Angnes Martin Believes Is the Highest Form of Art?
TateShots, Agnes Martin
A beautiful mind
When I think of art I call up of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the center information technology is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.
We reply to beauty with emotion. Beauty speaks a message to us. Nosotros are confused about this message because of distractions …
It is not in the role of an artist to worry about life—to feel responsible for creating a improve earth. This is a very serious distraction. All of your conditioning has been directed toward intellectual living. This is useless in art work. All human knowedge is useless in fine art work. Concepts, relationships, categories, classifications, deductions are distractions of heed that nosotros wish to hold gratis for inspiration …
The way of an creative person is an entirely dissimilar way. It is a way of give up. He must give up to his own mind.
—Agnes Martin, 'Beauty is the Mystery of Life'
Blue … Blue … BLUE … How I stand up in reverence before the beauteousness that is the colour blue. As the Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky, wrote in his creed to the creative life, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, enlightening united states with his own ruminations on the sublimest of shades in the painter's palette: "The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the space, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural … The brighter it becomes, the more than it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white."
In the final phase of her creative career for which she is probably best known, Agnes Bernice Martin (22nd March 1912–16th December 2004) painted her own homage to the most ethereal pigment in a serial of "bleached out blues" encapsulating her unique ode to creative inspiration and, more specifically, the path to self-noesis through surrendering to the inherent beauty inside the depths of our very own minds.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, lx ane/xvi in. x 60 1/16 in., Gift of the Artist.
Photograph: © Collection of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New United mexican states
Cradled on the mountain I tin residual
Solitude and freedom are the aforementioned
under every fallen leaf
Others exercise not really exist in solitude, I do not exist
no thinking of others even when they are there, no interruption
a mystic and a solitary person are the same
Night, shelterless, wandering
I, like the deer, looked
finding less and less
living is grazing
memory is chewing cud
wandering abroad from everything
giving upwardly everything
not me anymore, any of information technology
retired ego, wandering
on the mountain
no more conquests, no longer an enemy to anyone
ego retired, wandering
no longer a friend, master, slave
all the opposites dead to the globe and himself unresponsible
perhaps I tin can now actually enjoy sailing
adventure in the dark
very heady
—Agnes Martin, 'The Untroubled Mind'
Born in Macklin in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, as a child growing upward nether the influence of a stern and heartless mother, Agnes had long periods of enforced isolation that drove her to expect deep within herself for solace. Not unlike Antony Gormley, who similarly endured periods of enforced confinement at an early age, information technology instilled within her renunciation and self-discpline, qualities that would serve her right through until the end of her days.
Moving to the Usa in her twenties, Agnes worked equally a teacher for several years earlier deciding at xxx to become an creative person. Working initially in New Mexico making abstract landscapes and however lives, she finally settled at 45 in New York in a studio in the Coenties Slip. Footling of her piece of work survives from this period, owing to her habit of destroying annihilation that failed to friction match up to her vision of creative perfection. After the expiry of a close friend, the abstract painter Ad Reinhardt in 1967, she abandoned the art globe altogether and hit the road in a pickup truck, finer resurfacing in New Mexico over again on a remote mesa at 56 where, later on edifice herself an adobe habitation and log-cabin studio, she adult her 5-foot square paintings for which she is best known. Agnes connected to live in solitude until the very stop of her life, save for her final few years in a retirement community shortly before her expiry at 92.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, 60 1/16 in. x lx ane/16 in., Souvenir of the Creative person.
Photograph: © Collection of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
Helplessness, even a mild state of helplessness is extremely hard to carry. Moments of helplessness are moments of incomprehension. I feels every bit though something terrible has happened without knowing what it is. One feels every bit though one is in the outer darkness or as though 1 has made some terrible error—a fatal error. Our great help that we leaned on in the dark has deserted us and we are in a complete panic and nosotros feel that we accept got to have help …
But helplessness when fear and dread have run their course, as all passions do, is the most rewarding state of all. It is a time when our most tenacious prejudices are overcome. Our most tightly gripped resistances come under the knife and we are fabricated more gratuitous. Our lack of independence in helplessness is our most detrimental weakness from the standpoint of art work. Stated positively, independence is the most essential character trait in an artist.
