The Fallacy of Sean Scully: of the Same Stripe as Nihilists ~ Advocatus Diaboli

Sean Scully is an abstract painter. Mostly geometric shapes. Mostly stripes. Mostly?horizontal. To hear him speak, you would think he were a genius. To see his work, you would quickly reassert your scepticism in matters of self-evaluation.

Scully is also, while impressively sensing no conflict or contradiction with his avowed socialist yearnings, one of the richest artists in the world. Born in Dublin, raised in London, discovered in New York, embraced in Europe and largely ignored in the U.K.

But from what curious source does this puzzling European popularity spring? what determines this? For one thing, supply and demand determine this. There is a very real?demand?for these abstract, horizontal stripes in the continent. But what exactly?is it, that the public are demanding in this type of art? and more importantly, where did these stripes come to him from?

On the 6th of April 2019, the BBC (probably labouring under the panic of the ever-waning audiences migrating net-ward to consume their media), released a documentary entitled:?'Unstoppable: Sean Scully and the Art of Everything'?which, (as can be seen right away by just the title alone) is full of more?hyperbole than Quintillian could bear . Another production full of tired, non-sensical concepts.?

Here are a few of its opening quotes:?

"The?Stripes are delicious. The stripes are about experiences. The stripes are, like poems."

"They are a kind of mute eye-music, which finds a tranquility amid the chaos. They are sounding-boards for the soul."

"He put everything together, and he showed us the world where he accumulated?all culture."?

This last quote, by gradual degrees of deterioration, must be the most ridiculous of them all.?All Culture??- Well this is Imperialism in a pithy phrase. A tendency we recognise all too well. But if this seems unfair, (for after all it was not Scully himself but one of his votaries that said it), then let us see what he himself thinks:

"Abstract painting was invented, to make everything happen at once. And that's what it's about. Abstract painting wants to put its arms around everything and present it as a distilled, mixed-up, integrated image, of?everything."

Very poetic. Now firstly at the risk of sounding redundant, there?is?no?'everything'?to present. But on this nonsensical and ungrounded statement, there?is?something?to be said, and that is, that the attempt to present?an everything, unavoidably ends up in the presentation of, well - nothing much at all. You would think that somehow these?artists?emerged above the fray of historical and geographical causation; as if their art is not the direct product of very?specific?social, historical forces. And to understand the actual origins, we need to take a quick detour, back to the historical beginnings of modern abstract art.

Born in Sweden in October 1862, Hilma Af Klint, has come to be the subject of much?debate about the beginnings of abstract art.?Revisionist art history would have it, that she?was in fact the first abstract artist.

Driving at this point, (on precarious wheels) you are likely, when looking up the history of abstract art to come across headlines such as 'the first abstract painter was a woman' (The Paris Review), 'Hilma Af Klint. The mother of abstraction' (The Art Newspaper) and?'How Hilma Af Klint invented abstract art'?(Artsy). Even on the Tate's own website, there is an article entitled:?'The first abstract artist? (and its not Kandinsky)'.?

However despite the presently swelling claims to the contrary, Hilma Af Klint herself believed (consumed with Theosophical drivel) that she was being 'commissioned' to paint, (by spirits no less -?the so-called?'high masters') pedagogic injunctions which she did not see as art at all, let alone abstract art (a term which - need I point it out? - did not exist during her lifetime).?Abstract art by definition must ex-clude figuration, otherwise it is not?ab-stract, it is representational?of?figure. Jason Forrest?in his Medium article ?on Af Klint, writes that her paintings are 'visual descriptions of ethereal concepts outside of human sensory recognition'. What this means for the modern history of art is that her paintings are?didactic?- albeit of a realm that for rationalists, does not exist. The subjects of her paintings were things like 'Pimordial chaos' Nō.7?(1906-07),?'Tree of knowledge'?Nō. 5 (1915),?'The teachings of buddhism' Nō. 3d?(1920), and 'The current standpoint of the Mahatmas',?Nō. 2a (1920).?

What Af Klint was in fact doing was painting what she saw as?diagrams and descriptions,?with instructions for what the dead-born and poorly formulated ideas of theosophy, understood as 'the evolution of the soul'?(another attempt at mumbo jumbo impositions, blowing scientific airs).

