Arthur Schopenhauer

Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and disinterested aesthetic experience

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Ali Fallahzadeh 1 & Zahra Rahbarnia 2
1,2Department of Research of Art, Faculty of Art, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.25
[Article History: Received: 10 August 2023. Revised: 5 September 2023. Accepted: 7 Sept 2023. Published: 12 Sept 2023]
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Abstract

Despite the pivotal role of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) in the sophistication of Modern aesthetics and art theories in the 20th century and his special attention to aesthetic experience, considerably little is known about the impacts of his aesthetic theory, particularly pertaining his account on conception disinterested aesthetic experience formed based on his metaphysics of will, on some of the most enriched Modern art theories like Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism. On the other side of the spectrum, Mondrian’s Neo-Plastic paintings, his universal pure abstract style, have been well examined through historical approaches and Modernist theories, especially about the Greenbergian account and Modern styles like De Stijl art movement in the last few decades. Moreover, his quasi-philosophical writings have been vastly scrutinized in the light of their impacts on Theosophic, Platonic, and Hegelian doctrines. Interestingly, Mondrian, in his theoretical writings, explicitly refers to the Schopenhauerian conception of disinterested contemplation and the requirements for having a universal aesthetic experience. Yet, Mondrian’s account of Schopenhauer’s notion of disinterested contemplation, namely for notions like individual will, Will, intellect, cessation of subserviency of intellect to the will, and so on, has not been scrutinized through an aesthetic lens.

Hence, this article first aims to investigate Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his account of disinterested aesthetic experience. Indeed, this article proposes this hypothesis that Mondrian, who always sought to unveil the Platonic Idea of an objective manifestation of a universal equilibrium (harmony) or pure beauty as truth through his universal Neo-Plastic art, was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his attitude toward aesthetic contemplation which is disinterested and objective. At the end of this article, it becomes clear that Mondrian’s conception of pure intuition and his contemplative approach to aesthetic experience intimately conform to Schopenhauer’s view on the notion of disinterested aesthetic attention or contemplation narrated within his metaphysics of will.

Keywords: Arthur Schopenhauer, aesthetic experience, disinterestedness, metaphysics of will, Piet Mondrian, Neo-Plasticism, intuition.

Citation: Fallahzadeh, Ali, Zahra Rahbarnia. 2023. Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and disinterested aesthetic experience. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.25 

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The Metempsychotic Birds: An Exploration of Samuel Beckett’s Allusions to the Upanishads

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Thirthankar Chakraborty, University of Kent

 Abstract

This paper discusses references made to Indian culture and philosophy in Samuel Beckett’s Murphy, tracing them back to their sources via Arthur Schopenhauer. The allusions induce a rethinking of the conventional Cartesian interpretation of Murphy, and reconsider the usage of compulsive voice and situational irony within the novel from an Upanishadic point of view. The paper then analyses Waiting for Godot, and questions whether Beckett might have effaced his early allusions to Indian religious thought or could he have ironically personified the Upanishadic allegory of dualism as Vladimir and Estragon confined to a stage containing a single tree?

[Keywords: Samuel Beckett, Indian philosophy, Upanishads, dualism, allegory]

 Establishing Textual Parallels

In his German letter dated 7 July 1937, Samuel Beckett notes, “For in the forest of symbols that are no symbols, the birds of interpretation, that is no interpretation, are never silent” (Beckett 2009: 519). He writes this in a context where he appears to censure people, critics in particular, or the birds of interpretation, as being “hard of hearing” and incapable of remaining silent. This paper magnifies Beckett’s choice of words and considers whether he might have allowed these birds of interpretation to travel through his first published novel Murphy and into his later play Waiting for Godot.

In another letter dated 17 July 1936, Samuel Beckett writes that he chose to keep Murphy’s “death subdued and go on as coolly and finish as briefly as possible [. . .] because it seemed to me to consist better with the treatment of Murphy throughout, with the mixture of compassion, patience, mockery and ‘tat twam asi’ that I seem to have directed on him throughout” (Beckett 1983: 102). Whilst Murphy along with Beckett’s other works have yielded various critical exegeses vis-à-vis themes ranging from humour, ethics and aesthetics, scholars have so far largely ignored the phrase tat twam asi, loosely translated as “that you are”, originally from the Chandogya Upanishad. Based on empirical evidence from Beckett’s letters and the Whoroscope notebook, past critics have observed that Beckett adopted the phrase from the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, without intending any direct reference to Indian thought.As John Pilling notes for example, by the time Beckett began writing Murphy, his grasp of Schopenhauer had become “second nature”, so much so that he dispensed with specific references (Pilling 1992: 14). My objective, on the contrary, is to expand this Schopenhauerian influence in Murphy and have it flow into a limited tract of Indian philosophy, as discussed in the Upanishads.

