the reenchantment of painting - by edward mirza

8/3/2019 The Reenchantment of Painting - by Edward Mirza

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THE REENCHANTMENT OF PAINTING

BY

ED MIRZA

12/2004


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CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

1. ENCHANTMENT AND ART

Animism

Qualities within enchanted consciousness

The Disenchantment of the World

Suzi Gabliks Views of Disenchantment and Reenchantment in Art

Gabliks disenchanted art

Gabliks reenchanted art

2. SHAMANISM AND GENIUSShamanism

The shaman personality type

Sickness

Initiation: death and resurrection

Masters of ecstasy

The cosmology of the shaman

Concluding note on shamanism

Genius

3. ANALYSIS OF DISENCHANTED ARTThe dehumanisation and disembodiment of art

Rationalism and classicism

Abstraction and figuration

Genius and heroism in abstract and figurative painting

4. ANALYSIS OF REENCHANTED ART

Historical trends in reenchantment

Fantasy Art

Romanticism

SymbolismSurrealism

Magic Realism

Present forces of reenchantment

Outsider art

Examples of Outsider art

Art of the insane

Childrens art, the art of the insane, and animism

Occult artists

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5. OTHER PERSPECTIVES ON REENCHANTMENT

The genius and the shaman compared

Shamanism and mental otherness

Insanity and animism

Insanity and the collective unconsciousHypo-mania and creativity

Insanity and dialectic reason

Schizophrenia and shamanism

Shamans and geniuses as the outsiders

The possible contribution of post-colonial critique to the reenchantmant of painting

6. AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EXISTENCE OF ENCHANTMENT IN PAINTINGS

PRESENT SCENE

Francis Bacon

Lucian Freud

CONCLUSION

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THE REENCHANTMENT OF PAINTING

by Ed Mirza

Abstract

This paper shall begin by introducing the term Reenchantment and its relevance to the History of Art.

It shall then go on to explain the links enchantment has with the primitiveanimistic world view.

Then it shall examine the relevance of the shaman to this world view, and the Post Modern surge of

interest in this phenomenon. After exploring the definitions, this paper finds that the shaman is to be

understood as a relatively rare individual exclusively possessed of an innate potential for magical

power. After describing Morris Bermans notion of cultural disenchantment as an account of a move

from an animistic world view to a transcendent one, this paper shows how Suzi Gablik interprets forart the same understanding of disenchantment. It is argued that Gabliks prognosis for

Reenchantment may be seen to be misguided due to an erroneous notion of genius - as a property of a

disenchanted and ego-centric society - and on an incomplete understanding of the phenomenon of

Shamanism - which fails to stress the Shaman as an unusual individual. It is seen that Gablik in her

attitude to both genius and the Shaman seems not to acknowledge what may be seen as a specially

endowed individual. This paper considers the similarities of these two concepts and how they link to

enchantment by indicating their relation to psychology; mysticism; notions of the insane; the

outsider; and divine and demonic possession or inspiration. Content to observe only the similarity of

the concept of genius, the paper considers that similar traits may be exhibited by special shamanic

individuals, and that the recognition and placing of such individuals and their potential - as well asan animistic world view - at the centre of art discourse would constitute a Reenchantment of art. The

essay also considers the importance of Post Colonial Critique to Reenchantment as hints of an

integration of primitive world views to Western. After considering recent artwork for candidacy for

Reenchantment, the essay concludes by considering the ways in which a shaman may yet produce art

in the current context.

Introduction

The concept of the Reenchantment of art has been introduced to the history of art by Suzi Gablik in

her bookThe Reenchantment of Art(1991). It will be seen shortly that the enchantment to which theterm Reenchantment refers is by one definition what western culture calls magic. Magic in its

turn refers to a set of phenomena which are only feasible within what may be called an animistic

world view. This animism is seen to denote the common world view, both prehistoric and world

wide, which preceded and exists outside what many art historians call the Cartesian revolution,

which may in turn be seen as the starting point of the western post Christian apotheosis of the ego,

and of rational pursuit, which has resulted in the market centred and carbon technologically

developed culture called western.

The paper shall begin by explaining in more detail the concept of the western journey from

enchantment to disenchantment and possibly to reenchantment in terms of Morris Berman and his

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book, The Reenchantment of the World(1981), which may be seen to have provided the basis for

Gabliks book. The paper shall then describe Gabliks views on disenchanted art and then on

reenchanted art. It will be seen that her descriptions involve dubious references to shamanism, a

questionable critique of the relevance of genius and excellence, and an inexhaustive representation of

the possibilities that have already, and which may presently, exist within art history.

Following this, this paper shall present a fresh precis of Shamanism, from which it shall emerge that

Gablik makes no mention of a prominent aspect of shamanism which implies that excellence,

authority and exalted ability, are an integral feature of it; and that Shamans are rather rare individuals

distinguished from the majority of humans either by an innate potential or by a very particular

initiation experience. It is to be seen that this is thoroughly out of keeping with what may be

described as Gabliks entirely egalitarian view of reenchantment which features the hatred of

excellence.

For Gablik the Reenchantment of art may denote many compassionate and benevolent gestures, butalso seems to exclude genius; it may also be seen that this is part of her negative attitude towards

excellence. She appears to align genius with disenchantment and with an ego-oriented culture. This

essay presents the definition and a brief precis of genius, and suggests why Gablik may be seen to

have been mistaken to suggest that genius cannot figure within a Reenchanted art.

Then an alternative approach shall be taken to breaking down the question of what a disenchanted

painting actually is. This shall include an interpretation of disenchantment by means of the concepts

of the de-humanisation of art and the disembodiment of art. There shall also be identified the

relevance to this question of the abstract figurative polarity within painting, and how this links with

the opposed concepts of genius and the heroic.

The revised precis of shamanism and genius this paper proposes are then drawn upon for their

implications in terms of the reenchantment of painting, this includes a consideration of what they

may have in common. The paper then proposes a series of subcategories which have not been

mentioned in Gabliks book, and which may be understood as forces in the reenchantment of

painting. These categories include: societys attitudes to the insane; the outsider; multiculturalism;

psychedelia; psychoanalysis; and the occult. The previously misrepresented concepts of genius and

the shaman are each examined for their relevance to each of these categories in turn.

The paper shall also observe extant historical impulses towards Reenchantment which are renderedpermissible by the conceptual revisions this paper presents. The paper acknowledges Suzi Gabliks

failure to do so. It shall ultimately be seen that the breakdown this paper proposes yields a more

subtle and more readily identifiable series of strands to the question which may be seen as

theoretically more rigorous. Along the way the essay shall seek to provide examples of painters and

painting relevant to each aspect of the Reenchantment of art as they come up point by point.

1. Enchantment and art

Neither Berman nor Gablik make it clear why they have chosen the word enchantment for their

books. Neither offer an etymology of enchantment, and both use the word only about three times in

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their books. Their definitions of it are to be inferred only from their arguments. It will be necessary

to discover the implications of the word enchantment, in order to explain this area. In The Oxford

English Dictionary the two definitions of enchantment are: "The action of enchanting or of applying

magic or sorcery", and "Alluring or overpowering charm; enraptured condition; (delusive) appearance

of beauty."1

From the nature of the texts, as shall be later seen, it is clear that the magical definitionis that which they have in mind.

There may be drawn up a general historical model by which to understand enchantment. This is the

common western historical viewpoint that humanitys attitude all over the world has passed from

magic, to religion, to science. Enchantment, for Berman and Gablik implies the world view thought

of as magical. It may be seen that the magical world view persisted, even at the same time as religion,

until the dawn of the scientific revolution, or the enlightenment. The theories with which this paper

is concerned observe that the principle shift in consciousness during the enlightenment is that which

is outlined by the philosopher Rene Descartes. The shift is quite simply the doctrine that matter has

no indwelling, or immanent, mind; that rather, mind is separate from matter. Synonymous withmind in this matter may be understood the words soul and spirit.