Although helplessness is the nearly important state of heed the holiday state of mind is the nearly efficacious for artists: 'Free and easy wandering' information technology is called by the Chinese sage Chuang Tzu. In free and easy wandering there is simply freshness and run a risk. It is actually sensation of perfection within the mind. Anybody has memories of adventures inside the mind, foreign and pleasant memories, but non everyone is aware of adventures within the mind when they happen …
The solitary life is full of terrors. If you went walking with someone that would be 1 matter but if you lot went walking solitary in a lonely place that would exist an entirely different thing. If you were not completely distracted you would surely experience 'the fright' part of the time. I am not at present speaking of the fear and dread of helplessness which is a very unusual state of mind. I am speaking of pervasive fearfulness that is always with united states of america. It is a constant state of mind of which we are not aware when we are with others. We are used to this fear and we know that when we are with anyone else, even a stranger, we do not have it. That is all that we exercise know about it. In confinement this fearfulness is lived and finally understood.
—Agnes Martin, 'On the Perfection Underlying Life'
Agnes was no stranger to feelings of fear and helplessness throughout her artistic life. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic in early adulthood, she was convicted past the interior dialogues and disarray of her condition. Despite the fact that the "voices" did not interfere directly with her artistic output, she wrestled with catatonic trances, auditory hallucinations and bouts of depression, which instigated an investigation into the nature of the mind and the capriciousness of the ego. Indeed, securely influenced by the teachings of Taoism and Zen Buddhism, Agnes sought to deconstruct the very fabric of the sense of cocky, terrifying as information technology was, in social club to remainder in the perfected state of the "vacant listen" and subsequently present the experience through her impeccable art.
Furthermore, her self-imposed cloth impecuniousness, including periods of no electricity or running h2o, a meagre diet and a solitary life that would non even tolerate the presence of a pet, the manner in which her paintings eventually evolved into the harmoniously aligned horizontal stripes of varying shades of serene cerulean belie the fact that they were borne of concrete hardship and mental turbulence.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, sixty i/sixteen in. x 60 i/xvi in., Souvenir of the Artist.
Photo: © Drove of the Harwood Museum of Fine art, Taos, New Mexico
The life of an artist is inspired, cocky sufficient and contained (unrelated to guild).
The direction of attention of an artist is towards mind in order to be enlightened of inspiration.
Following inspiration life unfolds costless of whatsoever influence.
Finally the artist recognizes himself in the work and is happy and contented. Zilch else will satisfy him.
An creative person'due south life is an unconventional life. It leads away from the instance of the by.
It struggles painfully against its ain conditioning. It appears to rebel but in reality it is an inspired style of life.
—Agnes Martin, 'Advice to Young Artists'
Agnes' artistic process was exacting—she would sit, ofttimes for days or fifty-fifty weeks at a time, in her rocking chair pending her muse and mentor, inspiration. The image of a painting, fully formed, would then materialize in her mind and thus, she would extrapolate it using complicated mathematics to arrive at the dimensions of an actual canvas. If she was unhappy with the results, she would not think twice well-nigh destroying it. Excellence was her goal and she was not afraid to sacrifice everything in order to achieve her vision of minimalist perfection.
Effectually this time, despite living the life of a recluse, she embarked upon a series of public lectures, many of which are collected in Writings, delivered in the same manner as she presented her art—succinct, enigmatic, profound—imbued with the metaphysics of Eastern philosophy and pointing to a place uncontaminated by contemporaneous concepts of art theory and practice. For Agnes, the life of an artist was a means to freeing oneself from all fright and confabulation of ordinary existence and, instead, seeking to encompass the joy and beauty of living a truly authentic life.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, 60 1/xvi in. 10 threescore 1/xvi in., Gift of the Artist.
