Modrian, Sherman, and Kandinsky: Stoller’s three modes of rationality and art.

I decided to try something new this week, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think. Maybe because I also study Art History, I find it easier to think in terms of works of art, especially in regards to concept and theory. So this week I have decided to use art to understand Stoller’s modes of rationality. Also, I am working under the assumption that these aren’t works and artists known to you, so I will give as concise explanations as possible, in addition to the illustrations.

Piet Mondrian was an early 20th century Dutch painter interested in non-representational art. (For Mondrian this would eventually mean a reduction to line and colour block) This interest was informed in part by Symbolist thought, itself Neo-Platonic: what they were interested in was a visual art closer to music, in that it did not have any illusory aims in terms of the material world. Instead it was meant to invoke something beyond the material, a universal ideal. Which I think can be compared to Levi-Strauss’ ‘elementary forms’ (246) as underlying structures. I think it can and should be argued that Mondrian came from the same intellectual tradition as Levi-Strauss; I think which priviledged abstract notions above real-world situations.

The criticism these ‘lumpers’ (244) came in the form of Relativism.

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer who, in the late 1970’s took a series of self-portraits (frequently with a visual acknowledgement of this in the presence of the shutter cord) in poses derived from American pop-culture stereotypes of women. For example, the ‘available’ woman stretched out on a bed or a housefrau. Key to understanding her art then is the knowledge that she is the photographer, and as artist is commenting on those depictions of women. This involves agency.

Furthermore, while it is mostly incidental that Mondrian was say Dutch, Sherman’s art doesn’t make sense without knowledge of her gender. This hinges on two key elements of Relativism – the privileging of experience and diversity (248). Because without her experience as a women viewing those source images in the first place, there would not be her response. Her response then was a product of a specific reaction, a specific mode of thinking, of reasoning. That is a ‘diversity of rationality’ (248).

Wassily Kandinsky was an artist contemporary to Mondrian, involved with the Blauer Reiter group. By the time he painted Composition VII, the formal properties of his work were notable for highly abstracted figures and intense colour. Like Mondrian he was interested in an almost non-cognitive response to his art, he was also interested in the spiritual dimension of art. BUT his work, including Composition VII, was heavily influenced by Russian Orthodox icons and Christian narrative, in this case the Last Judgement. As such, he art can be viewed on different levels: the decorative aspects of the formal properties and the inclusion of Last Judgement figures (BUT in that case only really, if the viewer has that information).

What does this have to do with the Phenomenological mode? I think that the decorative quality of Kandinsky’s work, the one that most people are familiar with, is analogous to the ‘everyday’ aspect of that mode. And that the other symbols in the work can be compared to the cultural conditioning that effect meaning (250), in this case what the viewer sees in the painting. Or not. (Or for that matter, if the viewer comes from the Christian tradition, whether or not they are an insider)

So, which is most convincing?

Stoller seems to privilege the last mode he mentions: the embodied, at least as a goal. I think that the difficulty in deciding which is most convincing lies in that Post-Enlightenment legacy, the over-arching framework, or at least the search for it. While Mondrian considered representational art to be deceitful in a manner of speaking, couldn’t it be said on the other hand that looking for something beyond the mundane, the idea that a higher principle exists is also a bit ridiculous? On the other hand, while Relativism is such a narrow focus; how can you ignore the power dynamic that lead to its necessity? And here the example of Sherman, I think, makes sense, her experience as a woman is different period. To ignore that would not be just. (Although I guess that is applying a universal principle in itself)

That leaves phenomenology. And I think this is the most convincing, and again, if you look at Kandinsky’s painting. A viewer from the same religious background *might* perceive things, that someone from an entirely different tradition would not. BUT a viewer from a similar background who has an understanding of that period of art would have a different level of interpretation.

I hope that made sense. I think I was just trying to understand the three modes, and hopefully it can relate to rationality.