The magical world view may be seen as built on the assumption of the immanence of mind in matter,

and it may be seen that this is the assumption necessary for such things as voodoo dolls, and the

naming of tree spirits, and the use of magical stones, to name a few examples. This view point was

disproved rationally and named primitive by common enlightenment philosophy. Enlightenment

philosophy may in some ways be seen as built on this disproval. This may be seen as a decisive

transformation which may also be viewed as the transition from a view of tri-partide man (with mind

body and spirit) to bi-partide man (with only mind and body).

Morris Berman writes: "The view of nature which predominated in the west down to the eve of the

Scientific Revolution was that of an enchanted world. Rocks, trees, rivers, and clouds were all seen as

wondrous, alive, and human beings felt at home in this environment". 2 For Berman, The

identification of human existence with pure ratiocination, the idea that man can know all there is to

know by way of his reason, included for Descartes the assumption that mind and body, subject and

object, were radically disparate entities... .(pp. 34-35 Berman)3 Suzi Gablik writes:

Reenchantment, as I understand it, means stepping beyond the the modern traditions of mechanism,

positivism, empiricism, rationalism, materialism, secularism and scientism - the whole objectifying

consciousness of the Enlightenment - in a way that allows for the return of soul. 4

Berman notes that the enchanted world is more alive than the disenchanted world. The description

is apt, since the clearest way to describe historically this way of life, is in terms of the concept of

animism. This word may be seen as synonymous with enchantment in terms of a philosophy of

the world, and has enjoyed a more seminal historical coverage of the matter in question.

Animism

1Greater Oxford English Dictionary2 Morris Berman, The Reenchantment of the World, p.163 Ibid, pp. 34-354 Suzi GablikThe Reenchantment of Art, p. 11

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Sigmund Freud gives a definition of animism in Totem and Taboo (1950) Animism is, in its

narrower sense, the doctrine of souls, and, in its wider sense, the doctrine of spiritual beings in

general. The term animitism has also been used to denote the theory of the living character of what

appear to us to be inanimate objects... The word animism. originally used to describe a particular

philosophical system, seems to have been given its present meaning by [Sir Edward Burnett]Tylor.5 Freud derives much of the basis for his writings on primitive culture from the writings of

the aforementioned anthropologists, Frazer and Tyler.

Freud may be used to sum up the western attitude to primitive culture when he goes on to say about

animism: what led to the introduction of these terms was a realisation of the highly remarkable

view of nature and the universe adopted by the primitive races of whom we have knowledge,

whether in past history or at the present time. They peopled the world with innumerable spiritual

beings both benevolent and malignant; and these spirits and demons they regard as the causes of

natural phenomena and they believe that not only animals and plants but all the inanimate objects in

the world are animated by them. The departure that Berman and Gablik argue that Descartes postulated, as shall be more directly explained, was that matter and nature were dead - not

animated, and disenchanted. This is the sense in which they use the words enchantment,

disenchantment and Reenchantment.6

It is the manifestation, influence of or on, of this spirit realm to which the term magic refers, whether

it is psychic influencing of another person, healing, telepathy, or visual and charismatic experiences.

Totemism, cursing, all elements of magic down to the present times derive from the prehistoric

animistic philosophy.

Qualities within enchanted consciousness

Berman and Gablik do not extend their ideas to the areas of recent and contemporary magic

traditions; but for them what is highly important within the enchanted world view is that on a

general level the consciousness and particularly the relationship between people and the earth is

significantly different from that of the majority of the people of post enlightenment consciousness

and the modern western world. It may be seen that Gablik and Berman correlate a range of more

specific qualities within enchanted consciousness with enchantment. These may be rounded up into

a series of points: a different relationship to others, a different relationship to the body, and a

different relationship to the earth.

Berman writes if there is any bond among the elements of this counter culture, [i.e.

reenchantment] it is the notion of recovery... of our bodies, our health, our sexuality, our natural

environment, our archaic traditions, our unconscious mind, our rootedness in the land, our sense of

community, and our interconnectedness to one another.7

Gablik writes: What is being addressed, from one point of view, is the history and philosophy of

western civilisation. For we may see here a late manifestation of the Cartesian split between body

5 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, p. 886 There is another means by which to describe this situation. That is the recognition of the immanence of God. The

presence of spirit or spirits within matter is exactly synonymous with this definition.7 Gablik (quoting Berman), p. 22

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and mind and matter, and the consequent separation between man and nature. The resulting loss of a

holistic8 consciousness has created and awareness of the interrelationships between man and the

world around him. Thus we have a dialectical view of man as separate from, even opposed to, nature

and the subsequent exploiting and ravaging of nature... In a certain sense what we have here is a

geography of the mental landscape of our time.9

Berman develops his own terminology for the matter and explains that in the enchanted world

people manifest original participation, participating consciousness, or hermetic consciousness.

The essence of original participation is thefeeling, the bodily perception, that there stands behind

the phenomena a represented that is of the same nature as me - mana, God, the world spirit and so

on. This notion, that subject or object, self and other, man and environment, are ultimately identical,

is the holistic world view.10 ; ...what I shall refer to in this book as participating consciousness -

involves a merger, or identification with ones surroundings...11 ; The Hermetic wisdom, as it has

been called, was in effect dedicated to the notion that real knowledge occurred only via the union of

subject and object, in a psychic-emotional identification with images rather than a purely intellectualexamination of concepts.12

These terms, for Berman, signify a tribal consciousness within which, there is either no, or an

extremely minimally developed ego consciousness. The ego is understood here as the artificial

paranoiac construction made by each child in order to cope with their condition in the world, it is

seen that the ego cannot actually relate to others, cannot create and is a false self. Ego consciousness,

may be described as a purely intellectual construction, in keeping with Cartesian philosophy but not

able to embody an animistic world view. The alternative to ego consciousness is seen to include an

enhanced and involved emotional and physical relationship between peoples, and even with minerals,

plants and animals. Berman also speaks of the poetic, or pre-Homeric mentality, in which theindividual is immersed in a sea of contradictory experiences and learns about the world through

emotional identification with it."13 This is seen to be a property exclusive to the enchanted world,

and virtually obsolete in the ego driven modern western world, it is seen as a state of being the ego

cannot manifest. For both Gablik and Berman, a big part of Reenchantment constitutes the

resurgence of this type of immersive, relational, and emotional consciousness.

Another distinction made by Berman is that between digital and analogue knowledge. Digital

knowledge is seen as acquired intellectually, whereas analogue knowledge is acquired in the above

pre-Homeric sense: Let me dance to you an aspect of tacit knowing, Isador is saying: let me

show you what life is really about. It is not merely that what we consciously know is only fractionof reality, but that incompleteness of knowledge is the source of knowledge itself (if I could dance

this book, I wouldnt have to write it. If western science could somehow achieve its program of total

8 Holism as a term has not been introduced in the earlier parts of this essay. It may be seen as an alternative phraseto indicate reenchantment philosophy. It is also synonomous with cybernetic theory - also explained by Berman.Berman has explained one of the principles of holism and cybernaetic theory in thatno part of such an internallyinteractive system can have unilateral control over the remainder or over any other part. The mental characteristicsare inherent or immanent in the ensemble as a whole. (Berman Ibid,p. 244)9 Gablik, p. 811 0 Berman (op. cit.), p. 771 1 Ibid, p. 161 2 Ibid, p.731 3 Ibid, p. 71

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certainty, at that very moment it would know nothing at all.14

Strictly speaking the animistic world view can be seen as gradually superseded in a series of sweeps

up to the present day. The virtual complete submergence of this consciousness appears not to have

been caused until the seventeenth century, when it was achieved via the Cartesian revolution. Since

that time, culture saw animistic consciousness mostly eclipsed by ego consciousness.

The Disenchantment of the World

The disenchantment of the world which can be seen to be the background for Suzi Gabliks

disenchanted art is recognised by Berman as having been a progression working though Socrates,

Plato, the Semitic religions, through to the Enlightenment and Descartes. As has been said the

essential shift is from a tripartite view of man to a bipartide view, or from mind within matter to

mind as separate from matter.

