Jan 9 • General discussion
I Ching and Art
A few years ago, I sought to bridge the gap between art and the I Ching. It was during a period when I reconnected with painting and felt a great, inexplicable, profound, and wondrous creative force emerging. In that search for meaning, for words to express "that" which was present, I began asking the I Ching for a hexagram to describe the heart of each painting. That response, that painting, and a narrative about the time I was living through gave rise to many reflections. I found that each painting "captured" a fragment of that time, a crystallization. An image that encompassed a meaning, and that meaning could be "named." In that process, which lasted for years, one hexagram in particular kept recurring and caught my attention: hexagram 22, Grace.
“The sign shows a fire that bursts forth from the secret depths of the earth and, blazing upwards, illuminates and beautifies the mountain, the celestial height. Grace, the beautiful form, is necessary in every union, so that it may be ordered and amiable and not chaotic and disordered” (p. 170)
The essence takes form, and that form is beautiful. Art is a journey into the depths from which emerges something immaterial, yet something we somehow need to express. Through art, we express and give life to that which eludes us: the meaning that resides within us.
This journey we undertake, this descent into the inner self, brings us peace. The noise falls silent, time seems to stand still, everything is pleasant and serene. But it doesn't last long. Because upon finishing our artwork, we return to the turmoil of the world.
“This sign indicates a quiet beauty: clarity within and stillness without. It is the calm of pure contemplation. And in that sense it is beautiful and withdrawn from the struggle for existence. It is the world of art. However, mere contemplation is not enough to definitively quiet the will. It will awaken again; and all that is beautiful will then have been nothing more than a fleeting moment of exaltation. Hence, this is not yet the true path to redemption (...)” (p. 171)
I wondered why there was no redemption on this path and I found the answer in an essay by Wilhelm, “The Spirit of Art According to the Book of Changes”:
“...in art madness finds peace, but this is not the end, not the finality; these are moments of calm in the clamor of the world (...) Art provides peace in the struggle of life; it soothes, but it does not offer lasting solutions. The fire shines at the foot of the mountain, and the whole mountain is beautiful. But as it burns, the fire is consumed, and the moment arrives when everything sinks back into night and the daily struggle claims its due once more. The will is silent in the work of art, which is a union of the creative-modeling and procreative principles. But one of the laws of art tells us that, by its very essence, it belongs to the changing world. Its point of support lies very close to the center, but nevertheless, art is appearance (phenomenon) and is subject to appearances. The forces that shape art come from beyond. But the work of art itself comes, just as everything that has life, just as the corporeal, just as everything that appears in the time, of the empire of antitheses, polarized, of an empire that knows no eternal persistence, because in it everything changes, everything flows.
Thus, to conclude, we will offer a warning against overvaluing the visible world, however sacred it may be, and to recognize its true limits, since once these are transgressed (something that humankind can do), the laws of the visible world cease to apply. The result of all this will be a clear, even transparent, vision of this world and the beings that inhabit it.” (pp. 90-91)
I then understood the limitation, the reaching of a certain point. Art brings us as close as possible, but it does not lead us to our destination. It is form, it is appearance, the product of profound forces, but it is not essence. It is a path that will eventually demand transcendence, overcoming, because we must abandon form.
Despite understanding this, it is through painting that I feel I connect with something deeper, with that profound depth from which, from time to time, I can bring something to the surface. Accompanying my paintings with a hexagram is a way of linking the most sacred aspects of my being.
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I Ching and Art
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