Experience and the 'Language Game'

After reading Scharf’s article several questions come to my mind regarding experience and language:

Without language, how can we know WHAT experience is?
Even if it is ineffable how can it exist or happen/have happened without the representation of language?
If there is no experience, then how do you explain or understand accounts? Are they merely a product of socialization? In other words, we think that they exist, so they do to us? Is that not a bit patronizing? Or, at the very least, reductive?

And also, are all religious or mystical experiences the same at the root – that is should we assume that they all come from the same ‘place’ or is the notion of ‘family resemblances’ that Scharf mentions (97) more profound? If you consider the phenomenon of alien abduction (108-109) in contrast to William James et al, could it be that the experiences under consideration are NOT some sort of contact with one thing. But several or multiple forces, for lack of a better term. Fundamentally, is there a way to separate experience from its roots? As Scharf summarized: the progression from Post-Enlightenment attempts to defend religion as the expression of experience, to Perennial Philosophy to its effects on D.T. Suzuki and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (that is on non-European traditions and our notion of them). Even though the concept of experience is situated in a certain universalism, is it useful anyway? Can it be divorced from that?

So what role does language play in all of this? Well, without language, that is signifiers, how do we know it exists (even if only as a recollection or happening in our minds? Regardless of what assumptions that makes about the nature of the mind, especially in terms of autonomy.) In other words, is the ‘dream report the only criterion for the dream’ (113)? Is the recording of experience the only way it exists?

Or is the application of language to experience, whatever it is, as Dennett claims (111) relational? I think that in terms of the scholar, perhaps. BUT in terms of the individual, the community member. No. If you look at groups that have a strong confessional component, such as charismatic Christian churches (even if they are descended from the same phenomena that inspired William James) what does it mean for members to share tales of their experiences with each other? The same could be said of any other tradition with framework descended from Perennial Philosophy (100-103).

I guess the biggest assumption that Scharf discusses is our really foundational myth of the autonomous individual (111) and that this individual is in possession of inner, private experience. But how do we get around that? Not only is the individual central to the current European-inspired framework, BUT it is central to any attempt to address persons outside of their signifiers. Fundamentally this is tied to social justice, if there is no concept that we are all individuals and all equal, then people and groups can be objectified.

Time, Gender and Adam

Is essentialism the same thing as the search for origins? I would argue that from a linear standpoint, and as the product of one: yes it is. This comes from the original creation story in Genesis of a world created by the Abrahamic God not just in sequence, but with an intentional form. But it should also be noted that this framework can include ‘evolutionary’ lines of thinking, those under the rubric of science and empiricism. In other words, when speaking of a linear view I would like to include not only the Judeo-Christian view of time (which would also contain a certain amount of eschatology, that is an expected end-point in time in the future), but also the post-Enlightenment thinking, in the field of Religion beginning in the 19th century, for example figures such as Tylor and Frazer).

So, what does this have to do with the physical Adam? I think that an intentional, original form should be taken into account, but also the notion of the fall. Although that should not be limited to the Christian account and reading of the fall. In Boyarin’s article the fall and physicality of this original human (whether or not Adam was by default male is not important just yet), is discussed in terms of two streams of Feminist thought linked to early Christianity and formative Rabbinic Judaism. That is the materialist feminist Monique Wittig (‘For there is no sex. There is but the sex that is oppressed and the sex that oppresses’, 118) and the early Christian concept of the original spirit created called Adam, based on Gen 1:26-28; and the contrast of Luce Irigaray’s view of inescapable gender and the prevailing thought in Judaism of the original hermaphrodite (128 and on). In terms of the two religious traditions, the fundamental difference lies in the idea of what the fall means, for the Christians (for example Paul Gal 3:26-29*) the fall was into corporeality; whereas in the Jewish tradition the physical body and organization of life around the genders did not exclude the members from spiritual life (although women were limited to the domestic sphere).