Photograph: © Collection of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
My involvement is in experience that is wordless and silent, and in the fact that this experience can be expressed for me in art work which is as well wordless and silent. Information technology is actually wonderful to contemplate the experience and the works. I am sure there will ever be some who brand this response who will want to try to express it graphically.
But with regard to the inner life of each of us it may exist of great significance. If we can perceive ourselves in the piece of work—not the work but ourselves when viewing the work then the work is important. If we can know our response, see in ourselves what nosotros take received from a piece of work, that is the fashion to the understanding of truth and all beauty.
We cannot understand the process of life—that is everything that happens to anybody. Simply we can know the truth past seeing ourselves, past seeing the response to the work in ourselves.
Those who depend upon the intellect are the many. Those who depend upon perception alone are the few.
Nosotros perceive—We come across. We see with our eyes and nosotros meet with our minds. Nosotros want to meet the truth almost life and all of beauty.
Both are a peachy mystery to us.
—Agnes Martin, 'The Still and Silent in Art'
Similar to Georgia O'Keeffe who painted the exact same door of her adobe homestead over and over and over over again, Agnes besides, on the surface, appears to repeat the execution of a specific idea when viewed from an intellectual perspective. And yet, merely like her boyfriend New Mexican artist, she sought to penetrate through the walls of mental construction in society to perceive more subtle foundations of underlying feeling, each endeavour a unique contemplation upon the artistic act.
Indeed, what abstract painting enabled her to achieve was the depiction of pure emotion—akin perhaps to the Forms of Plato—whereby her fine art was a conduit to the most key of man sentiments: innocence; happiness; friendship; love. Moreover, the homogeneousness of her compositions effectively constituted a pictorial mantra, a relentless pulsation of colour, each painting penetrating deep unto the nature of things, provoking within us an apperception of truth and beauty, and ultimately, our very own inner selves.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, 60 1/16 in. 10 sixty 1/16 in., Gift of the Creative person.
Photograph: © Drove of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
We are in the midst of reality responding with joy. It is an absolutely satisfying experience but extremely elusive. Information technology is elusive because we must recognize so many other things at the aforementioned time.
The retentivity of past moments of joy leads us on. The responses of happiness and joy are our showtime business organisation.
Works of fine art have successfully represented our response to reality from the showtime. The creative person tries to live in a manner that volition brand greater awareness of the sublimity of reality possible.
Reality, the truth about life and the mystery of beauty are all the same and they are the kickoff business concern of everyone.
I want to emphasize the fact that we all take the same business concern, merely the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly. One time he sees this fact his anxiety are on the path. If you want to know the truth you lot will know it.
The manipulation of materials in art work is a result of this state of mind. The artist works past awareness of his own state of mind.
In lodge to do so he must have a studio, equally a retreat and as a place to work. In the studio an creative person must have no interruptions from himself or anyone else. Interruptions are disasters. To agree onto the 'silver string', that is the artistic discipline. The creative person's own listen volition be all the help he needs.
In that location will be moving ahead and discoveries fabricated every day. There will be great disappointments and failures in trying to express them. An artist is one who tin can fail and fail and yet go along.
—Agnes Martin, 'What is Real?'
And herein lies the quintessential raison d'être of Agnes' life, namely the pursuit of truth through an unflinching delivery to representing joy and happiness by means of the medium of art. Indeed, she lived what she preached and was painting some of her masterworks within the final years of her existence.
Contemporary culture is fascinated with concept, course and content—the work of Agnes Martin, devoid of pride and egoic agenda, takes us abroad from all manifested phenomena into the realm of emptiness, formlessness, the void. Despite the mental illness that beleaguered her, the clarity of her mind, exhibited so luminescently through both her beautiful prose and paintings, evokes a state of utter transcendence to the transitory nature of life and a render to the reality of what is.
