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CREATIVE STATEMENT: THE ART OF DANIEL GAUTIER "The artist, in order to evolve, will have to extend the study
of nature to the great Laws of cosmic Ideas. That knowledge wil urge him to penetrate the mystery and hidden meaning in the
forms of the visible world .... The object of art, then, is to cause man to perceive the essential reality of all things."
- Jean Delville The Key to understanding our artwork as well as, ultimately,
all art and nature, is the Principle of the LOGOS. The Logos is an idea that has been crucial to various mystical traditions
and idealist philosophical systems. For our purposes, echoing the ancient Greek conception, the Logos is defined as the harmonious,
Seed-Pattern which underlies and generates all material form. From this omnipotent Pattern all creation arises. This Template
is abstract and quasi-numerical in nature. It is transcendent and inviolate, yet at the same time immanent and near, implicit
in every human conception, concealed in every natural form. For these reasons, art, symbol and number have often been used
to describe the nature of the Logoic Seed Pattern and its ineffable Forces.
The Logos has been variously identified, in either threefold,
fourfold, or fivefold Form, by some of the greatest philosophical and spiritual Masters: Moses, Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato,
Plotinus, Proclus, Boehme, Coleridge and Blake. According to these Masters, the whole of the cosmos emanates from this Metaphysical
Model. This timeless Seed is locked in the innermost Soul of every woman and man, driving humanity subconsciously forward,
giving shape to all men’s actions and desires.
According to the Logoic Model of Creation, from the deepest inner metaphysical space all outward
forms unfold.
In the words of the great German mystic, Jacob Boehme, “The visible world is a manifestation of the interior spiritual
world ... it is a reflection of Eternity [ie. Logos/Matrix] which allows Eternity to make itself visible ... The essence of
the external world has proceeded from the Internal, from the Imagination or Desire of the Internal world” (The Three
Principles of the Divine Essence).
The whole of the Universe may be understood as a grand cosmic fugue, with all human acts and natural forms being
variations on a limited number of transcendent themes. These themes or Universal Principles may be found in the figure of
the Logos.
For Gnostic Christians and Hermeticists, this Logos has been conceived as being Trinitarian. For Pythagoreans and many Neoplatonists,
this Logos is Fourfold in nature. For myself, this Logos is conceived as being Fivefold. Thus, to the eternal Logos I have
assigned the name PENTADIC MATRIX.
All my Art springs inexorably from this PENTADIC MATRIX. My own understanding of the Logos stems
from a revelatory encounter with the Logos, in the form of the Grand Pentadic Matrix, that I experienced many years
ago, wherein, in an instant, the Mysteries of Creation unfolded within, and the universal Gate was opened to me, revealing
Forces of a magnitude beyond human expression, yet suggested by a set of supernal Symbols. Thus was the whole of the Cosmos,
man and natuire shown to be an elaborate variation on a single Fivefold Theme. My Art seeks to flesh out those eternal,
abstract Forces of the Pentadic Matrix. Often this Matrix is applied with conscious intent; just as often the Matrix is applied
on a subconscious level.
Unlike the rationalist, linear or literal model of creation used by most modern artists, this method is more circular and
analogical in nature. It unfolds by a succession of correspondences and associations.
My Art adheres
to the Ideal of UNIVERSALISM [I]. It is founded upon the principles of EMANATIONISM [II] and CORRESPONDENCE [III].
Our creative
process entails the exercise of Universal SYNTHESISM.
By this means we attempt to integrate and harmonize various philosophical and mystical traditions,
incorporating the many strands of world religion, art, history, literature, myth and science into a unified whole.
The term
we use to describe our method and our Art is SYNTHEOSIS.
A form of this Idealist creative
method has been practiced by artists throughout the ages, by mandala makers in mountain-capped India and Tibet, by Renaissance
painters in di Medici Florence and papal Rome, by Symbolists and Surrealists from the late 19th through the 20th centuries.
This method was loudly and proudly proclaimed by the Symbolists in their manifestos and poetry. And this method is currently
exercised by contemporary Visionary artists, most of whom have been ignored by the traditional artistic establishment.
The Idealist
method was proclaimed by Jean Moreas in his Symbolist Manifesto (1886). “Thus, in this art, neither scenes from nature
nor human actions nor any other physical phenomena can be present in themselves: what we have instead are perceptible appearances
designed to represent their esoteric affinities with primordial Ideas.”
This aesthetic orientation corresponds to the Platonic
notion that the physical world is a reflection of an original, Ideal Universal Pattern, from which all subsequent material
forms are derived. This is a notion that lies at the heart of the world's Mystery Religions. These Mysteries have taught the
means by which this greater Ideal Realm might be approached, experienced and understood. This method entails preparing the
mind to conceive in more macrocosmic, ideal terms. Symbols and analogy have been used as tools in achieving these ends, as
were the disciplines of mathematics, astronomy and music. In this light, Plato declared that geometry, “which aims at
knowledge of the eternal,” may serve to “draw the soul toward truth and create the spirit of philosophy, and
raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down” (Republic).
The principle of Universal Synthesism is used in various
ways in our Art, just as it is applied on different levels throughout all creation. There are two principle ways in which
this universal, synthetic method is applied to our Art.
1. In the Translation of unchanging Eternal Ideas or Archetypes into
visible or audible form.
2. In the Translation of the same Ideogram, Symbol or Archetype into different artistic media, be it painting into poetry
or into musical form.
It is our aim to reveal the nature of the Eternal Realm. Ours is the function of the devout scribe, offering witness to the
force and reality of the Invisible World. We aspire to fulfill the words of the visionary artist-poet William Blake: "I
rest not from my task, to open the Eternal worlds, to open the immortal eye of man inwards into the worlds of Thought, into
Eternity."
We will use various metaphysical and mystical models in our attempt to make the unseen visible and real. We will attempt to
weave concepts from different metaphysical systems (Pythaoreanism, Platonism, Hindu Sankhya, Kabbalism, Sufism, Taoism, et
al.) into a unified whole. We will, for example, combine the Principle of the archetypal Sefiroth from the Kabalistic Tree
of Life with the idea of the Dionysian/Apollonian Dyad taken from Greek Orphic mysticism.
Due to the demands of trying to describe
that which is essentially ineffable, our poetry or painting may at times employ a rather abstract expressive language. While
making concrete understanding more difficult, such language serves to more accurately communicate that rarefied grandeur and
Mystery of which the Absolute or Subtle Realm is composed. As Meister Eckhart described the mystic’s dilemma, “When
we speak of divine matters we have to stammer, because we are forced to express our experience in words.”
Because of this
limitation, symbol, art and music provide the best means of describing those Eternal Powers from which all phenomena take
form.
It is due to this almost miraculous power of Art to make the monumentally inexpressible tangible and real that William Blake
proclaimed, "Art is the means of conversing with Paradise."
So do we aspire to this elevated end, confident in the belief that the
art that seeks to reveal greater Truth is an Art more lasting and sublime. For, as Wisdom, Love & Beauty are the Essence
of Soul, whosoever creates from the fullness of the Soul will fashion works of illumination and beauty.
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