The Unity of Creativeness and Its Expression:
in memory of a great
philosopher[1]
Victoria
Yau
[Editor’s Note:] Victoria Yau, a
distinguished artist, educated both at
*****
On this special occasion in commemoration of Professor Thomé Fang, I would like to share with you some thoughts regarding "the unity of Creativeness." I am going to testify for this general theme from my own experience and viewpoint as an artist. I venture to cite for illustration Wang Yang-ming’s theory of the unity of knowledge and action as treated by Professor Fang. For, as I perceive, what Wang has called "the unity of knowledge and action" is but a special case, an excellent exemplification, of the general theme I have conceived in mind for years. In this connection I have found Professor Fang’s interpretation most insightful and illuminating: it deepens my commitment to art; it broadens my scope of vision; it enriches my appreciation of the creative experience in general.
Needless to say, the artist sees the world with an artist’s eye—admittedly colored, more or less, in his or her own way; I am no exception. In my eyes both Wang and Fang, these two great creative minds in philosophy for the last five hundred years, are superb artists in their own right, having distinguished themselves in different realms of achievement and contribution by different modes of expression than those I have been used to adopt.
But before I set foot in the holy kingdom of philosophical expres- sion, where words are the coin of the realm, let me explain my presenta- tion as programmed. As philosophers, you well understand words are never easy for anyone, and that using words effectively and precisely is essential to the work of philosophy. But as an artist I well understand words are not the medium of communication that I prefer or find easy.
Many of you in this room, I am sure, have spent a number of years coding and decoding abstract thinking. My primary language has been color and form, shape and texture, design and aesthetic values. Visual images are my words, and as such, my expression is very often emotional and intuitive, rather than cognitive and discursive. When I try my hand at written discourse, my predilection for the intuitive powers of the heart-mind is brought home to be, and I realize my limitations, finding myself in an almost unexplored world.
Being an artist, however, has its advantages. An island had good perspective when you view it from the shore. The artist’s stance creates a new perspective. In the late 60s, my style transformed from post-impressionism into abstract painting. Instead of echoing nature passionately, my thinking evolved a step beyond my emotional range. As Professor Fang says, urged by "instinct with metaphysical impulse," [2] I searched for elements in nature to see their interconnections with one another. My previous work would be considered Chinese, except perhaps that my form of expression is in the impressionistic style. Moreover, when I search for the elements in nature, my work has a philosophical aspect that goes beyond "instinct with metaphysical impulse."
For me, the creative process in art-work, from the moment of conception to production, is like giving birth to a child. The conception of ideas in my work takes place magically, often springing from the unconscious level. Very often I have a special urge to express my feelings, sometimes as a statement I want to make, but as a rule, these ideas need to incubate or ferment for a long period before becoming a part of my daily consciousness. The riddle of where ideas come from, has been best explained by Professor Fang, who believed different levels of knowledge and action are open to three sorts of persons:
(a) The sage, with an inborn insight and a spontaneity of action, is to exercise his mind to the utmost degree to know the unison of Human Nature with Heaven.
(b) The man of worthiness, skilled in the acquisition of knowledge and in the performance of action, would keep his mind intact in order to cultivate his Nature in subservience to Heaven.
(c) The ordinary scholar, somewhat encumbered by
the difficulty of knowledge and somehow weighed down by the burden of action,
has yet to make a firm determination in the pursuance of knowledge and in the
refinement of conduct at any cost with a view to waiting for the divine
command. The ordinary scholar is evidently no more than a novice in the
investigation of objects and in the inquiry into reason. [3]
I am not sure if, like the Sage, the artist is working in unison with Heaven, or like "the man of worthiness" in subservience to Heaven; but I
do feel certain that the artist to conceive and produce works of art cannot, like the ordinary scholar, become encumbered by the difficulty of know-ledge and weighed down by the burden of action.
I know of no actual survey that states all creative artists are more sensitive than ordinary folks. I only know that I am so. But because one is sensitive, it does not follow necessarily that one is creative. Mere sensitiveness would not make creativeness! I believe that my background and upbringing have a lot to do with my choice of expression. I believe all artists are intuitive, yet not all of them are creative. Mere intuition would not make creation, either! Even the conception of a baby is miraculous. For some it is easy to become pregnant, yet there are women who are doomed to be barren; even artificial insemination won’t help. Similarly, when timing and circumstances do not permit any visual form of an idea to be conceived, the idea then disappears, never to be found again! Not all conception can result in childbirth, no more than all ideas can culminate in full development. In either case, miscarriage can happen any moment.
After I got married, I knew that raising children would take a lot of my time. Yet I could not help wanting to go through bearing a child in order to feel and experience the process of creativity as an integral part of my own body. I wanted to see how it compared with my creative process of painting. But when my first son was born, I did not realize that the process of gestation did not end with delivery of the child. Twenty years have gone by and I still have not yet finished the job. Motherhood is my longest project. Now I truly realize, compared to raising children, the work of the artist is much easier because you can finish any time—at least the process is more or less within your control.
