AFTER his examination of the complex relationship between the transcendent and universal aspects of esotericism, Schuon turns his mind to more artistic matters. Whilst a discussion of this kind may seem out of place in a deeply metaphysical work such as The Transcendent Unity of Religions, it is crucial to the author’s overall methodology.
By making reference to “forms of art,” rather than the forms themselves, Schuon’s purpose is to
make it clear that we are not dealing with abstract forms, but on the contrary, with things that are sensible by definition; if on the other hand, we avoid speaking of “artistic forms,” it is because the epithet “artistic” carries with it, in present-day language, a notion of luxury and therefore of superfluity, and this corresponds to something diametrically opposed to what we have in mind. The expression “forms in art” is really a pleonasm, inasmuch as it is not possible, traditionally speaking, to dissociate form from art, the latter being simply the principle of manifestation of the former; however, we have been obliged to use this pleonasm for the reasons just given. (p.61)
A pleonasm, in this case, involves using more words than are ordinarily necessary in order to convey a more specific meaning.
That which Schuon labels “sensible form” is the one most akin to the intellect; inferring, ultimately, that art is inextricably bound up with knowledge. Just as Revelation has entered into the material realm in order to inspire the prophets and holy men, it is argued, so too does the esoteric domain send forth its symbolic truths in the form of art. Expression of this kind, when viewed from a Traditionalist perspective, takes into account the fact that supreme intellectual ideas are manifested in a way that the denizens of a particular civilisation will be able to comprehend them. Accordingly, one may often judge the nature of a civilisation on the forms of art that it contains:
When art ceases to be traditional and becomes human, individual, and therefore arbitrary, that is infallibly the sign—and secondarily the cause—of an intellectual decline, a weakening, which, in the sight of those who are skilled in the “discernment of spirits” and who look upon things with an unprejudiced eye, is expressed by the more or less incoherent and spiritually insignificant, we would go even as far as to say unintelligible character of the forms. (pp.62-63)
Having passed away as recently as 1998, it seems fair to suggest that Mr. Schuon would have been familiar with the rapid degeneration of such forms during the course of the twentieth century and the “unintelligible character” of which he speaks is a sure indication that we have strayed deep into the age of what the Hindus call Kali-Yuga.
Ironically, some of the healthier civilisations have also scorned the use of images and one thinks of the Christian tendency to shatter pagan idols or purge their temples and monasteries of artistic extravagance. At the same time, in less Traditional civilisations – where there is a marked absence of positive forms – the sacred artefacts of bygone days assume a far higher significance and become more venerated than ever.
Schuon presents an interesting juxtaposition between the sensible forms already discussed, and what he calls the “pseudoform”. This latter, harking back to the very origins of a particular religion, is something that is only partially formed or even, in certain cases, completely absent. It is during the later stages of a religion’s development, he argues, that more emphasis is attributed to the forms themselves. However, it is important to consider that
the absence of the formal element is not equivalent to the presence of the amorphous, and vice versa; the amorphous and the barbarous will never attain the majestic beauty of the void, whatever may be believed by those who have an interest in passing off a deficiency for a superiority. This law of com-pensation, by virtue of which certain relationships of proportion undergo a more or less marked inversion during the course of a religious cycle, can be applied in all spheres: for instance, we may quote the following saying (hadith) of the Prophet Mohammed: “In the beginning of Islam, he who omits a tenth of the Law is damned; but in the latter days, he who shall accomplish a tenth thereof will be saved.” (pp.64-65)
The connection between intellectual understanding and material form reveals that the esoteric may be conferred upon those earthly configurations which appear to us as impressive sculpture, great painting or fine architecture. In terms of the actual process by which esotericism actively permeates the exoteric dimension itself, one only has to consider the rigorous initiatory practices surrounding those who wished to join the craft guilds of the Middle Ages. Becoming part of an order in which creative labour was raised to the level of a sacred art, was a method of overcoming purely mundane notions of work and for a highly skilled elite transformed such activity into a lifetime’s vocation. Once again, as Schuon proves, the very health of a transcendent civilisation strongly depends upon the effectiveness and maintenance of such processes:
