by The complete text of the historic lecture of Master Jalil Ziapour at the Palace of Art; December 1950
Master Jalil Ziapour; the father of modern painting in Iran
We know that in the art of expression, every purpose has a content that must be cast into the mold of specific words so that the meaning is well clarified. In painting as well, this holds true. For a specific feeling, a mold beyond the ordinary mold is necessary. Therefore, following each school, according to need, another mold emerges. Just as following simple Cubism, “Abstract Cubism” (Cubisme Abstrait) (ambiguous – suggestive) or following simple Impressionism, the methods of “Pointillism” (Pointillisme) and Fauvism, and following Cubism, the method of Abstract Cubism in the fourth dimension arose, and I will explain in this lecture, by means of several sketches, why three eyes in different states or multiple noses in a strange position in a single face are painted.
To understand the gradual progression of artistic thought in the use of relative time (or the fourth dimension) and the manner of its influence in painting, familiarity with what I will mention in brief is essential:
A- Need exerts its pressure continuously and momentarily, in an immature or newly born form, on the minds of more sensitive people and manifests itself in a state of penetration and expansion; and in this state, only the more sensitive individuals realize their existence (which are in the process of emerging) sooner than others and seek to react. When the fulfillment of needs is not easily possible and continuous deprivations exert pressure, reactions begin, and it is obvious that these reactions do not have a normal course. When needs are easily met, actions and reactions have a normal course. The immature or newly born presentation of these almost latent and deep needs (whether in a normal form or as a reaction) is in any case carried out by individuals of feeling (who may happen to be artists as well), and these individuals also differ in level in terms of sensitivity and speed of mental perception. (There are many artists who, compared to other artists, possess a more precise mental clarity, foresight, and precocity, and their minds grasp emerging needs sooner than others, however complex their feeling and comprehension may be).
B- Reactions in all aspects of human life (especially in art) are a great blessing. Even though this work is accompanied by uprootings and overthrows, they also carry an important benefit. Habit is itself the great obstacle to progress, and people too, most of the time based on this very habit, are compelled to support and protect this private desire and interest (often in the name of public-traditional interest). Since the preservation of habits is equivalent to following the principles and details of old things (and is itself, in essence, the worship of the old and lack of attention to necessary requirements), therefore, such disregard for the present time and paying full attention to the past prompts more sensitive individuals not to pay attention to habituation and to have an inclination and attention toward the present, and this itself is the ground for the struggle between the past and the present (or the worship of the old and the seeking of the new) and fuels attention to the present. Reactions are not created except due to the existence of prejudices in preserving the principles and details of the practices of a period in their current state.
C- Among all individuals, a group works on art. They create beautiful and unbeautiful works (in accordance with personal taste and in conformity with public needs—according to the opinion of the majority or the minority) and become believers in social or individual and abstract art. The opinions of the minority and the majority about beauty arise from their habits, interests, memories, and awareness. Therefore, aesthetics is prepared and guided by a specific group or groups of society, and the expression of opinions by individuals regarding beauty—that according to such-and-such a rule it must be thus and so, or must not be—is obtained from this very difference or agreement of their views, and all writings related to beauty also originate from here (or from the absolute). Artists, due to reciprocal effects in social life, store the interests, habits, and memories of society within themselves and arrange and depict them in a necessary manner; and whenever individuals understand them, they take pleasure in them and call them beautiful. Thus, in truth, artists create necessary beauty by means of recombination from ordinary nature, which is the very artistic creation. For the meaning of artistic creation is that the selected forms of specific subjects should be brought into being by the artist through skillful combination; and it is then that artistic creation and beauty come into being by the hand of man.
D- Every work of art is interesting when the more cultured viewer or listener is placed before something that provides cause for curiosity, and his thought and vision have the capacity to feel and understand that work (it is at this time that he becomes absorbed in understanding or feeling that work). There is no doubt that in the course of curiosity, in every found or findable thing, he feels pleasure. When he reaches a point where he has felt most of the understandable parts, at this time the pleasures of apprehension become greater. These pleasures found through curiosity, although they last longer than pleasures found without effort, nevertheless there is no doubt that their own duration, in comparison with unfound pleasures or pleasures that are on the verge of being obtained, has less value. Likewise, the more valuable beauty exists in that work which is far from the scope of curiosity, vision, and thought, and is obtained only at the stage of feeling.
Dh- Whoever defines beauty at any age and in any way has defined it correctly, and the definitions of experts and critics (whether those who take the side of the opinions of the minority or the majority) are also correct in proportion to their thought. For it is impossible that an individual whose taste has not gradually been cultivated, who has not known and weighed and discerned various beauties, and who has not brought his mind into accord with the necessary needs of artistic time, should be able, under the burden of impositions, to discern new beauties. Therefore, discussions in these matters are proportionate to the degree of people’s artistic cultivation and awareness, and in my opinion, whatever anyone says (without having expectations of him), he speaks correctly in proportion to his own acquaintance. It must be known that absolute beauty is not only meaningless in principle, but that various definitions concerning it are also meaningless. For each person’s level of aesthetics (in the absolute and the relative) is proportionate to that person’s culture and knowledge. Relative beauty cannot even be a guarantee for the definitive measurement of the pleasingness of the minority or the majority.