Before I start painting, the idea has already surfaced from the subconscious to become an inner image. Then I experiment to express it in a visual form. Just as the fetus needs time to grow and develop, so do our ideas. During pregnancy there are different stages or periods, some longer, some shorter. But in the total creative process these stages can’t be skipped. Working with these stages will help preserve the idea, extending and expanding it many times. So, practicing and experimenting is like a stage rehearsal.
In recent years quite a few women chose the Lamaze method of preparing for childbirth, a rehearsal for the final delivery as the actual production. Similarly, for me as well, before the final execution of my art-work, I must rehearse and practice until I have embodied my inner image in a visualizable form. Even in the last phase I find that, until I am fully aware of the inner vision, until I finally have the knowledge—intuitive and experiential—until I have fully rehearsed the idea and vision, and have extended and expanded it in all directions, I do not want to carry out the final execution. I would rather hold for a while, for due time of action, that is, for "birth-giving."
It is almost as if the idea had come from a metamorphic stage and had finally reached the crystal clear stage. That’s the stage when I decide to transform all the materials hitherto absorbed into the final action. At that point, my work and I become one. The visual form becomes part and parcel of me. This oneness is, I believe, the same as the "inseparable oneness" Professor Fang says Wang Yang-ming enunciated in his organismic theory of body, mind, and intention as inseparable from its object. In response to Chen Chiu-chuan’s query: "How could it be possible [for body, mind and intention to be inseparable from an object] since the object existed by itself in the external world?" Wang replied by a set of definitions:
The body is that which occupies space; mind is the
dominance over the body; intention is the motivation of mind; knowledge is the
spiritual light induced by the intention; the object is the relevant event
incited by the intention. We must be aware that the body, mind intention,
knowledge and its object taken together make up an organismic
unity explicable in terms of (a) the correlation of mind and body; (b) the
correlation of intention and knowledge; and (c) the correlation of knowledge
and the cognitive event, which is taken for the object. The pivotal point here
is the intention which energizes the mind to get at the object of its own
making. The external object existing in itself is a misnomer.[4]
When I execute the final work, I may well be in a transcendental stage . For me, "the external object existing in
itself" is indeed a misnomer. Conscious and unconscious are one. The
crystal clear stage and the metamorphic stage, aware of one another, share and
draw from one another as the harmonious whole is interwoven. "Both mind
and ‘matter’ form a locus of cosmic sympathetic response."[5] As an artist, I can bear witness wholeheartedly
to Wang’s belief that "cosmic sympathetic response" happens when mind
and matter form a "locus" for it to happen. But, Wang went further on
metaphysical ground, "asserting," Professor Fang tells us,
"identity among the following paired concepts: Mind and Nature, Nature and
Heaven, the Mind of Men and the Mind of Tao, Mediety
and Harmony."[6]
Like any action, painting, even in the final stage, is subject to struggle,
to failure if the artist does not somehow become a "locus" for
"cosmic sympathetic response." To forestall this possibility,
Professor Fang, interpreting Wang, suggests to us that the ideal state of mind
for the artist in the final stage is to achieve the repose of perennial nature
which has simultaneously a dynamic phase "forever turned to the best of
comprehensive harmony. Such a state of mind is called the substance and
function in perfect union."[7]
And yet, there is no guarantee for safe delivery, no guarantee that the perfect union of substance and function will be realized. Having worked on the expression of my abstract thinking for twenty years or more, I have truly realized that the creative moment lies exactly in the unity of knowing and acting, or more specifically, unity of intention and action whereby the unity of creativeness is perfectly exemplified.
How I marvel at the philosopher Wang Yang-ming who, centuries ago, had strongly urged the unity of knowledge and action as the authentic way of life, a truly creative way of life, that is to say. Since this unity is the unity of creativeness, indeed of all forms of creative process, as it were, how can it not be the case with the abstract image?
So, for me, when Wang talks about "chih-hsing he-yi" ("unity of knowing and acting"), he is simply talking about a typical creative experience when what we have in our inner world is to be brought forth outside of our physical body: Something within giving birth to an outside world; the unification of within and without—of inner and outer; the unification of yin and yang; and the unification of Nature and Man. Wang, in emphasizing learning before action, is really emphasizing the importance of strengthening the inner world of creativeness, allowing the pregnancy to go full term, in order to have a birth healthy enough to survive in the outer world.
Basically, it does not matter whether knowledge and action are originally
one or two separate states; what matters is that the unity of knowledge and
action be achieved as fully as possible. And since man is the joining point,
obviously it is man’s intentionality, his will that holds them together. One
can be extremely sensitive, exceptionally intuitive, and abundantly talented,
yet if one has neither the will nor desire (or impulse, if you like) to achieve
the unity of knowledge and action, no birth will take place, no work of art
will emerge. In the cycle of pregnancy, it is of the utmost importance to have
the will to complete it. The joining of knowledge and action is the productive
stage of the creative act as a whole. As an artist, I am always trying to catch
that magical moment. While chasing that particular rainbow, my creative tasks
are tasks of joy which fill my entire being.