Through these forms, which act as vehicles of the integral religious doctrine, and which thanks to their symbolism translate this doctrine into a language that is both immediate and universal, esoterism infuses an intellectual quality into the properly devotional part of the tradition, thereby establishing a balance the absence of which would finally bring about the dissolution of the whole civilization, as has happened in the Christian world. The abandoning of sacred art deprived esoterism of its most direct means of action; the outward religion insisted more and more on its own peculiarities, that is to say, its limitations, until finally, by want of that current of universality that through the language of forms, had quickened and stabilized the religious civilization, reactions in a contrary sense were brought about; that is to say, the formal limitations, instead of being compensated and thereby stabilized by means of the supraformal interferences of esoterism, gave rise, through their opacity or massiveness, to negations that might be qualified as infraformal, resulting as they did from an individual arbitrariness that far from being a form of the truth, was merely a formless chaos of opinions and fancies. (pp.65-66)
One only has to look at the modernist design of those churches and cathedrals constructed since the final quarter of the twentieth century, for example, to see that ugliness and superficiality have replaced any authentic relationship between the material, exoteric realm and that of the universally Divine and esoteric. Notwithstanding, either, the debased liturgy that regularly takes place within the interior of such forms.
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Schuon notes the unusual acceptance of degenerate Western styles in those countries of the East which, themselves, had always produced superior forms of art. Although this phenomenon has been aided and abetted by the rapid spread of globalisation and capitalist economics, to find these works sitting side by side demonstrates how the Oriental mindset places far less importance on the role of creativity. Unlike the West’s obsession with personalities, rather than ideas and concepts, the participation of the artist in the production of Traditional art is regarded as a secondary feature in the esoteric process and the real artistry and brilliance lies with the Divine. As Schuon points out, this
is another way of saying that the artist who lives in a traditional world without fissures works under the discipline or the inspiration of a genius that surpasses him; fundamentally he is but the instrument of this genius, if only from the fact of his craftsman’s qualification. (p.67)
It does not, therefore, come down to a simple matter of taste and for the modern Oriental there is really no difference between understated Traditional art and the largely worthless forms that have been imported from abroad. However, what this tendency reveals is that the religious and cultural values of China and Japan have also declined to a great extent and their inhabitants are now largely incapable of recognising the superior forms beside which their fading civilisations still endure. The work of their ancestors is still very much apparent, at least in a purely visual sense, but considered no more important than something rendered by contemporary Western artists such as Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst.
Schuon compares this sad state of affairs to Western Christianity’s disinterested attitude towards its own Medieval art and subsequent willingness to embrace the revival of Greco-Roman forms that he considers inferior. Similarly, the Swiss condemns modern Christianity’s acceptance of Modern art on the basis of “a worldly matter of taste”. It is true, after all, that the puritanical approach of Protestantism has been responsible for accentuating “the Christian spirit” at the expense of those Traditional forms through which it is conveyed.
Concerning the decline of Western art in general, Schuon connects it with the more general decline of Occidental civilisation and asks us to consider how Gothic art – despite its characteristic dynamism – attempts to “take away the heaviness from stone”. In other words, Schuon is suggesting that its “flamboyant” creativity bears the very hallmarks of decadence in that it remains a rationalistic tendency in which the esoteric is sorely lacking. It was, he contends, but a short step from the Gothic style to the later regurgitation of Greco-Romanism:
By this act of suicide, it placed itself at the service of an individualism in which it thought to have rediscovered its own genius, only to end up, after a number of intermediate stages, in the grossest and most fantastic affirmations of that individualism. This was really a double suicide: firstly, the forsaking of medieval or Christian art, and secondly, the adoption of Greco-Roman forms that intoxicat-ed the Christian world with the poison of their decadence. (p.70)
By consistently tolerating each and every form of art that has appeared in the last few centuries, Christianity inevitably finds itself colluding with the dark forces of “progress” that are ruthlessly seeking to undermine and destroy its very ethos. Schuon – who, at times, would make a committed reactionary appear fashionable – even insists that the most Traditional form of art pertaining to the religion is that etched upon the walls of the ancient catacombs, a viewpoint that separates Christianity from the cultural mores of Roman civilisation.