First, however, it is necessary to establish empirically the relation between Murphy and Indian philosophy. One must account for the fact that there is as yet a complete lack of archival material to suggest that Beckett studied the Upanishads, although the Bangladeshi playwright Sayeed Ahmed recalls in a newspaper interview that during his meetings with Beckett in Paris, Beckett would ask him probing questions about the Upanishadic philosophy. A major advantage is that Murphy and the Upanishads are essentially works of art, not cut and dried philosophical treatises, and consequently merit a comparative literary analysis, if nothing else. Beckett is not interested in delving into ontological disputes, just as the Upanishads “would not be considered philosophical in the modern, academic sense” (Britannica).Also, Schopenhauer, who stands as a common denominator that links Beckett to Indian Philosophy, is often compared to “a wisdom writer” rather than a philosopher (O’Hara 254).

At the start of Murphy, there are several references that are directly relevant to the Upanishads. In the first chapter, we learn that Murphy visits Neary several times and sits at his feet (Beckett 1957: 3). This, as annotated in Demented Particulars(2004), might refer to the term “Upanishad”, the Sanskrit etymology of which can be translated as “sitting down near” or “sitting close to” the guru or the teacher’s feet in order to gain spiritual knowledge (Ackerley2004: 32). Thus, if an immediate parallel is to be drawn, one could regard Murphy as a character curious about the Upanishads, and could further claim that the author was at least aware of the existence of this central body of early Sanskrit text.

In addition to the general definition, the term “Upanishad” also originally meant “‘connection’ or ‘equivalence’ and was used in reference to the homology between aspects of the human individual and celestial entities or forces that increasingly became primary features of Indian cosmology” (Britannica).This second meaning markedly coincides with the fact that Murphy pedantically follows the astrological chart or “ThemaCoeli With Delienations Compiled By Ramaswami Krishnaswami Narayanaswami Suk” (Beckett 1957: 32).What’s more, the first three parts of the compiler’s name are Indian, with the suffix swami signifying “holy man”. The prefix of the first two parts from left to right are the major avatars of Vishnu – Rama, from the Ramayana, and Krishna, from the Mahabharata – while the third, Narayana, is an alternative name for Vishnu, the preserver of the cosmos in Hinduism. The Vaishnavas or the monotheistic followers of Vishnu regard their God as the personification of the Brahman, the all-pervasive self beyond verbal grasp, or the tat from tat twamasi, a concept immediately relevant to Murphy’s design as a character.

To further this heuristic approach, Neary’s ability to stop his heart in “situations irksome beyond endurance” is relevant, added to the hand gestures that he practices corresponding to murdras (3). As annotated by Chris Ackerley, “the relation between heart rate and respiration permits the individual to exercise some control by means of sustained expiration” (Ackerley 2004: 32), which contextually refers to pranayama, the control of breath or vital power. In the Chandogya Upanishad (I.5), breath plays a central role, as elaborated by Max Müller, a nineteenth century German scholar of comparative language, religion, and mythology (Britannica), “The breath in the mouth, or the chief breath, says Om, i.e. gives permission to the five senses to act, just as the sun, by saying Om, gives permission to all living beings to move about” (Müller 1879: 12). Thus, having control over his breath, not only is Neary capable of stopping his heart, but he can also supposedly liberate his self from quotidian necessities such as drinking water and he can also annul “the pangs of hopeless sexual inclination” (3). What is more, Neary has acquired his knowledge of pranayama “somewhere north of the Nerbudda” (3), more commonly known as the river Narmada that runs across the central states of India. However, as far as the plot is concerned, Neary has clearly failed in his venture of suppressing his desires, which are directed instead “‘To gain the affections of Miss Dwyer’”…Access Full Text of the Article

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Aesthetic Experience as Temporary Relief from Suffering: Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Mu Qui’s Six Persimmons

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Tony Lack, Jefferson College, Roanoke, Virginia, USA

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Assesses the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of art and aesthetic principles derived from Buddhism. Begins with an overview of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and its relationship to his aesthetic theory.Develops closer analysis of Schopenhauer’s theory of art, placing emphasis on the relationship between aesthetic experience and relief from suffering.Continues with analysis of the convergence between Schopenhauerian and Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics. Concludes with an interpretation of Mu Qi’s Six Persimmons, ink on paper,13th century China.

Introduction

This article assesses the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of art, as adumbrated in The World as Will and Representation (1818) and related aesthetic principles derived from Buddhism. It begins with an overview of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and its relationship to his aesthetic theory. This is followed by a closer analysis of Schopenhauer’s theory of art, with special emphasis on the relationship between art and redemption. The convergence of central aesthetic principles in Schopenhauer’s and Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics is then discussed before turning to an interpretation of Mu Qi’s Six Persimmons, Ink on Paper, from13th century China.

Schopenhauer’s Aesthetic Theory

The World as Pure Idea: Schopenhauer’s Philosophy and Aesthetics: The World as Will and Representation is divided into four sections.Each section has a distinctive focus. The best way to begin an overview of Schopenhauer’s philosophy of art is to explain the content of these sections.