V- Knowing how to display subjects is important from the point of view of artistic time. Every subject has its own particular time, and every time has a special mold for its expression. Knowledgeable artists have sufficient familiarity with this principle of utterance. Life today, in its present condition, has required that it be expressed in a suitable mold. Whether its way of life is right or wrong, we are inevitably within it and bear traces of it. Thus we must know the mold of its speech (and in principle one must know the mold of speech of every kind of life, so that we may fashion the necessary realities of each period with those molds and convey the intention).
Now, with awareness of these several points, we return to the subject of today’s lecture, “the fourth dimension and the manner of its penetration into contemporary painting”: Today, apparently, the thoughts of people of taste and curious individuals have turned toward so-called strange and bizarre pictures, and regarding them they have engaged in mockery and insinuation, or in their own appropriate judgments and reactions with bitter smiles. The emergence of these forms is not without cause and itself has a scientific path. After the effect and intervention of relative time in general affairs became clear and turned into a reality and found involvement, thoughtful painters interested in the knowledge of the day were compelled to employ relative time and, by creating movement in the mind, to give life to motionless images and also to depict the passage of time. Proving the existence of relative time by scientific means is possible through movement. That is, in the interval between two points, to whatever extent you move, to that same extent time is concealed and felt in the path traversed or to be traversed, and every quantity of time is made apparently perceptible by means of movement (if no movement takes place between two points, still the interval between those same two points will be encompassed by infinite time). However, since attention is always given to experiences more than to mental concepts, attention is therefore given only to times that are perceptible and apprehensible by some means. Consequently, the only factor in sensing time is the display of movement. Whether this movement is mental or objective, in every case time is more perceptible by means of movement. Moreover, there is also such an interpretation for life: “Life means movement.”
The entry of time into painting found its place from this standpoint: that this life or movement should be shown; and in order to show it, it is possible to consider two or several points. The interval between these points, as we said, is in practice movement. For as soon as the eye or the imagination is detached from one point and turns toward other points, in this case movement, or perceptible time, is in practice created in thought. Now, in place of two or several points, one may depict two or several forms, from different aspects, of a single being such as a human being.
We draw a face on the X-Y axis from the front. We also make the profile and three-quarter view of this same face (in such a way that they coincide with the frontal face) (figure 1). This picture, which comprises three different positions of a face from the front, in profile, and in three-quarter view superimposed upon one another (on a single axis), under the above conditions, in which the viewer attends to its three positions, also causes the viewer to accept the movement that, by way of sight, they create in the mind from one side of the faces to the other (of course, seeing the three-quarter view and after that the frontal view or profile of one face in succession causes the imagination to be stirred, and the mind involuntarily accepts the movement of the face in sequence from the three-quarter position to the frontal view and the profile). That is, merely the act of combining the different positions of the face with one another around the axis renders the mind involuntary in accepting a rotational movement in the field from three-quarter view to profile over the frontal face.
Since the state of three faces in superimposition has numerous lines laid over one another and intricate compositions, the painter, on the basis of the art of composition, modifies and adjusts or entirely removes the many unnecessary lines, and, overall, from the distinct and suitable states of the faces around the axis, suffices with something appropriate; and from the totality of these selections he brings into being a fitting composition (like figure 2). This work does not end here. For the movements of the face of an individual in ordinary motions are not carried out only on one axis, but often on many axes upon the neck and body; and in this state, the intersection of the positions of the face on axes with different angles causes a multitude of faces to be superimposed upon one another (like figure 3). Since this density of lines in the faces is on several axes, the painter considers it advisable to apply a suitable compositional taste and simplification. Thus he preserves the distinguishing aspect of each position of the face and modifies, adjusts, and removes the rest (like figure 4), and brings into being the simplified form of the moving face around and upon the axis with different angles.
Of course, the embodiment of objective and mental movement in the different states of such faces, which altogether are a summarized composition of the state of one face, is very difficult for the viewer; and one must possess sufficient and suitable quickness of mental apprehension in order to be able to distinguish the movements of the different members of a face (which are drawn on axes with different angles in space). It must also be noted that today’s viewer must always seek intentions in works of art in a concise and comprehensive form. For in addition to the fact that life today requires this, prolixity of speech and content as well (in short, if it concerns obvious things), and that too on the canvas of a painting, is wearisome and destroys the charm and aim of art. Likewise, the viewer of art must cultivate himself and be so quick in apprehension and so in step with progress that he can acquire sufficient familiarity with the moving angles of every member and form, and likewise perceive their summary in artistic compositions and distinguish their axis and direction, and know that, for example, the eye in three-quarter view belongs to that three-quarter face. Or that the eye from the front and in profile belongs to the frontal or profile face.
It must be known that success in the use of relative time (the fourth dimension) in painting has been a great step in the progress of the art of painting. For, contrary to the past, when faces were drawn only on a single plane, without movement and without awakening the mind, with the intervention of relative time there came about freedom of the brush in carrying out exaggerated movements and approaching many-sided designs in “Expressionism” (Expressionisme) (the presentation of state: which itself is a cause of greater movement and of stirring the imagination toward grasping content and concept).
This brief explanation was to acquaint you, ladies and gentlemen, with the manner of work on images that are outwardly strange and bizarre, and with how, as a result of unfamiliarity, this method had an abstract form for some people and appeared ambiguous and ridiculous. Now if I am asked: suppose this mixing of several eyes and ears and noses is made according to scientific and technical rules, and is for the purpose that through this means movement may be included in it, so that life and motion may be interpreted in the best manner; must such a thing, which has only the aspect of artistic investigation, be accepted as a work of art? My answer is that yes, in that case too it must without doubt be accepted as a work of art (even as beautiful).