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, 60 one/16 in. ten sixty i/xvi in., Gift of the Artist.
Photo: © Drove of the Harwood Museum of Fine art, Taos, New Mexico
Hold fast to your life, to dazzler and happiness and inspiration, and to obedience to inspiration. Do not imitate others or seek advice anywhere except from your own mind. No one can help you. No one knows what your life should be. No ane knows what your life or life itself should be because it is in the procedure of beingness created.
Life moves according to a growing consciousness of life and is completely unpredictable.
If you live according to human knowledge, according to precept, values and standards, you live in the past.
If you lot live entirely in the by you will not know beauty or happiness and y'all will not in fact live.
You must believe in life. Believe that y'all can know the truth about life.
—Agnes Martin, 'The Current of the River of Life Moves The states'
Without doubt, Agnes Martin believed in life and loved the very truth she conveyed through her work, distilled so reservedly and yet majestically in a chain of cobalt and cyan. She utilized other shapes—triangles, circles, trapezoids—and hues—rosy pinks, pale yellows, warm browns—and still grids or bands of bluish remained a formation to which she returned time and over again (cf. Summer, Starlight,Night Sea, The Waves, Falling Blueish, Stars), awakening in her, in Kandinsky's words, a desire for the supernatural.
Indeed, her friend and long-time acquaintance (and founder of the Pace Gallery), Arne Glimcher, revealing in his memoir the last days of Agnes' life, holding hands in the infirmary of the retirement home surrounded by close friends and family unit, reminisced that they had sung Blue Skies together (composed past Irving Berlin), beingness one of her all-time favourite tunes: "Nothing but blue skies / From now on."
c. 1993-1994, acrylic on linen, 60 one/sixteen in. ten 60 1/xvi in., Souvenir of the Artist.
Photograph: © Drove of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
If you have enough respect for yourself you will ask yourself:
'What am I.'
If the reply is 'I am a man' then the question becomes: 'What is a homo.'
When you come to the stop of all ideas you will still have no definitive cognition on the subject. And then you lot will have to expect for inspiration.
Until you can clear up your true identity you volition be tied to a repetition of this life.
I have come to tell you the easiest way to observe an answer to this question. Offset you must say to yourself: 'I want to live a true life.' Then you lot must sentinel your mind to see the response that it is making to life.
Yous will discover the true response that you yourself make to life undistorted by the ideas of others.
You will brand discoveries every mean solar day and they will all be very helpful.
Merely as consciousness of the sublime is the path of life and then is cocky-cognition the path of life.
—Agnes Martin, 'What Nosotros Do Non Meet If Nosotros Do Non See'
Such was the legacy of Agnes Martin—a visual representation of one adult female'southward desire to live a true and accurate life against all the odds. Through steadfastly turning her dorsum to the world and embracing an austere and solitary fashion of living, she found the "silver cord" of artistic subject area and awakened unto a realm of ineffable joy and happiness, peace and love.
And like so many mystics before her whose quest has been the pursuit of discovering the reply to the most fundamental question of all existence, "What am I?", Agnes faced straight the all-pervasive fear inherent within the human psyche and transmuted information technology into a personal consciousness of beingness, a poetic passage of exquisite colour on the path to the threshold of the sublime.
[The photographic images of Agnes Martin'southward work have been reproduced with the kind permission
of the curators of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico.]
Purchase Book
Mail Notes
- Agnes Martin Gallery, The Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
- Agnes Martin at the Pace Gallery
- Agnes Martin at Tate Modern
- Antony Gormley: Sculpted Space Within and Without
- Rollo May: My Quest for Beauty
- Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
- Rashid Maxwell: To Save the Planet With a Paintbrush
- Guy Laramée: Fraîcheur
- Mark Rothko: The Artist's Reality
- Nicholas Roerich: Beautiful Unity
- Albert Camus: Jonas or The Artist at Work
- Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden & Zen Master Ryokan
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