            In section one, Schopenhauer develops an analysis of what his predecessor, Immanuel Kant, had called the world of phenomena. The phenomenal world is the world as we know it, constituted in terms of space, time, cause, substance, and so forth. This is the world of representation in Schopenhauer’s idiom.

            In the second section, Schopenhauer discusses Kant’s noumenal world or the world of things-in-themselves. Kant had claimed that this world was unknowable, a question mark. Schopenhauer argued that the Kantian thing-in-itself was pure will. He suggested that we do have access to this world of will, the deeper reality. When I exercise my individual will, I catch a glimpse of the primordial will as it operates through me. When, for example, I raise my arm, I gain crude access to the primordial will through my bodily action. However, this access is not something to be celebrated, because, as we shall see, the will that manifests itself in our actions is desire, a relentless striving for satisfaction that can never be sated. For this reason, everyday access to the will is a type of suffering, experienced as endless dissatisfaction which can be alleviated by aesthetic experiences.

            In the third section of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer discusses art. For Schopenhauer, art has a redemptive quality. Art can provide an escape from the suffering caused by the relentless drive of the will. The contemplation of art provides us with a pure experience, devoid of desire and hence devoid of the dissatisfaction created by the will.

            Schopenhauer concludes on a pessimistic note. Although it may be true that art can rescue us from the clutches of will, this is only a temporary fix. Aesthetic contemplation must eventually end, and when it does, the restless will reasserts itself with a vengeance. The only solution to human suffering is asceticism, the mastery of desire. With this brief summary in mind, I will trace out the argument in The World as Will and Representation more carefully.

When Schopenhauer claims, “The world is my idea”,[1] he means to suggest that the world that we know, the Kantian world of phenomena, is no more and no less than representation. The world that I come to know is a world that I have created. I have created it through the constitutive action of my mind. I can only know the world as it appears to my mind, and therefore as it appears under the mental conditions of time, space, number, cause, substance, and so forth. I do not have immediate access to the world as it really is; I only know my mental representations. The world that I have created operates according to several principles. First, Schopenhauer claims that the world of representations is a world defined according to the principium individuationis, the division of the will into particulars of time and space that create the illusion of discrete individual entities and persons.[2] The world as representation is also a world that operates according to the principle of sufficient reason.

“The will as a thing in itself is quite different from its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all idea, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it; still less the forms which are subordinate to this and which collectively have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong, and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible only through these . . . According to what has been said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. Further, it is free from all multiplicity, although its manifestations in time and space are innumerable. It is itself one, though not in the sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium individuationis, i.e., the possibility of multiplicity.”[3]

            As the individual comes into being and passes away it exists only as a series of phenomena, existing only for knowledge generated by the principle of sufficient reason, in the principium individuationis. In terms of this knowledge and the experiential awareness generated by it, the individual receives his life as a gift, rises out of nothing, suffers the loss of the gift through death, and returns to nothing.

            From a different frame of reference, that of science, there is a reason behind every individual thing that exists in the world of representations. There is no freedom in nature. There is no freedom in human behavior either. Our behavior is caused by our biology, our past, our social situation, and our character. We have the illusion of freedom, but pure freedom does not exist in the world of representation. The world of representation is a law-like world, a mechanistic world. It is Kant’s world of phenomena and natural laws.

            On the other hand, the world of will is similar to an all-encompassing fountain from which all of reality flows. This is Schopenhauer’s way of modifying Kant’s noumenal realm via a retrieval of the ancient idea of emanation. The will is a life-giving, form-producing, eternal source, conceived of in somewhat sexual terms. The phenomenal world is then seen as the formal manifestation of this life-giving force.

“We have therefore called the phenomenal world the mirror, the objectivity, of the will; and as what the will wills is always life, just because this is nothing but the presentation of that willing for the representation, it is immaterial and a mere pleonasm if, instead of simply saying “the will,” we say “the will-to-live.”[4]

            The will is an indivisible whole, best understood as a process, not a collection of things. As will endlessly actualizes itself; it pours itself into the differentiated forms that we, on the other side of the veil created by the limitations of our mind, grasp as reality. What we grasp and perceive is all illusion. We see our desires as individual, indeed we see ourselves as individuated, but we are nothing more than manifestations of one outpouring of will, a continual, restless, life-giving, process that shapes the reality that we know.

            Art has a privileged place in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The contemplation of a work of art allows us to escape temporarily from the relentless process of willing that inevitably draws us back down. When we contemplate a work of art, we set aside our practical concerns and assume a disinterested posture. We get lost in contemplation. Beautiful objects or experiences in nature can jolt us out of our endless dissatisfaction.

[1] Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation, translated by E. F. J. Payne, Colorado: Indian Hill, 1958, p. 1.

[2] Ibid: 23

[3] Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation, translated by E. F. J. Payne, Colorado: Indian Hill, 1958, p. 146.

[4] Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation, translated by E. F. J. Payne, Colorado: Indian Hill, 1958, p. 45

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