actual answer to Molyneux's question was a lack of subjects. It's been estimated that in one thousand years less than twenty persons blind from birth have had their eyesight restored. 

Until now. (Scientists settle centuries-old debate on perception)

In 2003 MIT Professor Pawan Sinha initiated a program for children in India who suffered from curable congenital blindness. These patients, upon having their sight restored, could not immediately identify objects through the sense of vision. The forms these objects represented, did not exist to them.
Here is a video featuring Pawan Sinah explaining how our brains learn to see:

On one end of the spectrum some people believe that all meaning derived from Art is subjective and there are no real meanings beyond subjective contextual interpretation, and so there is not 'truth' to art, only individual experiential meaning. On the other end of the spectrum some believe that Art represents or is derived from objective truth and meaning, and if there is truth, so there must be rules or principles associated with that objective truth.

New revelations from brain science studies have been creeping into the broader academic arena this last decade. A review of the American Society for Aesthetics articles will show various articles concerning brain science and aesthetics. Professor Pawan Sinha's work is only one example for how brain science will likely have a profound effect on the humanities and the teaching of art theory and aesthetics this coming century. While most artists I know seem pretty comfortable with their own current belief in the subjective/objective qualities of Art, it's possible that our understanding for what is subjective, and what is objective, might again be re-ordered.

So who wins, the viewpoint of Empiricism or the Rationalism? In practice, many philosophers take one or both of the positions depending on the issue discussed. Immanuel Kant in "Critique of Pure Reason" synthesized a position inclusive of both Empiricist and Rationalist ideas called Transcendental Idealism. It's been suggested that while theorizing about the 'mind' that Kant, and later Hegel, developed some conclusions that reflect how our brains actually work according to our current understanding of the brain. For instance, Kant surmised in his "Transcendental Aesthetic" that space and time are empirically real, and that we gain an understanding of objects through sensory input such as the visual observation of those objects in space and time; spatial, temporal, motion. The importance of these elements is observed in the above video as the subject is shown learning to 'see'.  

The 21st century Holy Grail quest is the pursuit for an understanding of consciousness. Many people are working together around the globe employed in this quest. A few weeks ago, I introduced the Charlie Rose Brain series. Below, you can view excerpts from episode two of the series, discussing visual perception. This round-table discussion features some of our most knowledgeable experts who are studying visual perception, Including Pawan Sinha.

 

 

Ars Poetica    by Michael Hannon
Between heaven and earth I write one line.
Sometimes another line follows --
ambitious legions singing their way nowhere,
or ordinary messengers carried deeper into human life
by the music and its woman stepping out of her clothes
to the heartbeat of what comes next, 
What goes on for its own sake--
the page after the last page, on which we do not appear
 

On June 6, 2011, I posted the above question on my Facebook wall and invited painters from different parts of the world to share their thoughts. One hundred and forty four painters posted an answer. I have never had the opportunity to ask this question simultaneously of so many painters in so many different locations and from so many diverse backgrounds. I have posted each and every answer here where you can read through and gain a sense for any core sentiment running through the thread. 

For privacy, I've removed the painters names, "likes", or other Facebook information. It seems this was a very personal question and some decided to answer by private message rather than in public. I did not share those private answers in this post, but many were of similar content to what the other painters shared.

Having this conversation with different painters through the years, a common theme seems to emerge that suggests a compelling 'urge' or 'search' of some kind that drives their effort. A need that must be met. This also seems to be an inward and self directed event more than an outwardly directed or altruistic effort, although those elements might contribute. Often referenced is a sense of 'timelessness', a 'zone', or some state of meditative bliss that is reached. We won't explore the 'timeless' nature of art making in this article as I have a great deal of information to share, but you can read something here related to this plasticity of time.
 

For centuries, the 'Point of Art' has been debated and pulled like taffy in different directions. Some candidates for the purpose of art have included mimesis, idealism, naturalism, beauty, communication, expression, social commentary, cultural reflection, etc. Recently, Darwinism has been suggested. Philosophy, Theology, Psychology and the Sciences have all influenced how art is considered, valued, and produced. 

Thinking from people such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Baudelaire, Fry, Bell, Beardsley, Greenberg, Derrida, Heidegger, Lyotard et al has had an impact on the Art World. Artists themselves such as Alberti, Vasari, Bellori, Le Brun, Reynolds, Whistler, Cox, Duchamp, Newman and others have contributed various points of view or theory. Religion, war, socioeconomic shifts, invention, discovery, politics and profits have all hammered away to shape how we think of art today. In 2011, the self-interest of the fractured, disparate groups from all genres, from all styles, are vying to be seen and heard and can make the conversation about 'What is Art' unwieldy. 

Yet, through all the nuanced debate or convoluted experimental directions one thing has remained constant: Art is made. Art Makers make art. And the consideration of art and it's assigned values all come after that fact. The consideration and valuation of art are "effect". Art Making is "cause". In circular fashion, the valuation and consideration do influence art making, but always and again, art making takes other directions. 

If the continuum of Art Making itself is the primary cause for the existence of the Art World, a singular question seems of most importance to me: what is the cause of Art Making itself?  This seems the likeliest place where the truest purpose and intent of art can be found, and in discovering those answers we might newly consider art and perhaps it's aesthetic valuation.

In order to keep transparent an attempt for the understanding of the cause of art making, it is necessary to divide the conversation and cull out the consideration and valuation influences of the Art Industry. For this approach, the non-maker's self-interest is better nullified from the discussion.

