Metaphysics in Art

Meta is Greek for after or beyond and physics is Greek for nature. Metaphysics is defined as the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including such concepts as being, knowing, substance, essence, cause, identity, time and space. In relation to art, the metaphysical exists in art because a painting is a product of the mind, it is the creation of ones desire to paint. In the translation from inner to outer we give form and visual existence to things which have no substance within our minds and bodies- thoughts, emotions, ideas and desires. The English philoshopher R.G. Collingwood stressed that in making works of Art an artist is at the same time making clear the exact nature of his or her emotional condition. (Lowenfeld 2003 p 5)

“Art is what now sustains the metaphysical condition which has become viable only by means of art: this being the only non-illusory alternative after the advent of nihilism, that is to say, the impossibility of theological metaphysics. Thereby, the non-illusory (art as viable reality) becomes tautologous with the illusion (of metaphysics) par excellence. I think Nietzsche makes it clearer when he almost identifies the metaphysics of art with truth: ‘The will to illusion… counts as more profound.., ‘metaphysical’ than the will to truth … art is worth more than truth.’(Hollingdale 1973 p155) An attempt to rationalize the above statement is by claiming that the metaphysical in art rests in its ability to create new forms, thereby signaling the possibility of the non-existent.” (Doikas)

Immanual Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, attempts to rationalise the existence of the mind/body/soul connection, the cosmos and god by arguing that as in the Descartes philosophy “I think therefore I am” we give substance to the afore mentioned ideas by simply believing them, we hypostasise, value it as an enduring entity despite having no proof of its actual existence. (Holmes) Art is the integral way to prove the existence of our emotional and perhaps spiritual substance. I believe this is where sensing integrity becomes apart of aesthetic experience. As a viewer, qualities such as ease and urgency sign post that a picture was created in direct correlation to inner guidance, thus is apparently an honest representation of something, even if it is an abstract work, and therefore an artwork of integrity.

In 1917 an Italian art movement titled Pittura Metaphysica was founded by Carlo Carra and Giorgio de Chirico. Another affiliate of this group was Giorgio Morandi, George Richardson’s favourite artist. Metaphysical painting sprang from their urge to explore the imagined inner life of familiar objects when represented out of their explanatory contexts: their solidity, their separateness in the space allotted to them, the secret dialogue that may take place between them. (wikipedia) This alertness to the simplicity of ordinary things “which points to a higher, more hidden state of being” (Carra) Their main slogan was following: the essence of things can be conceived not by reason but only using intuition. (wikipedia) The members of Pittura Metaphysica movement all had fairly surrealist styles; however the reasons why Giorgio Morandi’s art could be seen as metaphysical were a lot more subtle than the other artists in this group.

Morandi painted still lives, his paintings of humble arrangements of jars and bottles, painted in muted pallid colours are some of modernisms most emotional and communicative works of art. In the forward for his touring exhibition ‘Giorgio Morandi: The Dimensions of Inner Space’ that visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales in July 1990, Edmund Capon write;

“Silence, stillness, and the solemn eternity of time and space echo through the rich but humbling images of Morandi’s Art. His subjects are disarmingly mundane and prosaic, but in his distinctive view they become emblems that dwell, in the most coherent and powerful way, at the very heart of human sensibility. This extraordinary ability to express a calm and kind of pervasive morality imbues his art with a scope and a reality that far exceeds the limits imposed by his subject matter.”

This is why his art is metaphysical; he created a new essence out of paint and a simple subject matter. An essence that was once simply the ideas and emotions running through his mind and body but were transformed into this new substance; a painting.

This type of transformation is viable in all means of art creation, regardless of style and subject matter, but like George I am adamant that art should not be a scheduled planned occurrence, and is definitely not mere imitation of nature or artistic styles.

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