Socratess dictum to form a rational self that observes was seen by Berman as the foundation whichled to empirical science, as part of the way in Enlightenment man had developed a view of himself as

detached observer, as a controller of nature. It may be understood that this was a viewpoint that

placed paramount importance on the faculty of reason, which found its final expression in the

philosophy of Descartes. Such a view point may be described as rationalism. This rationalism can

be seen to have been used to construct a universalising philosophy based on empirical observations

of matter. Another word for this is positivism. It may also be seen that this growing emphasis on

the intellectual feature of humans also gradually produced a culture increasingly focused on the

development and mobilisation of the ego function. It may be seen that the Semitic religions also

tended to stress the transcendent rather than the immanent, and that this too contributed to mans

growing sense of detachment from nature.

Berman notes: [In Descartess]Principles of Philosophy [1644], the world spirit of the alchemists

had become a world mechanism..., with mind expunged from matter...15

Rationalism was also increasingly endorsed by the church, probably as part of its effort to secure

economic security and public credibility. Organised Christianity and the new scientific tradition may

be seen to have gradually removed enchantment from the public consciousness. It is to be

understood that rationalism was also taught in the education system. It is apt to say that

enchantment also became unfashionable during this time; for Berman: the forces that triumphed in

the second half of the seventeenth century were those of bourgeois ideology and laissez-fairecapitalism. Not only was the idea of living matter heresy to such groups; it was also economically

inconvenient ... if nature is dead, there are no restraints on exploiting it for profit.16

Kant later expanded on the development of rationalism and supplanted theological arguments for

God, with a notion of pure reason and provided many theorists and thinkers with a world view in

the eighteenth century: a mechanical world view within which self preservation is held as the first

rule of thumb for determining ones duties, so that if you respect others, theyll respect you. It is

the imperative on self preservation that Gablik criticises, or the notion that to preserve oneself now

1 4 Ibid, p. 2541 5 Ibid, p. 1111 6 Ibid, p. 126

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with pure reason will render one in a position to assist others in a possible future even if it means

generating physical or emotional discomfort in the present. There is no intimation of any sense of

hermetic unionship with others since such things are by this time philosophically impossible. All

sense of social conduct may be seen as supposed to be arrived at intellectually.

This may be seen as steps towards the ego oriented western culture within which the art world at

this time flourishes. For Berman: The quality of ego-strength, which modern science regards as a

yardstick of mental health, is a mode of being-in-the-world which is fully natural only since the

renaissance.17 He writes: ...the triumph of the puritan world view, which concomitantly repressed

sexual energy and sublimated it into brutalising labour, helped to create the modal personality of

our time - personality that is docile and subdued in the face of authority, but fiercely aggressive

towards competitors and subordinates.18 From Bermans point of view, It becomes difficult to

demarcate sharply between innate and acquired when the infant is subject to a socialisation process

that begins with its first breath.19 It may be understood that what is being said here is that

disenchantment is based on the repression of the unconscious and the body.

So from all this it may be seen that while enchantment is synonymous with animism,

disenchantment is synonymous with the primacy of the ego function and rationalism. In sight of the

described transition, it follows that the art market and artistic production in general may be seen to

reflect it. Suzi Gablik identified two strands to post modernism. While one is ego centric and

essentially based on rationalism, the other constitutes an insidious reenchantment.

Suzi Gabliks Views of Disenchantment and Reenchantment in Art

Gabliks disenchanted art

At first, for Suzi Gablik, disenchantment in the art-world manifested in what she calls the dominator

model of modernist consciousness. [b]ehind modernism [sic] itself lies the struggle for autonomy,

with its mystique of an autonomous artwork, beyond all ethical and social considerations, and an

independent creator, who likes to see himself as independent and in control of things, impervious to

the influence of others [...] [which] locates modern aesthetics within the dominator model20 [...]

[t]raditional myths such as the masterpiece, the individual genius [...] are being deconstructed [...].21

A lot of deconstructuve postmodern art is about stripping away the ideological myths that held

modernism together, particularly with what critic Craig Owens has described as that mastering

position, the hegomenic, masculine authority that has been vested in western European culture andits institutions.22

It may be seen that fundamental to Gabliks book is the split between Hermetic consciousness and

ego consciousness. While art that proceeds from the ego function is disenchanted, art that proceeds

from hermetic consciousness is enchanted. Gablik conceives also that Romanticism was governed by

an egotistical drive, which she calls individualism; also the concept of the masterpiece; the value of

1 7 Ibid, p. 1591 8 Ibid, p. 1261 9 Ibid, p. 1642 0 Gablik, (op. cit), p. 622 1 Ibid, p. 1232 2 Ibib, p. 17

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technical virtuosity; the genius cult; and heroic Modern values such as in Abstract Expressionism,

Gablik also regards as disenchanted. Her argument appears to amount to an assertion that the values

upheld within each of these categories also imply alienation and domination, which she sees as

characteristic of the disenchanted world. For Gablik, Modernism 23 stands as the summit of egotism

reached in western arts culture, with the genius cult, and a disenchanted attitude of repressiveattitudes to hermeticism leading up to it. It may also be seen that the second World War did a lot to

condition the situation in favour of these isolated, self oriented stances, particularly in America.

For Gablik: Modernism did not inspire what Octavio Paz [( to )] refers to as creative

participation. Rather, its general themes were alienation and displeasure with society. Based on the

heroic but belligerent Ego, inflated and cut of from its embeddedness in the social world, it

encouraged separation, distancing behaviour and depreciation of the other.24 She writes:

Alienation, the systematic disorder of the modern artist, virtually precluded any connection with

the archetypal other, because of the refusal to cultivate the feeling of connectedness that binds us

to to hers and to the living world.25

Fitting into this myth of the patriarchal hero became the first precondition for success under modernism for both men and women - an archetype in which the

feminine value of relatedness was virtually stripped away.26

Certainly it is the case that that the artist who survives best in contemporary left hemisphere

culture, as Jose Arguelles calls it in his book The Transformative Vision, is usually the one who

internalises and adopts its rational values27 In particular for Gablik, Ricard Serra (b. 1939), is to be

regarded as a personification of this trait. Serra demands absolute autonomy for his art; Gablik has

written in Vogue magazine, his works are intentionally self sufficient.they stand upright and alone,

isolated in positions of heroic rectitude, as if the posture of standing without support, of solitary

rootedness, is an expression of resistance to external pressures.28

The ego works from a need towin, to come out on top. In the case of Serra, if the artist wins, he becomes a hero; if he loses, he

becomes a victim.29 Gablik perceives this as the basic set up within which the Modern heroic artist

is pitted against society and either emerges victim or victor.

Frank Serra, St John Rotary Arc, Steel, 1975/802 3 Although Modernism may be regarded in a literary sense as extending from 1890 to 1930, Abstract expressionism inAmerica was foremost until the 1960s, and is also regarded as Modernist. While there is some blur as to when it isconceived that Modernism ends, it is generally conceded that Post modernism begins in 1960.2 4 Ibid, p. 602 5 Ibid, p. 612 6 Ibid, p. 622 7 Ibid, p. 472 8 Ibid, p. 632 9 Ibid, p. 68

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American in the 1950s may be regarded as a centre for heroic Modernism in art. American Abstract

Expressionism of this time may be seen to reflect these values. Many other artists may be seen to

reflect these attitudes. However, from the preceding it has been seen that Gablik also seems toidentify the value of skill and of the master with this position. It is an important point within

Gabliks book that genius and the pursuit of excellence is conflated with disenchantment. This is one

of the most questionable parts of her theories.

Gabliks reenchanted art

Gablik gives a number of examples of activities and art forms which she conceives to be in line with

her vision of reenchantment. One of these is the diary of a woman who gradually cleared out a

polluted river, which had for some considerable time been used as a public rubbish dump. Gablik

also mentions the conception of a portable wheeled metallic capsule within which the homeless maysleep, and under which they may during the day collect cans for recycling. Earth rituals with an

animistic flavour also feature. Another woman befriended for a span a company of those who collect

the rubbish from peoples homes in some part of America. All of these may be seen as a return to a

holistic consciousness, or to cybernetic consciousness30. They may be seen as examples of

hermetic consciousness or enchantment.