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So what does Schuon consider to be the determining principle when it comes to Traditional forms of art?
Firstly, he explains,
the work executed must conform to the use to which it will be put, and it must express that conformity; if there be an added symbolism, it must conform to the symbolism inherent in the object; there must be no conflict between the essential and the accessory, but a hierarchical harmony, which will moreover spring from the purity of the symbolism; the treatment of the material used must be in conformity with the nature of that material in the same way that the material itself must be in conformity with the use of the object; lastly, the object must not give an illusion of being other than what it really is, for such an illusion always gives a disagreeable impression of uselessness, and when this illusion is the goal of the finished work, as it is in the case of all classicist art, it is the mark of a uselessness that is only too apparent. (p.71)
Consequently, Schuon insists that Traditional art necessarily excludes those forms of naturalistic sculpture which commit a “violation” against the ordinarily static material from which it is derived. It is certainly a fact that Modernist sculptors such as Henry Moore (1898-1986), for example, specialised in creating semi-abstract works that suggest movement and thus attempt to breathe life into a series of two-dimensional stone figures. That which artists such as Moore would regard as a form of dynamic expression, therefore, is condemned by Schuon as a transgression of Traditional principles.
Similarly, he dismisses all forms of painting which seek to move beyond the limited one-dimensionality offered by the flat canvas upon which it appears. This even includes the use of shadow and efforts to provide the impression that an object is being extended into space.
As far as Schuon is concerned, this seemingly harsh and critical interpretation is not based on aesthetics or personal taste but the “cosmic and Divine” laws which govern the fundamental character of beauty. Naturalistic representation, he contends, is merely concerned with the beauty of the object that is being replicated and not in the actual work of art. As a result, he draws a stark contrast between the Classical Greek tendency to emphasise the importance of the natural object upon which the painter or sculptor focussed his creative attention and the Ancient Egyptian artist who was able to manifest “inward reality” through the form of art itself.
In a similar vein, Schuon argues that Byzantine Christianity’s depiction of the Virgin Mary is more accurate than that found in Romanesque imagery, as the latter’s more naturalistic approach means that the result is based directly on the form of the woman who modelled for the work and not on Mary herself. Byzantine art, with its use of one-dimensional iconography, is therefore more faithful to the original and in that sense is Traditional. Not by capturing the Mother of God’s exact likeness, of course, but in an expressly symbolic sense:
Thus the icon, in addition to the beatific power that is inherent in it by reason of its sacramental character, transmits the holiness or inner reality of the Virgin and hence the universal reality of which the Virgin herself is an expression; in suggesting both a contemplative experience and a metaphysical truth, the icon becomes a support of intellection, whereas a naturalistic image transmits—apart from its obvious and inevitable falsehood—only the fact that Mary was a woman. (p.73)
Meanwhile, although Schuon makes no reference to it, within Islamic art it is considered highly offensive for an artist to replicate the appearance of the Prophet Muhammad. Representational avoidance – or Aniconism, as it is known – is connected to both the prohibition of idolatry and the idea that the creation of living forms is a matter for God alone.