An accurate working definition of abstract art is that it is simply 'non-representational art' while Klint was representing the would-be spiritual world. Not. Abstract. Art. (See Mathew Collings, 'The Rules of Abstraction' [2014]).

Wassily Kandinsky was the first abstract artist, and before receiving the obvious and flawed reply, this has more to do with forms of art, than forms of genitalia, although of course - there is a relationship.

His 'Untitled: Study for Composition VII, première abstraction (1910-1913 [depending on who you ask]),?is the first real modern work of abstract art. However, whether you side with the Klintists or the Kandinskyites, what is clear, is that these forms of artistic expression, were in fact?reactionary. Darwin, Freud and Marx among many others, have taken hold in the public consciousness, and their ideas are forging a world beyond the superstitions and dogmas of bloated old men that has reigned for millennia.

A part of this reaction is Kandinsky's book?Concerning the spiritual in art (1911),?where he diagnoses the state of art and society as he sees it. His thinking, (or lack thereof) is very interesting:

"Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after?years of materialism, are?infected?with the despair of unbelief,?of lack of purpose and ideal. The?nightmare of materialism,?which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past;?it holds the awakening soul still in its grip."?

What we have here, at the very beginnings of abstract art, is firstly the rejection of materiality itself, and therefore a rejection?in potentia?of the material world. This is why we see movement?away?from the representation of figure and form (of which the natural world is made up), to some so-called?inner-reality expressed in mere shape and colour; - or the world?demolished. The thesis that lack of belief is lack of ideal is nihilistic at its very core, and it is the logical fallacy which once again throws reins over the stride of progress, which we have seen grow in direct relationship with reason throughout all human history.?

Whether you agree or disagree with this definition of abstract art, what is not open to debate is that Theosophy is at the heart and foot of these art forms. Historically, this is the time of a ground-swelling pushback from existing religious and ideological powers, mainly those which put faith before reason. Flash forward to Scully about a century later, and from his perspective?in medias res..

It is 1969, and Sean Scully goes on a trip to Morocco for a six-week holiday. Here, walking through the islamic (for the most part) streets and bazaars, he sees what he describes as?"a dry ocean of stripes". Pause.?A dry ocean. There is another word for this, and that is - a?desert. And the most conspicuous thing about deserts is, that they are?hostile?to life.

The reason that stripes are so ubiquitous in places like Morocco is that the depiction of figures, especially of the figure of god and (by some conceptual slight-of-hand) the prophets, and again (by a further convoluted extension) - human beings in general, has come to be seen as?idolatry?and therefore?blasphemy. Lack of figuration in the visual arts, will give you either décor, (mere ornamentation), or abstraction. God-Prophet-Human. (This syllogism must be reversed to offer a critical insight).?Aniconism?is the official term used, which essentially means?against,?or?not, -?imagery. But to be precise what we are dealing with here is the artistic?suppression?of imagery and figure because it is seen as blasphemous, that is to say -?not?allowed.?

For a proof of this fact in its most insidious and outraged form we need only look at the?2005/2006 Danish Cartoon Controversy , and the violence, killing and destruction of civil property that it 'brought about' to understand the degrees to which this attempt at censorship is still almost ubiquitous in many parts of the world.

As the years pass, Scully has been seized by these stripes, which he then?smuggles into the modern art scene and lubricated by a public?demand for them, is transmuted into one of the richest artists in the world.

The demand is for stripes. Stripes of decadence. Surely, the artists duty is the representation of the spirit of their times as well as (and perhaps primarily), iconoclasm of worn-out and?asphyxiating forms. Here, it is painfully?obvious that?Scully has failed spectacularly.

It may be argued that Scully's art is opposed to true modern artistry for the very reason that it is a plagiarism of a type of décor which was and is the result of artistic?repression?itself.

If we are to follow this line of argument, (and if we hold that the original meanings remain buried somewhere underneath the mountainous strata piled-up by resulting artistic movements), Scully's stripes are at base opposed to democratic principles, opposed to secularism, opposed to freedom of expression, and if one is able to?read between the lines, they are the imagery and forms of theocrats and tyrants, that is to say they are In Radix the very repudiation of the artistic spirit and the?stifling?of artistic expression - imposter stripes posing as art, and notwithstanding, sadly - they are?demanded.