"The Chinese liked to cover their vases with glaze of copper
oxide, but the results of this operation were completely subject to chance.
Depending on how the gases circulated around the object, it could turn any
color- from white to bright red, blue or black. Because of this, the most
unexpected, most beautiful combination and distributions of colored areas
sometimes occur. No rational combinations could create such beauty; it is
beyond the means of rational, constructive creation.”
“So essentially the principles of chance is not the result
of rational processes consciously oriented toward a certain aim and is not even
a game played by a hand ungoverned by the apparatus of thought, but is the
consequence of completely blind, extrinsic influences.”
“Chance opens up whole worlds and begets wonders. Many
wonders, unique harmonies and scales, the enchanting shades common to Chinese
and Japanese pictures owe their existence only to the fact that they arose by
chance, were appreciated by a sensitive eye, and were crystallized.”
“In playing, we express our ‘I’ more vividly and unconstrainedly and emerge no longer as the masters of forces hidden within us, but as their slaves.”
"To be ugly and absurd externally does not mean to possess no inner values.
So, the principle of free art affords its ardent and passionate protection to all those absurd mamninfestations of man's soul, to that coarse and vulgar face, as it were, of art, which is so persecuted in Europe.
"In general, one can say that this apparent coarseness, vulgarit, lubok quality appeared, and began to be exploited, quite late in time and that it is the fate of only certain peoples.
"For many peoples this is a competely closed area. However much they may struggle, they will always remian graceful and delicate and will never create that distinctive lyricism that is concealed beneath the cover of the absurd and simple: the lyricism that Byzantium discovered after penetrating this area and developing it in all directions."
"It often happens that the 'I' that we have expressed turnsout, after a little reflection, to be not our 'I' at all."
"Now one asks, was he expressing his own opinion when he flew into raptures over his purchase? I am inclined to think not. In his rapture he was sincere, but in that superfcial, shallow sense applicable to all the followers of fashion- that epidemic, that tyrant of men's opinions and tastes. I say in a superficial sense, because his raptures were not founded on the inward order of his soul created by the presence of all impressions from reality; they were founded merely on a simple order of feelings from the conception evoked, a conception that conceals and gradually corrodes the peculiar depths of the soul."
"And wherever fashion appears, it drives deep down into the soul that which has grown and stratified over thousdands of years and in its place foists on people its cheap, marketplace conception of beauty."
"All this indicates that the free expression of our 'I' has dangerous enemies, becuase of which it is very difficult for man to be sincere in teh sense of freely expressing his inner essence adn not some surrogate evoked by chance.
Hence it is interesting to ask: which expression of the 'I' has more value? The expression of the 'I' that bursts from us spontaneously or the 'I' that is passed through the filter of thought?"
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“In playing, we express our ‘I’ more vividly and unconstrainedly and emerge no longer as the masters of forces hidden within us, but as their slaves.”
"To be ugly and absurd externally does not mean to possess no inner values.
So, the principle of free art affords its ardent and passionate protection to all those absurd mamninfestations of man's soul, to that coarse and vulgar face, as it were, of art, which is so persecuted in Europe.
"In general, one can say that this apparent coarseness, vulgarit, lubok quality appeared, and began to be exploited, quite late in time and that it is the fate of only certain peoples.
"For many peoples this is a competely closed area. However much they may struggle, they will always remian graceful and delicate and will never create that distinctive lyricism that is concealed beneath the cover of the absurd and simple: the lyricism that Byzantium discovered after penetrating this area and developing it in all directions."
"It often happens that the 'I' that we have expressed turnsout, after a little reflection, to be not our 'I' at all."
"Now one asks, was he expressing his own opinion when he flew into raptures over his purchase? I am inclined to think not. In his rapture he was sincere, but in that superfcial, shallow sense applicable to all the followers of fashion- that epidemic, that tyrant of men's opinions and tastes. I say in a superficial sense, because his raptures were not founded on the inward order of his soul created by the presence of all impressions from reality; they were founded merely on a simple order of feelings from the conception evoked, a conception that conceals and gradually corrodes the peculiar depths of the soul."
"And wherever fashion appears, it drives deep down into the soul that which has grown and stratified over thousdands of years and in its place foists on people its cheap, marketplace conception of beauty."
"All this indicates that the free expression of our 'I' has dangerous enemies, becuase of which it is very difficult for man to be sincere in teh sense of freely expressing his inner essence adn not some surrogate evoked by chance.
Hence it is interesting to ask: which expression of the 'I' has more value? The expression of the 'I' that bursts from us spontaneously or the 'I' that is passed through the filter of thought?"
“Why do we think one thing, and not another, why does my glance
slip into one direction and not another, why does my hand do this and not that?
In all this there is sometimes no element of logic or actively directed will,
and an audacious galloping about, striking changes of stimuli are always going
on.
Thus, first by some miracle a brilliant thought sometimes imprints
itself on the chaos of thinking, an intuitive solution to a task, a problem
that had beset us for such a long time. Where does it come from?