The woman who cleaned out the river relates how she began to make a friend of the river, and sensed

that it was a living being, which she was healing - and that their friendship grew as it was healed, and

how she sensed the rivers gratitude. She documents a growing link with the river as a living being,

which for her was a first experience of animism. Then the concern for the homeless or for those whomay suffer some social alienation, as may have been the case with the rubbish collectors, exhibits a

form of compassionate behaviour obviously more in line with hermetic consciousness and with

emotional participation, and removed from purely egotistical concerns. Recycling as a means for self

sustenance also recognises ecological concerns (holism), but may also be seen to acknowledge that

the bottles too have individual lives of their own (animism) and a part to play in the destiny of the

planet. Earth rituals also witness the animism in nature. These all point to the pre-Enlightnement

viewpoint of mind within matter.

Another example Gablik gives is Tim Rollins and the Kids of Survival. Together, under Rollins

leadership the underpriveliged children produced large callaborative paintings based on literarysources. These were part of the boosting of the self esteem of these individuals at the disadvantaged

outset of their lives.

Gablik observes that these are ways of stepping out of ego driven consciousness. It is obvious that

I am pointing to a historical transformation of the Cartesian and Kantian aesthetic traditions, based

on autonomy and mastery, into artistic practices based instead on the interrelational, ecological, and

process character of the world, and a new sort of permeability with the audience. [i.e. in earth rituals]

Where the dominator value system created distance and separation, the integrative trend of

partnership creates and demands contact and nearness, both metaphorically and concretely. 313 0 (see footnote 8)3 1 Ibid, p. 163

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When Gablik includes earth rituals she also includes references to the already mentioned

shamanism. She writes: This [reenchantment] represents a fundamental challenge to the concept of

self we have just been describing, a different model of communicative praxis and openness to others

than the historical self of modernism, one that does not use the image of the hero as its archetype butis more like the Shaman.32 She goes on to say about the earth ritual aspect of her version of

reenchantment: the remythologizing of consciousness through art and rituals the one way that our

culture can regain a sense of enchantment33

Publicity Illustration from the School of Wisdom, (Est. 1920 by Count Von Keyserling)

It is clear that Gablik my be seen as correct to state that her examples imply alternatives to ego

consciousness and that they imply reenchantment. They begin to fulfil the qualifications for

hermetic consciousness, animism and enchantment. However, it is worth noticing that on

significant matters she is either not thorough or misguided, and that there may be other possibilitiesfor reenchanted art. It has already been suggested that her attitude towards genius and excellence

appear worthy of revision, but Gablik also seems to exhibit a very peculiar interpretation of

Shamanism, and it implies an incomplete representation of the historical accounts of the Shaman. At

yet another point Gabliks text is to be seen as misleading: Gablik makes no mention of what may be

regarded as repeated impulses towards reenchantment that may be identified throughout and at

definite junctures within art history.

2. Shamanism and genius

In the study of primitive societies, to which the term animism relates, the presence of shamansmakes itself felt. In The Oxford English Dictionary the definition of Shaman is: A priest or priest

doctor among various peoples of northern Asia [...] Also more recently, with recognition of the wide

spread similarity of primitive beliefs, the term denotes especially, a man or woman who is regarded

as having direct access to, and influence in, the spirit world which is usually manifested during a

trance and empowers them to guide souls, cure illnesses etc."34 Since the study of the reenchantment

of art has brought to light animism, the shaman, for his capacities within the spirit world is of high

interest. It appears that his vocation is as an all round expert of the spiritual forces and inhabitants

which the animistic world recognises.

3 2 Ibid, p. 673 3 Ibid, p. 483 4Greater Oxford English Dictionary

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The word Shaman appears within the discipline of anthropology applied to individuals regarded as

having magico-religious powers, it is clear from the texts that they may only exist within an

animistic setting. The word shaman is understood to be derived through Russian, from the Tungusic

saman. Some will suggest this original word means seer. This may be seen as apt since theShaman is sometimes described as the psychic antennae of a community. It is said that among

numerous abilities, they may also sense forthcoming invasions, and weather conditions. Yet while

shamans may possess these abilities, Eliade distinguishes the shaman from other sorcerers and

healers who may muster similar feats; Eliade writes: Throughout the immense area comprising

Central and North Asia, the magical religious life centres on the shaman [...] through this whole

region in which the ecstatic experience is considered the religious experience par excellence, the

shaman, and he alone, is the great master of ecstasy. 35 This, which is in line with the Oxford

Dictionary definition, pertains to the shamans ability to journey to other spiritual realms in ecstatic

states. Eliade asserts: a first definition of this complex phenomenon [the shaman], and perhaps the

least hazardous, will be shamanism = technique of ecstasy.[sic]36

This confirms that the shamanmay well have magical powers, or his real distinction is as master of the so called spiritual realms.

The 1960s bore witness to a boom of interest and literature on the subject of the shaman, which

coincided with Post Modernism. This may be seen as in line with what Suzi Gablik designates as

the second, reenchanted strand of Post Modernism. It is connected with New Ageism, colour

therapy, alternative therapy, forms of Neo Paganism, popularised astrology, tarot, and an interest in

oriental religious practise. This appears to have arisen in unison with the 1960s drugs culture.

Many spin off businesses and societies exist now which have their roots in this time. The

corresponding cult of natural magic and paganism may also be seen as a resurgence of the animistic

world view. It may be seen that because these activities presuppose the existence of animism, suchactivities may for many be designated as shamanism. But this is not altogether obtuse however

when it is observed that the shaman does begin to appear as a kind of father and ancestor to all

animistic manifestations wherever they may exists on the entire planet.

The shaman personality type

Since the shaman appears to play such an unavoidable and potent role in enchantment, it is fitting to

relate the nature of this figure more deeply. It is to of note to observe that while it may be seen that

all humans contain the possibility of becoming shamans, it appears that some unusual ones are born

with a peculiar potential in this area. In these cases it often appears to manifest itself within theindividual as certain calling, and often there is little choice but to follow it. These candidates may

also be seen to manifest a number of peculiarities which may be seen as interesting in terms of the

reenchantment of art.

For Rogan P. Taylor in The Death and Resurrection Show (1985), The overall picture of the youth

who is a likely candidate for a quest for supernatural powers is one which many readers will

recognise. Such a lad has become a literary type in fairy tales and legends from many parts of the

world. He is the lazy boy, precocious and unhappy with the ordinary world. He is unaccountably

moody or queerly sick, often lonely and separated from his real parents. An orphan-outsider [sic]3 5 Ibid, p.43 6 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, p.4

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who thinks he must be special. Above all, or rather beneath all, he is the dreamer, the visionary, who

lets his imagination run away with itself. He is the one who must go to another world in order to live

in this [sic] one.37 Added to this may be Eliades observations, he writes: [...] the shamanic

vocation is manifested by a crisis, a temporary derangement of the future shamans spiritual

equilibrium.38

and, The shaman begins his new, his true life by a separation - that is [...] by aspiritual crisis that is not lacking in tragic greatness and beauty.39

Sickness

It seems that the candidate is eventually in one way or another over taken by a famous sickness;

whether this is emotional, physical or both. It appears that this sickness is a pivotal concept

around which the whole shamanic phenomenon revolves. It is seen as an inevitable and vital part of

the shaman candidates journey to becoming a shaman. During the sickness the candidate will make

visionary or dream journeys to the underworld. These journeys are often related to involve

frightening and harrowing encounters with spirits.

Initiation: death and resurrection

Then it is common to read an account of a highly traumatic initiation, or a transformation, in which

the particular human changes from a being with shamanistic traits into a shaman. This process seems

to be undergone either in isolation or with the full recognition of members of that humans society.

It is often described as a death from which the candidate is subsequently resurrected. This again

happens on a visionary plane for the human, in dream or in a trance. It invariably involves a vision

of being physically dismembered and put back together again. Once they have emerged they are

understood to be fully in their power.

