Malevich
and Marta Whistler: A Community of
Spirit
The words of Kasimir Malevich about "...the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art"1may apply to the work of Marta Whistler, an American painter of Dutch descent. Malevich, a Russian painter who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, was the founder of suprematism, a new movement in art in the first quarter of the twentieth century which was guided by a vision that the phenomena of the objective world are in themselves meaningless. The significant thing is feeling which is quite apart from the environment in which it arose. Suprematism is considered to be the discovery of pure art which in the course of time was obscured by the accumulation of 'things.' As a prime example of the suprematist art, Malevich painted a black square on a white field in 1913. The black square stood for feeling and the white field is the void beyond this feeling.
As can be seen from this painting and the resistance to the accumulation of 'things,' suprematism stands for the non-representational art. In the non-representational art the focus of the artistic creation shifts from outward to inward, from the world of things to the inner world of feelings and thoughts. This inner world of an artist should resonate to the viewer on the assumption that human beings share the same feelings and thoughts. The degree of resonance will vary among individuals as in our present society introspection is neglected and feelings are not paid much attention.
As an example let's take one of the non-representational paintings of Marta Whistler. On the brown background we see blue triangles, green squares, white and red rectangles and red crescents. Since Whistler's paintings in her non-objective art in many respects remind us of Malevich and since Malevich proclaimed the supremacy of pure feeling, the question occurs to us, what kind of feeling does this painting arouse among viewers? Or, to be more precise, in the mind of the person writing this review? The brown background is the fertile earth which has produced all these geometrical figures. The creative process of birth in its multiple aspects in the plant and animal world as well in the humanity is the favorite theme of Whistler's work to which she returns time and again. The question which may be puzzling to viewers of non representational art is the relationship between the brown earth in the background and the geometrical figures which this background has generated. To present visually all the varied and multiple animal and plant that issue from the brown earth would be an impossible task, so, an artist in this case Whistler had to resort to a shorthand consisting of geometrical figures to express the abundance and the multiplicity of the earth's creative power. The geometrical figures as a shorthand have therefore a symbolic meaning. They are NOT just arbitrary decorations. Triangles pointing downwards are associated with water and female sexual organs. Triangles pointing upwards relate to male sexual organs. There are the two opposites that are creators of life. Squares are used in mythological tales of cosmogony as symbols of the created universe opposed to the uncreated chaos and emptiness. Crescents allude to the changing shapes of the moon and signify the female passive and watery principle. It would be useless to question an artist about the symbolism outlined above. Did she really assign consciously the geometrical figures to have symbolism in general and the specific one in particular? We must agree with Malevich's words: "It cannot be stressed too often that absolute, true values arise only from artistic subconscious or superconscious creation."2
The symbolism of shapes is accompanied by symbolism of colors. The two work in tandem reinforcing or contradicting each other. As an example of reinforcement is the association of the green color with the squares whereby green symbolizes nature and growth strengthens the symbolism of squares as creation signifiers. On the other hand the blue in triangles contradicts their own sexuality symbolism. Blue is perceived as distant, cool and relaxing while sexuality is associated with passion, generative power and emotion rendered by redness. Blue is, however, indicative of the vertical space which may have been one of the factors in this choice of colors for this particular purpose.3
The composition of the painting is open-ended. There is no focus around which the geometrical figures would be grouped. A viewer is vainly trying to find a resolution, a convergence where all the constituents would meet and be reconciled. If we can borrow an analogy from music this painting resembles a musical composition without a finale.
Or, a musical composition based on dissonance. This dissonant quality of the painting is congruous with the act of creation where there is an infinity of creative acts without any central point or "intelligent design" a final point, a finale. It is furthermore never static and always in perpetual activity and motion.
Another act of creation is presented using the black background this time. Black is the color of black earth, of the potentiality of germination of seeds in the spring to come. It is presented here in a positive meaning. In the Asian religious symbolism it is considered to be the universal substance and of primordial formlessness. In this context it signifies the beginning of time. How exciting and marvelous. Out of this black emptiness small gray circles are born which increase in size and emerge as the first objects in the universe. It is the first sign and the harbinger of light. In music they would resemble ascending tones of intensity as they move from the right to the left side. To use the astronomical terminology the black hole has spawned new planetary objects. The nascent time doesn't follow ahead as a straight line. Circles stand for the turning wheel of time and symbolize the self-contained absolute which has no beginning and no end. The neo-Platonic philosophers have compared a circle to God whose center is everywhere and its periphery nowhere. The circles are gray, the color which is the first one to be distinguished as the first stage of black proceeding to lightness as it is equally composed of white and black. In biblical terms this is the separation of light from darkness, the first active step in the creation of the world.