It is important to consider that sacred art, being universal in character, does not simply appeal to an intellectual elite but is designed to convey meaning to the common man. One might even suggest that possessing the ability to both receive and interpret transcendent symbolism of this kind raises the individual to a higher level, far beyond the ordinary and into the environs of the Divine. On the other hand, either a lack of interpretation or wilful misrepresentation of these forms of art provides us with an insight into the character of those involved:
The ingenuousness or candour of such art far from being due to a spontaneous or affected inferiority, reveals, on the contrary, the normal state of the human soul, whether it be that of the average or of the superior man; the apparent intelligence of naturalism, on the other hand, that is to say, its well-nigh satanic skill in copying Nature and thus transmitting nothing but the Art hollow shell of beings and things, can only correspond to a deformed mentality, we might say to one that has deviated from primordial simplicity or innocence. It goes without saying that such a deformation, resulting as it does from intellectual superficiality and mental virtuosity, is incompatible with the traditional spirit and consequently finds no place in a civilization that has remained faithful to that spirit. (pp.74-75)
Schuon likens the “universal language” of the intellectual and contemplative with our more natural human sensibilities. We are therefore receptive to such forms on two levels, which, if described in sociological parlance, sounds more democratic than elitist. Saying that, it was once the case that a religious hierarchy took it upon itself to determine precisely which forms of art were appropriate for public consumption. As we have already seen, in the case of Christianity this paternal approach soon declined as the Church hierarchy increasingly began to compromise with the ruling powers of the day. As a consequence, forms of art were relegated to the fringes of ecclesiastical life and placed in the hands of secular authorities who transformed them into weapons of propaganda and social conditioning.
For Schuon, this quickly resulted in the accentuation of morality at the expense of the esoteric. Given that intelligence is so readily associated with pride, symbolic forms – themselves vibrant, dynamic and full of renewed meaning – were replaced with artistic sentimentality. Rather then elevate the common man to a superior plane of understanding, this has led to a constrained simplicity that effectively lessens or precludes the sanctifying power of the Absolute. Before long, the human mind becomes receptive to more dangerous and destructive influences:
Profane art, on the contrary, even if it be of some psychological value in the case of souls of inferior intelligence, soon exhausts its means, by the very fact of their superficiality and vulgarity, after which it can only provoke reactions of contempt; these are only too common, and may be considered as a rebound of the contempt in which sacred art was held by profane art, especially in its earlier stages. It has been a matter of current experience that nothing is able to offer to irreligion a more immediately tangible nourishment than the insipid hypocrisy of religious images; that which was meant to stimulate piety in the believer but serves to confirm unbelievers in their impiety, whereas it must be recognized that genuinely sacred art does not possess this character of a “two-edged sword,” for being itself more abstract it offers much less hold to hostile psychological reactions. (pp.76-77)
One thinks of the enormous trade in plastic statues, for example, which not only provoke thoughts of anti-religious sentiment and superficiality but also betray the fundamental nature of sacred art in terms of representing the ugliness and mass-production associated with the factory conveyor-belt.
The solution to this degrading phenomenon, Schuon insists, lies in religion itself. Just as the Medieval artists responsible for creating Christian icons would fast and pray before commencing their work, so too must all future undertakings of this kind be directly inspired by God:
Art as soon as it is no longer determined, illuminated, and guided by spirituality, lies at the mercy of the individual and purely psychic resources of the artist and these resources must soon run out if only because of the very platitude of the naturalistic principle that calls only for a superficial copying of Nature. Reaching the extreme limit of its own platitude, naturalism inevitably engendered the monstrosities of surrealism. (p.77)
Schuon was writing at a time when artists such as Salvador Dali (1904-1989) and others were in their prime, even though a significant number of modern Christians have been inspired by his wildly apocalyptic visions and lurid portrayals of saintly temptation. For Schuon, art of this kind is a form of decay and what he terms “naturalistic luciferianism”. He even views it as a means of imitating the hand of the Divine, although it seems more accurate to suggest that artists such as Dali were more interested in distortion and re-presentation. Being created in the image of God, however, we are often capable of imitating the Creator by seeking to raise aloft the human personality of the artist rather than the Traditional character of the work itself. Not as a mere painting or sculpture, but as a true reflection of the Divine. In the case of the Semitic peoples, Schuon tells us, “whose mentality is predominantly individualistic and sentimental,” there is a strong propensity to deify or worship symbols. This certainly accounts for the aniconism, or ban on certain images, that we discussed earlier in this section.
