Every painting and I would add every sculpture take upon
completion their place along the line stretching between chaotic smearing and
almost divine perfection.
Perfection points mostly to the perfection in its
craftsmanship but beyond the side of perfect execution lays another, even more
demanding side of perfection: the one that contains imaginary world of the
image. When the two sides are made into an almost unattainable perfection the
resulting artwork should belong to the rarest group in Art – to Absolute Art.
Therefore, let’s agree that there is, ahistorical number of art works across all
ages belonging to artistic absolutism.
We read that Leonardo da Vinci painted Gioconda four years
and some inquiring voices ask: what exactly he was doing all those years on the
surface of that small painting? One answer I believe would elucidate some
understanding of such lengthy process: reaching for artistic absolutism. In
constructing certain convincing view of illusion of stereometric sight in a
painting a painter tries to arrange all elements into a superior harmony of all
parts. By immediately available comparison between such a painting and
surrounding reality the painting should win by much in harmony, expressiveness,
sublime air of necessity and density of meaning. Now- to build it in a painting
takes not only a lot of time but also inventiveness of a very elusive kind.
There are no “how to” guides or textbooks on painting an artistically absolute
painting. To my mind it seems like a question of how to become a saint or how to
freely levitate. Similarly – I don’t know how to paint an absolute painting.
But, over the years
I started having some ideas about general direction and some demanding changes
necessary in attaining the right attitude toward barely visible tiny groupings
inside of the illusion in a painting. The battle I think has to originate there
– in relations among molecular nearly objects. To create a painting, one has to
build it the way that plants are made of cellular relations and paintings,
perhaps should too be understood as cellular beings. I don’t want to overextend
this analogy but merely point to how extreme, unfathomably exact is the
instrument of a plant and so should be a painting. Most Quattrocento paintings,
especially of Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes or Master of the St.
Bartelemew Altar are executed in that spirit: of artistic absolutism. There is
absolutely nothing in their art that appears as “more-or less so”. Every atom is
in its necessary place in their masterpieces.
Removal of any, however small or marginal fragment in a
painting that does not radiates the sense of necessity ; that seems to be a part
of the task on the bewildering path of absolutism.