Second, there are occasions when ideas, colors, tones, melodies of
a particular order simply thrust themselves on us, and we are unable to shake
them off because, like a volcano, they require an outlet.
And with dynamic force they appear at the first opportunity.
And we cannot be responsible for these phenomena, we cannot be
accused of their appearance, just as we cannot be accused of our dreams and
fancies.
In the same way, wec annot be responsible for our ideas taking
forms in their embodiment seem, as it were, absurd and coarse but that demand
their realization in precisely these forms.”
“I would go so far as to say that there is no art without
plagiarism, and even the freest art is based on plagiarism in the above sense
because beloved forms of the past instilled in our SOUL unconsciously repeat
themselves.”
Which unites all of humanity.
“It is not my task to analyze our ‘I’ in all its diversity, in all
its nuances- that is the province of psychology; but i would like to distinguish
three characteristic stages in it that to a greater or lesser extent determine
our creative work.
First, the hidden, subconscious ‘I’, something that has appeared
from one knows not where, often completely alien and fortuitous but at the same
time, of course, individual, because in any case the right basis, whether
temporary or permanent, has appeared within it..
Second, the ‘I’, also hidden, but already mature, something that we
are aware of, which is organically inherent to the individuum and transmitted
to it atavistically: it is all those impulses, stimuli that, like a ripe seed,
demand an outlet, tormented and cramp it.
Third, the ‘I’ that presents the outward manifestation of these two
hidden, individual ‘I’’s mentioned above.
In free art, of course, it is the third ‘I’ that interests us, but
it does not emerge as the direct echo o fthe two preceding ‘I’s, it does not
express the aggregate of the impressions and mysteries that accumulated in
them, because much is lost through the effect of many outside factors
encountered in the process of its manifestation that operate directly or
indirectly.”
“Free creation is inherent in the artist not as a simple desire to
be original, to play pranks, or to demonstrate ridiculous affectation, but as
one of the means of satisfying the creative needs of man’s soul.”
“But, in any case, those factors that impede the free manifestation
of our ‘I’ and choice it with alien surrogates should be acknowledged as
undesirable.”
“We can distinguish an alien ‘I’ and any factors that impede our
full manifestation of the ‘I’ by criticism and other means.
Therefore those works that the public sees marked as free action
painting about which they imagine that their little Peter could daub ten such paintings
at home are, as far as the artist is concerned, not works of over exuberant mischievousness
or of a frolicsome brush; they are a product in which not a single spot, not
one shade can be altered, a product that has appeared as a result of suffering,
of long, persistent inner work, searching and experience.
Hence free creation contains the essentials of true creation and
stands high above simple imitation; in now ay is it a game or mischief making, and
by no means can’t be called the simple need to liberate the self from an inner
repletion of life-giving energy (dissimilation).
Forms attained by the application of the principle of free creation
are sometimes a synthesis of complex analyses and sensations; they are the only
forms capable of expressing and embodying the creator’s intentions vis-à-vis
nature and the inner world of his ‘I’.”
“And it often seems that the absurd forms are not the echo and translation
of nature but the echo of the creator’s inner psychology.”
“The principle of free creation represents essentially the apogee
in economy of resources and the last expenditure of technical devise, at the same
time it proves the truest and most powerful echo of the Divine Beauty that man
has sensed.”
“And only narrow-mined doctrinaires and dunderhead philistines can
demand that art should forever remain on safe, well-trodden paths, that it
should not burst the dam of realism and depart for the endless horizons of free
creation.
"A man possesses an ocean of impressions. He often receives stimuli
that he does not see but only feels: in creating freely, obedient to his
feeling, he depicts an object quite contrary to how he sees it.
Behind the outer covering of every object, there hides its secret,
its rhythm- and the artist is given the ability to divine this secret, to react
to the object’s rhythm, and to find forms to manifest this rhythm.
The lost image, word, melody, verse have often irrevocably sunk
into oblivion, but the soul preserves and cherishes their rhythm, remaining in
it as their eternal ndelible echo. And this rhythm guides the hand when he
should wishes to restore lost beauty. The outward expression is often completely
unattained, but we hold it dear by virtue of its analogous rhythm, its beauty
equivalent to the forgotten object.
And often in objects seemingly absurd and coarse, there lies a
wealth of inner beauty, rhythm, and harmony that you will not encounter in
objects constructed by the mind on principle of pure proportion or practical
truth.
Free creation is the mother of art. Free creation raises us above ‘this
world’- this is its great prerogative.”
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“The aspiration to other worlds is inherent in man’s nature. Man
does not want to walk, he demands dancing; he does not want to speak, he
demands song; he does not want the earth but strains toward the sky. The surest
path to this sky is FREE creation.”
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Publishing Information:
Russian Art of the Avant Garde Theory and Criticism Revised and Enlarged Edition edited by John E. Bowlt
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