This is described in detail by Rogan Taylor. After describing the initial mental, emotional, or

physical sickness, and the candidates involvement in a visionary or dream journeys to the Under

World, where he encounters the spirits, Taylor writes that in one of these visions: he is caught,

[by the spirits] sometimes tortured and eventually his body is cut up into pieces. This

dismemberment is always followed by a magical recovery, usually with the assistance of some

mysterious being or creature who re-members the poor candidate by sticking his limbs and body

back together again, recreating him as a shaman. This crucial resurrection allows the hero (for now

he is such) to ascend to the Upperworld in mystical flight, where he is received by the gods and

taught many new things. The story comes to an end with the heros joyous return to theMiddleworld, where he wakes up and finds himself a shaman with power.40 For Eliade: [A]ll the

ecstatic experiences that determine the future shamans vocation involve the traditional schema of an

initiation ceremony: suffering, death, resurrection.41

Eliade also relates: The content of these first ecstatic experiences [...] almost always includes one

or more of the following themes: dismemberment of the body, followed by a renewal of the internal

organs and viscera; ascent to the sky and dialogue with gods or spirits; descent to the underworld and3 7 Taylor (op. cit), p 243 8 Mircea Eliade, 1951 Forward to Shamanism, p.23 9 Ibid, p.134 0 Rogan P. Taylor, (op. cit), p. 264 1 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, p.33

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conversations with spirits and souls of dead shamans; various revelations, both religious and

shamanic (secrets of the profession). Eliade goes on to say that although in some accounts all are

included, in others only two may be, but that this may be due, [...] to the inadequacy of our

information, since the earliest ethnologists were content with summary data.42

Masters of ecstasy

It has been seen that Eliade describes shamans as masters. It has also been seen that they receive

teachings and instruction during their visionary experiences. The shamans subsequent seances and

healing abilities appear to involve a technical approach to their ecstatic capacity. The shaman even

after initiation may also be apprenticed to an older shaman and instructed in technique.

Rogan Taylor says: [...] there existed a vast heritage of accumulated knowledge, orally preserved by

the initiated shamans. Although the primary encounter with the spirits was very often private, as in

illness, and a complete initiation could theoretically be undergone entirely alone, the more usualpattern involved considerable learning at the hands of the old shamans. [...] When it became obvious

that a young man or woman had experienced an appropriate supernatural event, he or she would

probably become apprenticed to an older shaman. It could be five years or more before the pupil

could graduate fully into the shamans role. [Here] the young shaman truly gets his act together.

[sic] [...] so the apprentice shaman journeys to the other worlds again and again, and his ecstatic

capacities [are?] refined and encouraged by the master shaman43

The following also reinforces further the breadth of the distinction between the shaman and the non-

shaman: for here it is observed that the shaman may undergo performances sanctioned by their

community, in order to secure their faith in his vocation and in his extraordinary abilities: To be inthe company of spirits does not make a shaman. It is what a shaman can do [sic], as a result, which

counts. Part of a new shamans trial-by-performance is designed to demonstrate precisely that the

shaman possesses the spirits, rather than the opposite. The shaman must show mastery [sic] over

spirits and control of forces which, uncontrolled, create sickness. If the candidate fails to do his his

tribe are liable to reject any claim to shamanhood.44

Such demonstrations may take the form of seances, but also often forms of entertainment: for Taylor

[...] much of the show is a pantomime of moments in Hell. [sic] [...] all kinds of tricks with fire,

holding red hot coals in his mouth, walking through smouldering embers, [...] spectacular leaps from

tree to tree, [...] The shaman must sometimesgenerate heat as well, [...]45...

Eliade writes: [B]oth in North Asia and elsewhere in the world ecstatic election is usually followed

by a period of instruction, during which the neophyte is duly initiated by an old shaman. At this

time the future shaman is supposed to master his mystical techniques and to learn the religious and

mythological traditions of his tribe [...] But [...] we cannot properly speak of an initiation, since the

candidates have actually been initiated long before their formal recognition by master shamans. [...]

even where there is a public ceremony, [...] it only confirms and validates the real ecstatic and secret

4 2 Ibid, p.344 3 Taylor (op. cit), p. 314 4 Ibid, p. 334 5 Ibid, pp. 33-34

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initiation, which as we saw is the work of spirits [..] 46 Eliade also observes a public initiation

ceremony [which] included the candidates walking over hot coals; if the apprentice had at his

command the spirits that he claimed to posses, he could walk on the fire without injury.47

The shaman may then become the helper and healer of their community. Healings may involve aseance within which the shaman may exorcise spirits recognised as causing the illness, and thereby

save the soul of the stricken. It seems that after the extremity of their ordeal, and because of the

spiritual assistance they have accessed, shamans were fit to alleviate the ordeals of non-shamans.

Taylor writes: The shamans were experts at such [guiding other in such] therapeutic voyages

because they had been to Hell themselves and returned safely.48

Taylor also adds: The shamans initial problem, is, then, a concentrated version of the general

human problem. His subsequent self-cure is, consequently, a cure for the human condition itself

[sic]. It is the condition of separation anxiety which, although slumbering in the psychic background,

often becomes acute during illness or misfortune.49

This would imply that the shaman also serves, perhaps in his seances as an existential and emotional support to their community. This would

obviously imply a heightened capacity for empathy.

The cosmology of the shaman

The shamanic cosmology view for Rogan Taylor is represented as Middle world, Upper world and

Underworld. This is also the case for Mircea Eliade in Shamanism (1951), seemingly the most

highly researched text on the matter: [T]he universe in general is conceived as having three levels -

sky, earth, underworld... the essential schema is always to be seen, even after the numerous

influences to which it has been subjected; there are three great cosmic regions.50

The trance statesbring them access between these worlds.

(This entire ecstatic philosophy may also be resolved in terms of the meditative techniques of Zen

and Sufism, in which the journey of consciousness through the chakras experiences corresponding

visions. In this sense the access to the other worlds may be seen as achieved via a journey through

the human body. Western magic too uses a terminology of pathworking which refers to visionary

journeying in meditative or trance states, visionary experiences, or the waking up of powers may

also be actualised in western magic by the insighting of names of power, which are seen to embody

vibrations particular to each bodily energy centre or power.)

Concluding note on shamanism

Suzi Gablik does not mention the pervading historical sense of the Shaman as a form of master, or

exalted technician in their field. It may therefore be seen that Gablik advocates a form of enchanted

egalitarianism based on a false premise. Her description does not seem to account for the quite

definite distinction there unquestionably appears to be between the shaman and other humans, let

alone the arduous initiation process. Neither does she account for the distinction which could also be4 6 Mircea Eliade, (op. cit), p.1124 7 Ibid, p.1124 8 Ibid, p. 224 9 Ibid, p. 415 0 Ibid, p. 259

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accorded those beings with shamanic potential. It is also worth pointing out that it would be

incorrect to assume that Reenchantment necessarily implies an attitude of conviviality, which Gablik

also seems to represent. Shamans are often either white, black or grey, and may act on their own

personal will, and not on a common will for humanity. Gabliks account of shamanism is not very

rigorously factual, and this may mean we may expect different forms of art within a reenchantedworld view.

Genius

Where Suzi Gablik touches on the subject of genius a fault is apparent which impacts on her notion

of the nature of reenchanted art. Genius can be seen to have no relation to an ego oriented vision, and

yet it has been noted that Suzi Gablik conceives that the acceptance of genius may not figure

within the reenchantment of art. However, with respect to its actual meaning, this paper observes

that there is considerable reason for considering genius an important dimension of enchantment.

There follows a summary of the permutations of the word Genius: the original, as may be found in

the Oxford English dictionary is: with reference to classical or pagan belief: the tutelary god or

attendant spirit allotted to ever person at birth, to govern and determine his character, and finally to

conduct him out of the world... (a persons) [sic] good, evil genius: the two mutually opposed spirits

(in Christian language angels) [sic] by whom every person was supposed to be attended throughout

his life.

This conception of genius can be seen to have been subject to a decisive transformation in the 18th

century after the influence of the philosopher Kant. His definition may be understood as a human

quality as opposed to a Divine quality: Genius is the inborn quality of mind by which nature prescribes the rule to art - for this reason genius cannot describe or scientifically reveal how it

produces, for the same reason, the producer of a work of genius does not know the source of the

ideas which conduced to it, nor can he, according to a plan, or at will, think out these ideas and

communicate them with instruction to others, so as to enable the latter to produce similar works 51 .

The notion of genius as rare human trait appears to have caught on among many romantic writers,

notably Goethe.