What does this view of the past have to do with gender? First off, I think that it would unreasonable to apply any progressive view of gender to texts from the first century CE. BUT what is important here, I think, is that there is a distinction between the two religious traditions and the feminists. For the traditions, I would argue that there seems to be the continual presence of the past in the present, but as an ideal (which, needless to say, is removed). In the case of feminism, I think that the scholarship and political thought is searching for an unknown original form to humanity. The desired form is known, but its shape isn’t clear. In other words, either some fundamental lack of difference or specific difference, both of which lead to a certain amount of oppression. That is undeniable. The past then, is important for feminism as both the record of oppression, but I suspect also the notion that the oppression is not a necessary feature of social life. That maybe it was in some way accidental.

* I think that this article is limited by the fact that it does not attempt to take a larger context into account in terms of the early Christian texts. Specifically, in discussing Paul’s notion of transcending gender (even if it an androgyne that is by default male), Boyarin does not take into account the high level of eschatology in early Christianity. Simply put, the expectation that the end was imminent is more informative than the notion of what Adam was. I think that any notion of Adam was not something thought over, but something taken as ‘fact’.

The Difference Between Text and Performance

What is the difference between ritual (performance) and text? Why is it important or necessary to differentiate them? What are the problems if this isn’t done?

In this context what we are really asking is what the difference is for the outsider, the scholar, the researcher? I think that where the difference lies is in two related areas: the insider/outsider distinction and also the level of participation in which text and ritual can each allow for the outsider.

It goes without saying, but I will anyway, that there is a difference between the insider (and believer) and the person studying a particular religious tradition (the outsider), or what Bell terms the ‘observing scholar’ and ‘performing native’ (219). Even taking into consideration Sharf’s comparison of ritual to music (251) and his conclusion that ritual can be participated in and appreciated by the masses and not just the lettered (267); I don’t think that it would unnecessarily particularize rituals too much to say that the things that make them ritual (for example what Bell calls the ‘internal authority….the communal, performative and symbolic’ aspects (220) or what Sharf claims sets ritual apart from the quotidian, things such as vestments, and purified objects (247)) and are known to and have meaning attached to by the insiders cannot be viewed as ritual even without that basic understanding. That is to say, ritual is different (as Sharf makes clear), although it shouldn’t be assumed that the outsider will always recognize or understand ritual (this Bell addresses when discussing the performative approach, which is as a part of an ‘awareness of the scholar’s own position’ (210)).

Furthermore, ritual cannot be participated in the same way text can. Text is meant to be read. Even as an outsider – you are doing what the form demands. Ritual on the other hand, even if understood by the outsider, can only ever be witnessed or re-enacted (what Bell refers to as putting the theorist into a more ‘active role’ (211)). Any breaking down of a particular ritual will reduce it to words, to text (Sharf’s ‘music to score’ (250)). A done thing once it is written, whereas the point of ritual lies in the doing, that is the continual performing.

Also, I think a key to understanding potential problems with viewing ritual as text lies in contextualizing the known formation of text. While origins of specific rituals are various, text is easier to root out the historical context, redactions, etc. and text is at the end of the day Whereas, with ritual, the nature is different, that is to say, even if ritual involves text, or is prescribed by text or even just inspired by it, it would not be a generalization to state that a participant need know that text to engage in the ritual (just for example, the Eucharist, inspired by a story in the New Testament, but historically not necessary to have read or have specific knowledge of the source text to participate). In other words, text, at the end of the day is formed and read by a certain elite; ritual does not always need to be either (in terms of formation, what Bell refers to as ‘domestic practices and local religion’ (210)). An example of this, easily, can be found in Bell’s discussion of home-based ancestor worship ritual (beginning 213), which is not textually/scripturally based at all.

I think that fundamentally, the important difference for the scholar between ritual and text is that if they are not differentiated, then they both loose context. That is, their differences in comparison will not be appreciated if they are not recognized as different in kind.