Some years ago I had the pleasure of meeting the photorealist artist Ben Johnson. At the time he was set up in the national gallery in London and putting the final touches to his masterpiece of London that includes Trafalgar Square and beyond. For a moment his workspace became uncharacteristically quiet and I had an opportunity to have a short conversation with him. He seemed impressed that I had previously seen his work in Liverpool and read much about him but the little piece of knowledge that I had that particularly seemed to attract his attention concerned an article that I had read that likened his images to the Greek philosopher Plato’s world of ‘forms’. In essence, Plato focused on the perfection of concepts within a world separate from ours that we see merely as reflections and mistakenly call reality. Johnson’s perfection of detail and light with the absence of all ‘clutter’, both human and vehicular, led the article’s writer to draw the comparison and it was this that allowed me to impress the artist. Sadly, I failed to retrieve this article but in the process of looking for it I stumbled across a piece on the BBC Radio 4 web-site that runs as follows:

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This massive accumulation of detail [within Ben Johnson’s pictures] is supported by a rigorous underlying geometry. The paradox is that these paintings are both realistic and abstract - in the sense that they are the expression of a finely tuned sense of geometrical order. What one sees in Johnson's work is the will to bring the apparent randomness of everyday life into an unexpected conjunction with Plato's theory of ideal Forms.

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To my astonishment I found a commentator of gravitas seeing both a photorealist and an abstract element to the work of Ben Johnson and setting the whole concept firmly within the context of ‘Plato’s world of forms’. This unexpected discovery allowed me to make more sense of the connection I had drawn between ‘I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ and the ‘Family’, exquisite images produced by the artist Joanne Barrett. Barrett herself describes her work as abstract and has written with erudition about the abstract and realist schools of art and their impact on her world view but I couldn’t help but conclude for myself that the reason that Johnson and Barrett are my two favourite living artists is because I had seen a link intuitively between them that has become more apparent in reality today. Johnson is a photorealist whose work is couched in the abstract whilst Barrett is an abstract artist whose work is couched in the photorealistic. I guess these things are never that simple and I risk upsetting both of them by saying that but for me at least there is some value to that observation and it certainly makes more clear my attraction to ‘I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ and the ‘Family’ as a story told in two parts. 

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Before moving to the images directly, I think it is necessary to look in a little more detail at the concept of Plato’s forms and how they link to other philosophical, theological and psychological schools. Specifically, I shall contend that ‘Plato’s Forms’ the ‘Gnostic Aeons’, ‘Jung’s Archetypes’ and the Buddhist concept of ‘Nirvana’ are at least inextricably linked if not interchangeable concepts.

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Plato’s Forms

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Despite the antiquity of Plato’s work, a resonance of its significance can clearly be felt in the modern era and within the scholarship of unlikely sources. Roger Penrose is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, an unlikely person to look to a fourth century BCE philosopher for inspiration but on the contrary Penrose seats his ‘three worlds theory’ at the heart of Platonism, the position below being expounded in Shadows of the Mind:

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To summarise briefly, Penrose proposes three worlds [he also calls them three mysteries] they are the Mental world, the Physical world and the Platonic world. He also acknowledges that they link together to degrees that can be recognised in part but in reality greater links are likely to be there that a new understanding of physics may shed light on in due course. The area of physics that he finds most persuasive when considering the idea that the Platonic world exists as a 'real' place is Einstein’s general relativity. This theory shows that there is an underlying unity between mathematics and the workings of the world. When published, there was no real need for it on observational grounds as Newton’s laws in this area had stood for 250 years and had been accurate to one part in 10 million. Einstein believed that from deep physical grounds it was possible to do better than this if the very framework of gravitational theory was to be reconsidered and hence his famous position on general relativity. Initially, only a few effects supported it and the increase in precision over the Newtonian system was marginal. However, subsequently it is understood that the precision of Einstein’s theory is something like 10 million times greater than that of Newton.

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As Penrose states:

 

Einstein was not just ‘noticing patterns’ in the behaviour of physical objects, he was uncovering a profound substructure that was already hidden in the very workings of the world. Moreover he was not just fishing around for whatever physical phenomenon best fit a good theory. He found this precise mathematical relationship in the very structure of space and time – the most fundamental of physical notions.