So in order to begin this exploration for the cause of Art Making itself, I reached out and asked Art Makers why they make art. Other people in other fields have been asking some related questions.
 

Today in the early part of the 21st century, we have the benefit of some of the most exciting and enlightening discoveries that might actually begin to answer questions that philosophy, psychology and other fields have been seeking to answer for years. In the last few years, neuroscience has discovered more about the human brain than in all of human history combined. The importance of the discoveries being made about our emotional apparatus, visual perception, intelligence, creativity and so many other workings of our brain cannot be overemphasized.

The range of exploration and specialized focus on our brain is astonishing. Neuroscience, philosophy and psychology departments are undergoing a process of convergence in effort to discover answers about questions ranging from mental illness, drug addiction and disease to "what is consciousness?", and "how does the brain view art?". Philosophy and psychology have had historical impact on the Arts, but discoveries made in brain science may affect the Arts for the course of this century in ways not yet imagined.

When I talk with other artists, I'll sometimes hear facts quoted from old instruction books or art theoretical texts for which in 2011 we've acquired better information about. For example, a broader understanding of visual perception, it's mechanics and it's ultimate function, as well as a richer understanding of our emotional apparatus is available to us and can inform our artistic efforts. One approachable source for artists seeking to better understand some core mechanics behind their craft and that can also provide an overview and introduction to brain science is the Charlie Rose show. Charlie Rose has for some years now explored these topics in different episodes. Of particular value is the twelve part 'Brain Series..At the least, I recommend this first episode to better understand the immense overall impact brain science will likely have on visual art this century.

When brain science is introduced into conversation, there is often an immediate suspicion that an argument for pure subjectivity or a materialist/reductionist position will be introduced. I know that some of my friends reading this are people of strong religious faith and conviction, and who create from that position of faith. I don’t believe that any of the information I’ll share here poses a challenge to faith of any kind. God, or your personal concept of a Higher Power, can always seem to take one step back from these discoveries and if God remains the source for your understanding of these workings, there is not necessarily a conflict here. 

This information need not be viewed as a materialist/reductionist argument. There is a great deal unknown. It can be said that since the advent of quantum physics science has moved from a more deterministic outlook to one of 'probabilities'. The enormous amount of what we do not know seems to grow larger with every scientific discovery, the Hubble Deep Field Survey being one example. 

It is not incontrovertibly decided what parts of reality are ontologically objective or subjective.  Brain science can be said to be conducting an "epistemically objective search for what is ontologically objective or subjective." There are interesting developments, such as regarding emotion itself. While feeling states may be ontologically subjective, the emotional apparatus that all humans share and even share with animals, seems universal. As brain science is understanding 'components', some are suspected to be universal and 'hardwired' at birth, but how all these components work together is unknown; there is still no overall "theory of the brain". 

The hard problem of consciousness has not been unraveled. One influential philosopher who seems to be a materialist, but not a reductionist, makes the argument that consciousness itself is irreducible. Until the problem of consciousness is solved, and possibly even then, God remains as valid a possibility to the question of Meaning and Being as any other.

Still, we do not need all of the answers to these deep mysteries in order to acquire an updated understanding of the nature of visual perception and a possible 'Point of Art' best described to date. Many of the recent discoveries of brain science can already contribute to our considering an answer for our starting question "Why do you paint?".

I am pleased to take this opportunity to introduce you to a special person you may not have heard of, Professor Semir Zeki. Professor Zeki is a professor of Neuroesthetics with the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. You may also never have heard of a 'Professor of Neuroesthetics'. This is because it is a new field of inquiry, the first of it's kind. Following is Professor Zeki's own Statement about the work he and his colleagues are conducting:
 

Professor Zeki has graciously given me permission to share with you two papers that provide some insight to the questions that are the title to this post. The first paper is titled "Art and the Brain" in which the very important question is asked, "Why do we see at all?"

The second paper is titled "Neural Concept Formation and Art: Dante, Michelangelo, Wagner"

I remember the coolness of the air conditioning on my neck, my collar damp from the late June heat when I entered her house. It was a fine new home suitable for what I’d heard she deserved. When I finally found her resting against a wall, I was not disappointed. Her warm solid weight and her cool delicate laughter enchanted me from first glance. I let my gaze wash over her, trying to take all of her in and hear what she was saying. Others with me drowned out the message, and soon I left.  

I did not see her again for half a decade, and when I did I enjoyed the good fortune to live less than a mile from where she dwelt. For several years she was my secret pleasure. I passed by her daily and would often stop to visit. Countless hours were given to her, feeling her presence, letting myself melt into her. When the great hall she liked to hang around in was very quiet, I could smell the salt of her breath, hear her faint whispers and moans, and see her maker’s presence in her skin. As ends come, this one came abruptly, now twenty years gone since. 

I saw her once more a little over a decade ago. It was a hurried, unsatisfying visit as time was short and another lover demanded my attention and led me by the hand away from her as I stole one more glance over my shoulder. I think about her now and then, what she meant to me, and the inspiration she gave. Sometimes I think, “I must see her one more time", but I never do. We both are not getting any younger. 

Perhaps I will this June.

Winslow Homer
United States, 1836 - 1910
Weatherbeaten, 1894
oil on canvas
28 1/2 x 48 3/8 inches
Portland Museum of Art, Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson, 1988.55.1