This trend led to the second Oxford Dictionary definition: Native intellectual power of an exalted

type, such as is attributed to those esteemed in any department of art, speculation, or practice;

instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original thought, invention ordiscovery. Often contrasted with talent. A seminal report on the nature of gifted children who may

be regarded as ingenious has concluded that these individuals not only possess superior intellect, but

also physique, capacity for work and emotional adjustment.

But at this point it is enough to say that in the original sense, the genius is not subsumed within the

realm of the ego, and may therefore not fall in with Gabliks description of Modernism as ego driven.

The cult of the genius, is distinct from the notion of embattled and heroic egos. It is understood that

the genius is separate from the artist and works through him. This is in no sense the realm of the ego.

Gabliks attitude may therefore preclude important possibilities for Reenchantment that did exist

within Modern painting. These strands in modern painting shall be explained at a subsequent5 1 Emmanuel Kant,Kritik der Untertskraft, Vol. i. p 24

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moment.

In the cases of both Genius and the Shaman Gablik appears to have been less than thorough.

Neither, in their true sense, seem compatible with her egalitarian vision of Reenchantement, although

both, in the strictest of senses are thoroughly qualified to be features of Reenchantment. Genius andthe shaman are also worthy of comparison with respect to this question, although each, ultimately,

has a separate impact on the Reenchantment of art, this comparison shall be made at a subsequent

moment.

3. Analysis of disenchanted art

The dehumanisation and disembodiment of art

It emerges that it is apt to assert that the disenchantment of art may simply be viewed in another

way - as the dehumanisation of art. But in speaking of the human it is necessary to observe that heis distinguished from animals precisely by his faculty to reason, just as he is distinguished from the

angels by his frailty. Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) defines man as rational soul participating in the

intellect of God, but operating in a body. Greeks and Romans viewed human as rational [Arisotle].

But what emerges here, as this essay has observed, reason alone may not be the most complete

expression of the human. The following will explain why, again, the reason function though so

unique to humans and so prized after the enlightenment, when taken alone, may be understood to

produce dehumanisation, and how this may be reflected in painting.

One account of the dehumanisation of art is given by Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) as the

cessation of the representation of humans - or figurative painting. Figurative art itself can be seen aslandscape, narrative, and other modes that reference the human body. It is clear that not an an

isolation of the faculty of reason but a distinct reduction of the other faculties may be conducive to

certain forms of visual art. While abstract painting may not be completely intellectual, it may be

understood that some forms of abstract art can appear as a primarily ocular experience with little

reference to the body or feelings. The reduction of the presence of figuration in painting may be seen

to disavow the cult of shamanism or hermeticism, animism, bodily awareness and sex. It is plain

that there are parallels here between this notion of the omnipotence of reason, or of ocular oriented

faculties, and the emphasis on ego development that characterises modern society, and which has

been explained earlier in this essay.

In the case that the painter is drawing on the unconscious for the forms within their painting, it can

be seen that the source for the image is the irrational, in many cases the visionary experiences shall be

activated by the manipulation of particular energy centres situated around the body. The irrational,

for Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was tantamount to the unconscious and the inhuman. Nature he

regards as inhuman. But it is the way in which the unconscious is manifested within his body that

may be expressed by the painter. It appears that such methods of production of abstract painting

though possible are hardly documented and barely existent, and it remains that any plane populated

with abstract forms alone denies a substantial degree of human identification.

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hard-edged disembodied absract painting:

Josef Albers,Homage to the Square: Apparition, 118.75 x 118.75 cm, oil on board, 1959

organic abstract painting:

Joan Miro, The Birth of the World, 75 x 65 cm, oil on canvas, 1925

(the Hardedged Absraction, though arguably developed in an organic fashion, does less to evoke

representative associations, as is the case with the Joan Miro.)

If it seems that the dehumanisation of art as an isolation of the faculty to reason consists in a

contradiction in terms if it is understood that the defining faculty of the human is reason, it must be

understood that while it is their distinguishing factor, reason, for humans, is to be considered an

additional feature, and that emotion, the body, the underworld, Nature, and the angelic realm are also

very real and vital possibilities within the human experience. It is is not reason alone that constitutes

the human as the protagonists of Reenchantment would assert, it is a great deal more. It is in this

sense that disembodied and non-representational art may be argued to be dehumanised. Magic does

not occur via intellect alone and thus such art is also disenchanted.

A most extreme expression of the tendency towards abstraction may be found in the manifesto ofArt-concret, a Parisian based abstract art magazine founded in 1930 (perhaps more so since it was

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within a context of figurative painting). If one considers the cerebral nature of Abstract art as can be

garnered from these statements from Gabo, Mondrian, Malevich it can be seen as completely

intellectual. These extreme forms may also be found in de Stijl, and in the paintings of Malevich and

Constructivism. It is notable that the developers of Constructivism did so in conditions of extreme

privation after the Russian Revolution. At the same time, the paintings of Mark Rothko, and Barnet Newman were painted with an explicit view to embody the viewer, by referencing his physical

presence via size and design features. Other abstract paintings may consist in the somatic imprints

of the more gestural expressions within the tradition.

The Art Concret manifesto:

1. Art is universal

2. The work of art should be entirely conceived and formed by the mind [sic] before its

execution. It should recieve nothng from Natures formal properties or from sensuality or

sentimentality...3. The picture should be constructed entirely from pure plastic elements, that is to say, planes

and colours. A pictorial element has no other significance than itself, and therefore the picture has

no other significance than itself.

4. The construction of the picture should be simple and controllable visually.

5. Technique should be nmechanical, that is to say, exact, anti-impressionistic.

6. Effort for absolute clarity52

Figurative painting during these times has some cross over with Abstract expressionism, particularly

in the works of Wellem De Kooning. Forces of dehumanisation may also be identified within

figurative painting. Figurative painting too may manifest properties of disembodiedness, ocularity,and dehumanisation. Norman Bryson points out this difference, drawing distinction between the

nature of Byzantine art and some western painting. The embodying properties of Icons were seen as

at times facilitated by architecture.

Rationalism and classicism

It may be seen that disenchanted painting coincides with more classical periods, such as Modernism

is. A classical period may be seen as characterised by a prevailing standard of beauty, and

humanistic scholarship, that to an extent, a distance is set up between the historian, as detached

observer (which is the Cartesian concept), and the world as dead matter.

Abstraction and figuration

It may also be seen that the polarity that exists between figurative and abstract painting composes a

field within which to identify directions in the disenchantment and Reenchantment of art that

resonate with the two strands that Suzi Gablik noted within post modern art.

Modernism itself in terms of painting is usually seen as characterised by figuration and abstraction as

two dominant and opposing trends. While Paris was the centre of the figurative, America was that

of the abstract. After World War Two there was a tussle between abstract and figurative art, to gain5 2 (as translated in) Anna Mozynska,Abstract Art, pp. 104-5

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cultural eminence. Yet it can be seen, that America, after WWII became a superpower. It

dominated art history as many European scholars moved to its academies - it developed an over

view of European art history as Erwin Panofsky says, by virtue of its distance - it was not caught

up in local theoretical struggles53 . The art that dominated here at this time was Abstract

Expressionism.

Painters such as Lucian Freud, or Pablo Picasso, in contrast to the dehumanised products of

abstraction, may be understood to have taken what some scholars call the path of empathy. The

paintings appear to record an interchange between sitter and artist involving far more than mere

intellect. The link between such empathic and psychological insights and Bermans notion of

original participation and with Gabliks concern to renew contact with the body is easy to see. In

the any of the embodying arts, whether Icons, some abstract expressionism, or a Francis Bacon, the

notion of bodily, or emotive Participation is more relevant.

In spite of this, and in spite of the arguable humanistic tendencies of some of AbstractExpressionism (namely taschism, gesturalism, its lyrical aspects, or its expressive dimension) the

dehumanised geometric, or flat plane art of formal relations as the dominant trend both in the galleries

and in art theory can represent a strong force in the cultural dehumanisation of art. The process was

championed by the critics, in particular Clement Greenberg (1909-94) and Michael Fried, whose

views dominated - and a great stress was laid - in a similar manner to the Russian Constructivists -

on the avoidance of political subject matter - which can be seen as necessarily human. Thus, the

developments to which these descriptions point, may be seen as a primarily disenchanted,

egotistical, and dehumanised epoch.