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Penrose also observes, concerning the world of forms and in relation to a collection of other mathematical truths, the following:

 

Yet its existence [the existence of what he terms a ‘rag-bag’ of mathematical concepts] rests on the profound, timeless and universal nature of these concepts and on the fact that their laws are independent of those who discover them.

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Gnostic Aeons

 

According to the world renowned gnostic scholar Stephan A. Hoeller, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the College of Oriental Studies in Los Angeles, California, gnosis and aeon are defined as follows:

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Gnosis: Salvific knowing, arrived at intuitively but facilitated by various stimuli, including the teachings and mysteries brought to humans by messengers of divinity from outside the cosmos.

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Aeon: An emanated aspect of the Divine Reality. Aeons are often represented as pairs joined and balancing each other.

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Although it is argued that the ‘Gnostic Religion’ has been dead since the fourth century, echoes of it are seen in history through Catharism, Renaissance thinking, alchemy and art and I would suggest that ‘I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ and the ‘Family’ should be seen in this light.

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Jung’s Archetypes

 

Carl Jung was the well-known Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist famous for developing the system of analytical psychology. Jung is widely noted for his interest in legend, myth, synchronicity and the collective unconscious [the deepest layer of the unconscious which extends beyond the individual psyche]. Within his system, the archetype plays a key role and is understood to be ‘a universally recognised image, or pattern of thinking, which represents a typical human experience’. It is at this level of the collective subconscious that I would suggest facilitates the creative genius of both Johnson and Barrett.

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Buddhist Nirvana

 

When contemplating the historical chronology of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the famous scholar and former Dean of Trinity College Cambridge, John A T Robinson, was accused of treading where only ‘fools would step in’. My attempt to see in Buddhism a direct link to the ‘Western Concept of Ultimacy’, as detailed above, has received similar criticism, but following the words of Robinson below, I feel it is possible to proceed:

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I believe that this scepticism is unwarranted by the evidence and requires to be challenged – John A.T. Robinson: The Priority of John.

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Links between Buddhism and the Esoteric Western Tradition are commonplace, Sean Martin in his ‘Gnostics the first Christian Heretics’ provides an annex detailing eight direct correlations between Gnosticism and Buddhism and Carl Jung famously looked at the comparability of Eastern Religion and the Western Tradition. Where I find myself on much less well established ground is when suggesting a direct link between ‘Nirvana’ and ‘Plato’s World of Forms’.

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Despite the caution that I am encouraged to have in this area, I find that I am not the first to tread this path. Writing from a stand point of Madhyamaka Buddhism, Kacie Williams has no hesitation in linking Plato’s Forms and Buddhist Nirvana as below:

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The first concept I’ll discuss is a common element of many other Buddhist schools and that is the idea that Nirvana is indescribable, but its sublimity can be understood. This description of Nirvana can be easily applied to the realm of forms. Plato’s Theory of Forms never actually describes the forms in a way that we could visualize them or imagine what kind of experience we would have in the realm of forms. Despite this lack of concrete descriptions, one can still manage to grasp the divinity of the forms and their realm.

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Despite the generality of the above, as seated within the concept of the Mahayana [Middle Way] tradition of Buddhism, Williams then proceeds to link the ‘Forms’ more directly to Madhyamaka Buddhism in a way that seems to unnecessarily restrict her otherwise insightful erudition.

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Context

 

Finally, I feel comfortable that we have something of a context in which to look at 'I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ and the ‘Family’. Interestingly, the designation ‘we are horse’ is suggestive in that it does not take the article and is singular despite the dual depiction of horses within the image. Surely the artist intuitively refers to ultimacy in this way. We shall explore the Andalusian Horses shortly but the clear nod to Leonardo is likewise suggestive.

