“Just as a flower grows from a given plant, a work of art should naturally arise from a human being” (p. 44).

 

Pure Form is a construction of quality that constitutes unity in multiplicity. Searching for the metaphysical element in art. Searching for unity in pure qualitative elements - colors that fill limited spaces. I attempted to search, and the results of my struggle are attached as reproductions at the end of this reflection.

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Working on a painting must be an effort, because only when the whole person is completely involved in the creative process, great works can be achieved. An artist must give himself completely. Paintings of Pure Art are created by trying to find harmony, find peace in chaos, find a way out of a problem, understand something in something seemingly incomprehensible, create something seemingly illogical, and despite its indeterminacy of criteria, logically beautiful.

 

"A work of art must be created (...) from the most essential guts of a given individual, and as a result it must be as free as possible from this very 'gutsiness'." (p. 42). Sometimes freedom, i.e. a blank canvas without context and without a predetermined topic that should be on it, turned out to be a big barrier. As Witkacy wrote, if an artist, when starting to create, is not overwhelmed by the intellect that undermines his original concept, then he should create first-class works.

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“One must achieve unity in multiplicity, regardless of the type and method of achieving this unity” (p. 16). Considering Witkacy's theory of Pure Form, I boldly state: I experienced a metaphysical feeling while creating these paintings. "(...) as long as an artist is truly satisfied with his work and has a clear artistic conscience, there is no happier person than him" (p. 35). Probably due to my lack of experience and limited painting background, my attempts will turn out to be a primitive perception of the painting. “It all depends on the proportions of the given elements of a given artist” (p. 39).

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After the correction of the workshop leader, who suggested some changes, I could not make them. I was still on the verge of what I had already achieved. For one person the image will still be too realistic, while for another it is already abstract. “We only care about what is the Pure Form, which they would not have created – this particular form, not that one – if they were not that particular person and not that other person” (p. 65). Witkacy wrote: "Everyone knows (painting) except the artists themselves, whom anyone has the right to teach with domineering certainty what they are not and what they should be. It's a pity that art is not as closed a sphere as, for example, the theory of differential equations (...)” (p. 31). I am blocked from the image, I cannot see it from a distance, I am closed in my belief in the rightness of what I am doing. Is this even creativity?

 

Creativity should go beyond what is known, and stubbornness and limitation are an obstacle to this. “For a true artist there is no beaten path, he is always in the wilderness (…)” (p. 42). The limitation of a feeling about the rightness of working on a work is a strength. “This force, which knows no mercy, is the need to tell other beings in the form of Beauty about the horror of a lonely existence in an infinite universe.” (p. 43). An artist must devote himself entirely to art and be aware that he will have to go beyond the safe comfort zone - then perhaps he will be creative. According to Witkacy, "a good drawing is in a painting when the artist who created it is satisfied and has a clear conscience" (p. 120). Witkacy therefore places artistic instinct and artistic conscience very highly.

 

Pure Form is when the artist believes that he has achieved Pure Form and cannot necessarily explain it, because, as Witkacy said, critics should deal with it. “The condition of deep aesthetic satisfaction is the inability to understand conceptually why a given combination of qualities is a unity.” When other people impose their solutions, artistic intuition is questioned.

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It is impossible to explain why this painting looks the way it does, because you don't have to be able to do it, according to Witkacy's principle above. “How many artists there are and were who did not know what they were creating, having no conceptual form to describe in another way the result of their work or the reasons for its creation, hidden in the mysterious thickets of their deepest being” (p. 41). Someone who undertakes painting of Pure Form has great courage, self-confidence, but also sensitivity. Artists try to analyze their works, but often due to inaccurate analysis of basically unconscious processes, as well as due to undereducation, their statements turn out to be wrong. Such attempts to explain why and how something was done have little to do with the objective construction of Pure Form. If Art could be explained in any other way than by itself, there would be no Art. (p. 41)

 

 Artistic intuition tells us whether Pure Form has been achieved. Pure intuition. Witkacy says that "we must distinguish in a composition the main and secondary forms, the details of both forms and the background with its details" (p. 49). Is the purpose of defining these forms to facilitate the recipient's understanding of the work of art? Is it intended to integrate a given multiplicity? Art should not be about understanding, but about feeling. This feeling is the essence of Art. Witkacy believes that an artist must show art to the viewer in such a way that they can understand it, where in the case of very complex constructions this understanding may vary. Defining the elements of Pure Form is unnecessary and even misleading. When creating Witkacy, did he bother and think that this would be the background and that would be the main form? It happens on its own, there is no explanation. It is not defined during creation, so should it be defined later?