Red, a fundamental primary color, is universally regarded as the basic symbol of the life principle and these broad strips of bright red like the sun illuminate the newly created world and imbue it with light and life. It is the first color to modify the dark/light dichotomy.4 The next addition will always be either green or yellow. In this case it is yellow. A strip of yellow peeps in two different places from behind the red on the canvas as the final culmination in the progression from black to grey to red and yellow. It is a progression of color intensity and brightness. In Chinese symbolism yellow emerges from black as Earth emerged from primeval waters. Yellow is unmatched in its intensity of brightness and even more than red stands for light and life. Kandinsky remarked that yellow tends so strongly to brightness that there can never be such a color as dark yellow.
The theme this painting evokes is the progression in color and shape which converge in its ultimate meaning of evolution. This evolution is from the general to the particular. In color it is from black to yellow with gray and red as intermediaries. From the neutral black , the lack of color it proceeds to the most brilliantly intense yellow color. In shape the evolution is proceeding from emptiness to ascending circles which give way to rectangles. The general cumulative feeling of this evolution in color and shape is that of matter being transformed into life in its myriad aspects.
The symbolic religious signs of three major religions, Christian, Islamic and Buddhist are presented on this painting in close proximity to each other. The cross a universal as well as Christian sign appears with four points, two on each side. It can be traced to a pre-Christian sign found on Greek vases around 700 B.C. So, it is both pagan and Christian. The four points are associated with drops of water. Crescents like crosses are universal signs relating to the different phases of the moon, it's waxing and waning. It is now the primary symbol of Islam. In Whistler's painting the crescents are depicted in different positions, convex and concave as well as convex pointing downward. The difference in these positions is the difference between the new moon, the waxing moon and the waning moon. The two are mirror images of each other. The downward sloped moon can never be seen ordinarily unless in eclipses when the earth shadows only the lower part of the moon. The concentric circles have been used in Buddhist art as emanations of spiritual power. As a halo it has also been used in Christian symbolism. When halo is used in Buddhism it is usually yellow or orange. In this painting the halos are yellow. Triangles as widespread and common symbolic signs have numerous meanings. In this pictorial context they are associated with the number three and this number can stand in the Christian religious tradition for the Trinity, in the Buddhist religion for the triad 'right thinking, right speaking and right doingf from the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Muslim Shiite religious tradition the triad the profession of faith follows the formula: 'There is no deity but God; Mohammad is the messenger of God; Ali is the friend of God.f The religious triad of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism may be also indicated by the triangle symbolism of the number three.
On a background of dark red are displayed four concentric circles framed by yellow. Juxtaposed to yellow, the core of the concentric circles consists of green, blue and deep blue colors respectively. Juxtaposed with red or yellow, blue displays the sacred marriage of Heaven and Earth in central Asian tradition. Green is the color which has been prominent in Islam. Islam's standard is green.
The feeling which this painting evokes is that of peace and ease. Its symbolic meaning is the peaceful religious coexistence. In this era of religious and ideological strife and war it stands for tolerance and understanding.
Malevich's and Whistler's paintings exhibit a similarity of themes which unite not only these two painters but a good number of non-representational artists. The subject of influence of one artist on another invariable comes up. It is usually assumed that the chronological order determines the primacy of influence. An artist who precedes another one in time is considered to be the agent of influence. Since the non-representational art originates in the unconscious, the question of influence becomes irrelevant. Either all artists possess the same unconsciousness in which case an influence can't be perceived or they have different unconsciousness. In both cases a particular influence cannot be detected. What remains is the community of spirit.
Notes:
1 Kasimir Malevich "Suprematism" p.1.
2 Malevich "Supermatism" p.3.
3 Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) 'Non-Objective Art and Suprematism'. "The blue color of the sky has been overcome by the Suprematist system..which is the true actual representation of infinity and therefore freed from the colour background of the sky" p. 291, in Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Art in Theory 1900-1990, Blackwell, 1993.
4 The most elementary nomenclature distinguishes only between darkness
and lightness, and all colors are classified according to this simple
dichotomy. When a language contains a third color name, it is always red,"
p.331. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, A Psychology of
The Creative Eye, University of
5 In the
interpretation of symbols I relied on several works, the most important being:
Carl G. Liungman, Dictionary of Symbols,
Norton, 1991. Carl Jung, Mandala Symbolism,