Thus, for me, the process of making art is primary, but that is not to say that the product is unimportant. Professor Fang, a great philosopher of life as art, speaking truly after my own heart, sums up the importance of art when he says:
The business of art which is fine in nature, as of
all creative activities, is to broaden, to deepen, and to elevate the horizons
of human experience in infinite dimensions. Art is form. Art has a content. It bears out a standard of value to be lived up
to. Its well-composed form bodies forth an ideated content that is satiated
with significance in the guise of visionary intuition, as well as of spiritual
ecstasy.[8]
My experience of reading Professor Fang is well expressed in Su Tung-po’s remarks on reading Chuangtzu:
"Long in the past I have held such views which I could not express. Now
that I have come across this book, I know how to contemplate things to my heart’s
content."[9]
A major in philosophy and western literature as I was in my undergraduate days, frankly I have never been able to devote so much of my time and energy to these two disciplines as to art. It is only recently that I have come to be better acquainted with Professor Fang’s later works. Reading his works has made me feel like an eventual "home-coming" after so many years of my own "Ulysses journey." What impresses me most is his penetrative insight into the profound mystery of the creative experience in art. For instances, he treats art as a pocket edition de luxe of the cosmic pattern of order;
an infinite realm of
Nature engulfing the Supernatural in it so as to show the miraculous creative
potency of the Divine, which is naturally shared by men in their endeavor of
co-creation. The Universe as a whole [however it may be differentiated], ... is a vast array of creative activities with a Spirit
of Life hovering over it all.[10]
He speaks of the artist as a creative agent in the cosmic sense, both "a concentration of vital forces reaching in thought to a state of sublimity" and "an incessant growth of the human soul into the heart of the universe."[11] His remarks remind one of Shih Tao (1630-1707), who claims to be the "spokesman for the great mountains and great rivers," [12] i.e., for the great creative forces of the cosmic life.
It is long before I read Professor Fang that I had already entitled my works The Iron Kite. To me, therefore, it is an especial joy to find in his works the metaphor of "a flying kite," presumably based on an anecdote about Kuo Chung-shu of the North Sung period (960-ll26). What a coincidence in our use of image, though susceptible of different interpretation in symbolic terms on the basis of experiences!
In my opinion, Professor Fang is an artist by temperament,[13] richly endowed with great sensitivity, intuition, compassion, empathy, sympathetic vision, noble intention, creative impulse, and a great sense of cosmic identification. To my knowledge, the intimate relationship of art and philosophy has never been better put than in such simple and sublime lines as found in The Chinese View of Life: "The Chinese are artists before they become thinkers!"[14]
Now, while most of you, gathering together here today, are ready to present your sincere tribute to this great mind in words, allow me to present mine in works. Let me share some samples of my art-work (in slides) with you. People like to say, "a showing is worth a thousand sayings," this is particularly true in the case of abstract painting. So, I’m not going to explain my work verbally, but rather open the door for all of you to enjoy, as you wish. Thank you.
__________________________
Notes
[1] The author wishes to thank Professor
Thomas A. Brennan, English Department,
[2] Thomé H. Fang, The Chinese View of Life (Taipei: Linking
Publishing Co., Ltd., 1980), p. 132.
[3] Fang, Creativity in Man and Nature
(
[4] Ibid, pp. 109-110.
[5] Ibid., p. 110.
[6] Ibid., pp. 113-114.
[7] Ibid.,
p. 114.
[8] Ibid., p. 154.
[9] Cf. The History of the Sung Dynasty,
vol. 338, p. 1, cited in Fang¸ Chinese Philosophy: Its Spirit and Its
Development (Taipei: Linking Publishing Inc., Ltd., l98l), pp. 339-340; cf.
the Hegelian view of art as "the sensuous spiritualized
[10] Ibid., p.159.
[11] Fang, The
Chinese View of Life, p. 145; these remarks were said respectively of
Leonardo da Vinci and Rubens. Cf. Razin Germain, Rubens.
[12] Shih-Tao, Discourses on Painting,
Chapter VIII, "Mountains and Rivers." Cf. Chiang Yi-han, A Study of Shih-Tao’s Discourses on Painting
(Taipei: Chinese Culture University Press, 1987), p.179.
[13] Editor’s Note: Here the author’s
observation is well confirmed by the remarks of Professor Hsieh Yu-wei, an early student of Whitehead’s at Harvard in the 30s,
"Professor Fang is an artist in philosophy." See Joseph S. Wu,
"On the ‘Doors’ and ‘Paths’ to the Studies of Philosophy," in Universitas, Monthly Review of Philosophy and
Culture, vol. IV, no. 2, February, 1977, p. 6. Early in 1927 when Fang’s Science,
Philosophy, and the Significance of Life was published, Professor Chuan Hsia-ping of the National Central University hailed its
author as "the Santanyana of China"; sixty
years later Professor Dale M. Riepe called Santayana
Fang’s "spiritual borther!" See Riepe, "A North American Looks at Professor Thomé Fang’s Philosophy of Immanent Organic Harmony"
in this issue.
[14] Fang, Creativity in Man and Nature,
p. l59.