Genius and heroism in abstract and figurative painting

As has been observed, Suzi Gablik voiced objection not only to the dominance of the ego but also to

the possibility of genius within a reenchanted culture. Again, these questions have relevance to the

differences between abstract art and figurative art. Genius is more readily associated with members

of the figurative strand of painting, while abstract expressionism the main vogue of the dominant

American trend was heroic. The notion of hero is also more applicable to the manifestations of

abstract expressionism since size and grandiosity were among its central concerns. This heroism

was also attached to American landscape which appeared as a run in to abstract expressionism.

Heroism and ego development have an important commonality and the expression of both within the

ego dominated development of America from New World to super power and cultural centre maybe understood as symptomatic of disenchantment.

Of course it is arguable that an abstract painter may work from genius, and the lines between egotism

and heroism are also blurry, since presumably it is only a vain concern with heroism which is

identifiable with hard-faced egotistic manifestations. Gablik mentions that the notion of genius is a

instance of these malevolent Modern values. And it appears that for Gablik, genius and the heroic

and egotistical are simply rolled into one and treated as superfluous. Again, as has been observed in

this essay, by definition, genius can in no way be excluded from Reenchantment (as neither can

genuine heroism) and is not to be understood as part of the ego. For what ever reasons, heroism has

been more readily associated with abstract painting, genius with figurative and hence with what this5 3 Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, p.

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essay has identified as the path of empathy. There is no literature to explain this, but the

implications may be again that genius has been intuitively understood to be part of what this paper

has identified as a step in the direction of Reenchantment. The other implication is that Suzi

Gabliks rejection of genius bars a very important series of painters who may be credited with at

least moving towards Reenchantment.

6: Analysis of reenchanted art

Historical trends in reenchantment

It is apt to consider whether it is suitable to speak of the Reenchantment of art at all since it is viable

to assert that European art has never been enchanted, but both Classical art and Northern art can be

seen to have enchanted roots. In the absence of magical healing scrolls or of spirit inhabited fetishes,

after the Icon, the history of art strictly does not include magical art within its breadth, unless as

shall be shown, the more humanistic and empathic may be seen as a criteria. Strictly speakingenchantment in the fuller sense has existed as subject matter alone within European art. However, as

if a development of the empathic lineage, this section not only acknowledges these enchanted

influences of the past but also subsequent trends which also, by the explained definitions, are to be

seen as leaning to the enchanted with increasing potency up until the Modern period.

The Paganism of Greece survives in Arcadian allegory from the renaissance on, and Germanic art is

infused with a irrational subjectivism which emerges as susceptible to folk, phantasmagoric and

demoniacal content - which still found its expression in German Expressionism with Die Bruche and

Die Blue Richter [see Wilhelm Worringer].

The Baroque delight in chimerical orgies, and Arcadian fantasy can perhaps be put down to a

yearning for enchantment during the ravages of war, pestilence and famine. Arcadia plays an

important role again in Romanticism, as does the subjective and the irrational; and in a minor form,

the occult. Romanticism was also a strong genius cult though often witness to the latter

convolutions of the term contemporaneous with Kant.

A still more explicit concern with enchantment then emerges again with symbolism, this involved an

increased appetite for the occult.

Surrealism can be seen as an attempt to probe the unconscious,and attempt to escape the emptyabstraction of much art, a return to figuration, the occult was not unfelt in this tradition. It can be

seen to have become less the centre of art history and culture now.

Magic Realism

The path of empathy arguably trodden by Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, has been a more or less

steady feature of figurative painting, and particularly in some portraiture. It perhaps finds expression

in painters such as Marc Chagall, and Egon Schele.

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5. Present forces of Reenchantment

Outsider Art

In the medical profession, sectors exists for the recognition and treatment of those who may be

regarded as psychically disfunctional and antisocial, this is part of the process of institutionalising,

and ministering of drug treatment, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis. These categoreis have some

cross over into areas of religious and occult experiences, wherein it is considered those claiming such

experiences may be also psychically malfunctional, they also cross over also into criminal, other

antisocial behaviour and alternative experiences generally. These subjects all affect psychological

theory which also considers the ways in which the philosophy of a mass and social codes are built

up.

Within art history, a discourse exists which concerns the art of the socially excluded. One of the

early exponents of this was Jean Dubuffet (1901-85); and the term he used to categorise the art he

was concerned with is Art Brut. Between the years 1945 and 1976 Dubuffet amassed a collection of

over 5000 works by persons of the above categories and presented them to the Chateau de Beaulieu

where they were inaugurated. There exists a category also since then which is simply Outsider Art.

This creation of a forum for the artistic creations of those who may be categorised as one of the

above may be seen as another impulse towards the Reenchantment of figurative painting. It may be

understood that such a thing was made possible by the ambiguity recognised about the definitions of

normal experience and behaviour, and which point to possible revisions of the underpinningphilosophy, which is precisely what the reenchantment of art is. The artists Debuffet chose include

mystics, schizophrenics, and visionaries, but also persons simply regarded as eccentric, also persons

who claim magic and psychic powers, but also those who have been categorised and insane for

varying behaviours and attitudes.

Examples of Outsider art

Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924) created Palais Ideal in Hauterives, France between 1879 and 1912.

he worked in his spare time, often at night, but never wavering in his belief that he was working

towards a revelatory structure that would justify his toil. 54 A large functioning architectural spacewith myriad decorations. Such a work of art may be understood as more the work of a solitary, or

someone who wished to do something unusual. Leonard Knight (b. 1931) began Salvation Mountain

in California in 1985. He said of his environment: I would say, for the most part, God did most all

the thinking and the planning, and God put me in this place. And I believe that he guided my

paintbrush an awful lot, because, honest, when I started, I could dig with a wheelbarrow and move

sod, but that was about the it of my ability to paint.55

5 4 Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art, p. 1795 5 Ibid, pp. 188-189

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Ferdinand Cheval ,Palais Ideal, Hauterives, France, 1879-1912

Leonard Knight, Salvation Mountain, near Stab City, Niland County, California, United States,

begun 1985

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Art of the insane

It has been noted earlier on that Sigmund Freud has made comparisons between the psychotic state

of mind and the primitive, with his discourse on the omnipotence of thought. Such attitudes are also

evidenced in examples of Outsider Art. It also seems that dialectic reason as understood by MorrisBerman may be seen as present in such art. Elaborate webs of association are built up, which may

be seen as a paranoiac or fantasy world or cosmology, constructed by the individual in view of an

impossible situation; an alternative world view which makes the world more understandable to its

creator. Animist like conceptions feature strongly in such schemas.

... in the case of artists who are schizophrenic, the means by which the thoughts are broadcast or

intercepted are conceived of as machines... as in the machines of Robert Gie[s].... obsession with

radio waves.56 This may be seen in Circulation of Effluvia with Central Machine and Metric Scale.

Robert Gie, Circulation of Effluvia with Central Machine and Metric Scale, [crayons on paper?],c. 1916

For Elka Spoerri the scrap books collaged from magazines and newspapers by Wolffi ...a semi-

literate peasant, who spent the last thirty five years of his life incarcerated in Swiss asylum were a

rediscovery of the world of his own which he had invented and built.57

Another schizophrenic artist was Willem Van Genk (b.1927) created similar collages in which a

cacophony of discreet images, drawn mainly from printed sources, jostle and eventually coalesce into

narrative58 : The inner voices that Van Genk hears alert him to external threats , from the Catholic

Church and, more latterly, the ideological march of Communism... to the dangers posed by the nexus

of threads that he believes conspire to destroy us... The world conspiracy is orchestrated, he

believes, by hairdressers who assume a role in his terror... His sense of powerlessness can be briefly

overcome by donning raincoats which afford him the protection he needs in the street. That this is

an essentially magical sublimation of exterior power is attested to by the fact that the energy

contained in each coat is usually spent after a single outing.59

5 6 Ibid, p. 1315 7 Ibid, p. 1325 8 Ibid, p. 1335 9 Ibid, p. 136

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Childrens art, the art of the insane, and animism

Colin Rhodes points out the similarity between the approaches of a child and a paranoiac artist

August Natterer (1868-1933): spatial relationships are subordinated in both cases to the artists

[sic] to present a detailed account of a particular place. However, the paranoiac content content of Natterers work, in which a quiet rural landscape is revealed as containing evil in the shape of a

witchs head, is absent from the childs schematic inventory.60 [illus - see pages 38-39 in Rhodes].