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I am somewhat boldly suggesting that the designations Plato’s Forms, Gnostic Aeons, Jung’s Archetypes and Buddhist Nirvana are at least in part interchangeable or at the very least have a fundamental commonality, but in order to develop the proposition I shall work with two of these concepts, Plato’s Forms [the Forms] and Jung’s Archetypes [the Archetypes]. The reason for this is that I think, despite the similarity conceptually, I believe that a dichotomy exists between the two and if I am right, I would suggest that sense can be made of 'I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ and the ‘Family’ as a continuum of narrative.

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'I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ has an abstract nature to it that brings to the fore the concept of the dream like state of ‘surrealism’ as expounded by Salvador Dali. I hear the criticism concerning the juxtaposition of the abstract and the surreal but perhaps we simply have here one dichotomy within another and I don’t hesitate to proceed. Surrealism of course provided the ‘signature tune’ to the psychological movement of the first half of the twentieth century and is linked directly to the ‘truths’ revealed at the level of the collective unconscious and we may even be bold enough to say provides evidence of the ‘true-self’ in Jungian parlance.

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By way of contrast, the ‘Family’ has a realist dynamic to it and is based on the images created by Leonardo for his then patron Ludovico Sforza. The images form the blueprint for a monumental horse statue that was to be cast in order to establish the authority of Sforza who had many self-image issues not least of which relating to how legitimate his claim to the Court of Milan actually was. Nonetheless, in a negative way we can see how Sforza looked to the horse as a ‘Form’ of ultimacy that would underpin his authority – largely from an ego centric perspective as opposed to that of ‘Jungian true-self’. Sforza was to be disappointed, French invasion of Milan meant that Leonardo’s horse was not created until the modern era but the blue-prints themselves are exquisite images and it is not hard to see why Barrett is impressed by them.

 

So how might we feel able to draw these threads together and make sense of this story? I am suggesting that we are in the realms of ultimacy and I have attempted to look at definitions of this within various contexts. I think we are addressing the ultimate nature of ‘horse’ but this is much more than the physicality of the animal, as a spiritual dynamic is clearly present. 'I am Gracious, we are Gracious, we are Horse’ tells this story in abstract, surreal terms and links to Jungian archetypal theory. ‘Family’ tells the same story in realist terms and is more closely linked to our concept of Plato’s world of forms. I am also suggesting that there is a wider picture too; the context is also set for a Gnostic interpretation within the realm of Aeon theory but perhaps even more significantly the narrative of the two works together, bridges the gap between Western Philosophy and the East. Having looked at the concept of Nirvana within the wider understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, the works seem to provide something of commentary on Japanese Buddhism.

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A well-established link exists between Jungian principles of psychology and the ‘Zen Ox-herding Pictures’ as contained in the Shokokuji-Temple, Jotenkaku Museum in Kyoto [see J. Marvin Spiegelman Ph.D. ‘Buddhism and Jungian Psychology’]. But I think we can be more bold than to restrict the connection to Zen Buddhism [or indeed Madhyamaka Buddhism as explored above]. The temptation seems irresistible to link Barrett’s work to the esoteric tradition within Japanese Buddhism, specifically Shingon as established by the legendary Kukai [Kobo Daishi] at Mount Koya and Tendai as established by Saicho on Mount Hiei, Kyoto.  The temptation to explore the detail of this proposition will however be left to another occasion.

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So how might it be possible to conclude these deliberations in a sentence or two? This has indeed been a journey into ultimacy and I would suggest a rewarding one. We have looked at two seemingly very different artists in Ben Johnson and Joanne Barrett but the connections seem to be truly enlightening.

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That point made, there is a consequential difference. To some degree Johnson has a consistency of approached that brilliantly captures his monumental cityscapes in the same manner. This is slightly unfair as he also produces interior works and other special iterations but there is a fairness to the observation. Barrett on the other hand brings an absolute uniqueness to her individual works expressed through her equally unique style. It was once said of Turner that he had ‘a wonderful range of mind’ and I think this is equally true of Barrett.

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Johnson is a well-established artist taking commissions on the international stage. Barrett is just starting her career but it seems unlikely that with work of this quality and depth that she will do anything other than tread that same path to international recognition.

    

SJM

 

Link to Ben Johnson Interview

 

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/past/ben-johnson-modern-perspectives

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