 

Is it right to abandon three dimensions in a painting? “The painter (artist) is aware of such a flat field of vision, creating on it a multitude of flat forms, incorporated into an inseparable whole. We can only have a sense of the third dimension in a painting in the form of association with the impressions of the outside world, and it can only be achieved through the illusions of perspective, chiaroscuro and aerial perspective” (p. 49).

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If we are human beings and our eyes see in three dimensions, why is it forbidden to paint dimensions in a painting? Why should it be flat? What about sculptures in which chiaroscuro is an integral part? We are people and we have certain predispositions, and all those who paint have the ability to see space. "(...) the historical four apples on a napkin by Cezanne and the battle paintings by Paolo Ucello (...), which will be good paintings, but not because of the naturalness of the presentation of objects, the logic of chiaroscuro, imitation of movement and facial expression, but because the forms considered as such, regardless of how much they resemble convex objects or not, will constitute a unity unto themselves” (pp. 50-51). “It may happen that a given artist can use Pure Form in three-dimensional space to create a flat composition” (p. 53). So is it right to ban 3D? Forms captured in space in relationships with each other can also achieve Pure Form. Witkacy writes "even using convexities as something auxiliary, you can, despite your theories, create things that are essentially flat" (p. 51).

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Is there a chance to evoke in someone other than the artist a metaphysical feeling corresponding to the metaphysical feeling the artist experienced while looking at his painting? I'm slowly getting closer to what is most interesting. Witkacy claimed that "an artist must create such an image that we, the audience, can understand this unity in multiplicity as he wanted" (p. 28). If an artist creates an image so that it is perceived as the same unity in multiplicity for another person, he is not in harmony with himself. Then it is not Pure Art, but creation, designing an image so that it can be read by someone else. If we style or create something so that someone else will understand it, then we become designers for the recipient.

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Witkacy said that "art experts know only the logic of feelings, lighting, the truth of the existing world, and this is what they measure paintings" (p. 25). So should you style an image so that it is understandable to another person? The essence of Art is not understanding. Witkacy wrote: "If someone who does not understand Pure Form in the paintings of, for example, Italian primitives, sees a painting by Picasso and looks for objects there, he must be idolized or consider all new forms to be blasphemy" (p. 31).

 

I come to the heart of the matter, which is the question about the sense of creating a work of Pure Art. If there is little chance for the recipient to feel such an intense metaphysical feeling as the artist, why create such works? There is no art without a recipient. I think this was Witkacy's problem and that's where the statement came from that the artist must make the recipient feel the same. This is difficult, if not impossible, especially in the ignorant age we live in. Witkacy says "looking at their paintings, one is beyond life and death, beyond happiness and misfortune, in a detached world of absolute beauty" (p. 196). The recipient will not experience such a strong metaphysical feeling from the work of Pure Form as the artist, but he will feel something. It is worth at least trying to create an excuse to feel.

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Today it is more and more difficult to find people who feel Art. However, this does not deprive the sense of creating Pure Art, because according to Witkacy's definition, "A good painting is a painting that awakens a metaphysical feeling in at least one person through its Pure Form." (p. 125). The author - artist himself is, as we know, the recipient of the work and gives meaning to its existence. So we have a tragic situation of art that few understand and remains a great mystery to the artist. So is there any point in creating works of Pure Form? There is no perfect answer to this question, but as a summary and to show that Pure Art does not need assurance about the sense of its creation, let us quote Witkacy: "there are no wasted talents, ill-bred geniuses, there are only great artists or they do not exist. If someone has an artistic conscience, talent and quite strong metaphysical feelings that give him the intuition of a particular life, only a blow to the head with a hard object can truly destroy him” (pp. 199-200).

 

Study based on "New Forms in Painting" by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, National Publishing Institute, Warsaw 2002.