There are discourses to the effect that there are notable similarities between the childs view of the

world and animism, this may be seen as reflected in this comparison.

Occult artists

Into this category also falls visionary or mediumistic art. These artists claim that some force guides

their hand as they work; for example Helene Smith (1861-1932). During trance she would make

visits to Mars. She produced pictures of her experience, but said: The pencil glided so quickly thatI did not have time to discover what contours it was making. I can assert without any exaggeration

that it was not my hand alone that made the drawing, but that truly an invisible force guided the

pencil in spite of me. Another example is Pearl Alcock (b.1934) who painted Magic Tree. She

began drawing when she was fifty two after a severe depression. She said: Early in the morning I am

freed from all cares. There is no need for second thoughts or an eraser, the drawing works itself out

delightfully. everything goes on its own.61

A more famous example of this kind of artists is Rosaleen Norton ( -1979) Her heyday was... the

late 1940s and 1950s. She was known to the public as an eccentric, bohemian witch-lady who wore

flamboyant, billowing blouses and vivid bandanas...62

[F]rom 1940 she began to experiment withself hypnosis as a means of producing automatic drawing.63 apparently having an interest in the

methods of Salvador Dali and Yves Tanguy: she said these experiments produced a number of

peculiar and unexpected results... and culminated in a period of extra-sensory perception together

with a prolonged series of symbolic visions.64 Her paintings were concerned with magical literature

and Drury claims they became demonic. He writes of one: Roseleens representation of Mars-the

warlike entity-... shows a powerful human male torso with the winged head of a hawk. The god has

a scorpionss tail and clawed feet and very much embodies a sense of power and aggression. he

holds a sphere in his right hand which could almost be the puny globe of earth, under his influence.65

Jean Debuffet did not wish to include Naive art within his Art Brut since he did not regard it asisolated enough from the art history discourse. Yet in terms of outsider art, it may also be

considered for its animistic, childlike quality. Much of this type of art also crosses with ethnic art

and all of it may be explained in terms of the distinction between animism and the enlightenment.

Naive art does form a large part of the art market, and in some senses features close to its centre,

where works that deliberately negates skill is favoured. Examples range from Henri Rousseua to

Beryl Cook and Grandma Moses. Within this category may also be included ethnic art.

6 0 Ibid, p. 1376 1 Ibid, p. 1516 2 Nevill Drury,Echoes from the Void,p.1046 3 Ibid, p.1066 4 Ibid, p.1066 5 Ibid, p.112

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This recurrent thread of automatic drawing, as it appears in Bacon, Surrealism, the discourses on

Genius, and in visionary art, of course finds resonance with psychological observations, such as

those of Jung. This field is complex with varying terminologies and accounts. But uniting them all is

this conception of outside forces working through the individual. This as a schema has a recurrent presence in the discourses of art history. Carl Jung comes close to systematising this with his

discourses on the unconscious. Such discourses could help elucidate the links this has with artistic

creation, and explain means for the reenchantment of painting. If it can be understood what these

manifestations commonly spring from, such an understanding may effect the social philosophy and

social attitudes to some features of these conditions; this as said, could be a highly important part of

the reenchantment of painting.

Animism may be seen as featuring in all of these types of art. Children are thought by many

theorists on the subject to naturally possess an animistic view of the world, the art of the insane

appears to commonly involve such an attitude, prehistoric and non-western art also very muchcontains it. The link between children's art, the art of the insane, and animism would be very much

part of reenchantment. Surrealism also seems to blend visionary experience with a representation of

the common western world view; it does this through a dialogue with dream and irrational drives

such as the unconscious. Thus it may be seen that animism is common except among those

parented and educated within the western post enlightenment culture. Thus it may be seen that

critical theory that questions the philosophy of the enlightenment, and particularly Descartes, could

help to understand these different experiences and the part they may play in human life.

Outsider art has a large presence in the art market. However, it is largely peripheral. Much of it

does not involve skill. Although much visionary art contains high degrees of illustrative skill. Theviews pertaining to the importance of the irrational, and to the possible legitimacy of animism appear

to be unfashionable in art criticism. It therefore follows that art which may be seen as produced

from such sources, remains peripheral.

5. Other perspectives on reenchantment

Genius and the shaman Compared

Gablik has been seen to dismiss genius but also what appears in the final analysis to be the central

thrust of shamanism: the cult of the person of difference, and of the extraordinary person. The cultof genius and that of the shaman may be seen to share at least one thing: they both consist in the

recognition of, and in the accordance of value, to persons regarded as remarkable, special, or

outstanding. This appears to have high relevance to the reenchantment of painting. While it is not

straightforward to parallel the phenomenon of genius with that of the shaman, they may be seen to

have some links, and some things in common.

In the present times these words are loosely used, and genius in particular is a often a very crude

attempt to categorise a number of phenomena. In itself, the shaman appears a more definite

distinction, partly because the term is less likely to be used by those not acquainted with the

traditions of shamanism. However, the lack of clarity, and the ignorance towards these matters may

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be so prominent that genius may quite often be confused for shamanism. In itself this may be

enough to explain why the shaman and the genius may be seen, by many accounts, to share traits.

However, in the final analysis, where genius may be seen to appear a number of things may be

observed which are akin to shamanic manifestation.

In recognising what genius and the shaman may have in common it may noted that both at one stage

exhibit manifestations such as those mentioned earlier, in the part entitled the shaman personality

type. Both in this sense also begin to resemble some common understandings of the artistic

temperament. In this they may share moodiness, psychological instability, (there is a fashionable

history of the link between insanity and genius), reclusive tendencies, but also the ability to regularly

and consistently astonish individuals with creative manifestations. Genius and shamanism may also

be seen to share rapid thought association; a mercurial, kaleidoscopic personality; a mysterious

charm; psychological perspicacity; exalted intuition; prodigious empathy; prodigious memory;

poetic output; the rapid acquisition of diverse skills, and a heightened capacity for labour. But,

above everything, it is abidingly clear, whatever the scenario, that both genius and shamanism haverelevance to The Divine. The genius is an angel; and the shaman has conversations with angelic

beings. Both may in this be also simply regarded as involving at some stage or another an extra-

human presence; this remains the case even when for the shaman this presence is a spirit, and

not an angel.

In terms of how they are different, however, it is clear that the shaman is defined by his initiation

process. It needs to be understood that this initiation places the shaman in an entirely different order

than genius. The initiation may be seen to provide the shaman with possibilities not to be matched

by any other human. Thus it may be seen that while genius is an angelic quantity, the shaman is

ultimately a human: just a transformed human. This is the case even though it may be conceived thatthe shaman may have a genius too.

The interesting area where the two areas merge is where they both connect with the artistic

temperament (which, in the case of the shaman, is usually before initiation and instruction). It is

possible that such an emotional turmoil or isolation may be caused by the genius, or by the emphasis

within shamanic embryos of the ecstatic capacity. This may be because the human does not have

the emotional preparation for such a manifestation, or that in the case of the shaman the kind of

suffering which involves such psychological turmoil and death is necessary. It is likely to be because

the human in both cases feels isolated and singled out by their experience. It may be seen that this

kind of abnormality is likely to cause mental aberration and confusion in most exposed to it. Thevarious abilities accorded to each type, shamans and geniuses, may be accounted for by both sharing

in common the extra human dimension, even though it is conceivable that these manifestations are

to be regarded as a development of human possibilities. Both seem to involve this accentuation of

human potential. It may also be seen that shamanism, in its ecstatic capacity, and in its methods of

spiritual evocation, includes a kind of technique of the access to the angelic, and to genius.

Shamanism and mental otherness

It has been seen that both genius and shamans have links with the discourses on insanity. It has been

speculated above that this could be partly an emotional response to an isolating experience; it could

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also be seen as to some extent linked to an amount of freedom from conditioning.

the reenchantment of painting - by edward mirza

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