Guidance to Understanding
the Alpha Seer
by Leander S. Hughes
There is a crisis in the modern world of visual art.
Art has lost its taste; or rather, we have lost our
ability or will to distinguish between tastes. A
stack of Brillo boxes (Warhol, 1965) is displayed
in the
same institution as a Van Gogh and we are told
that both works should be treated as equally
great. Of course, we have the right to hold a different
opinion, but not to speak it if we have any
interest in
maintaining our appearance as educated and cosmopolitan.
Instead, we are encouraged to work
out for ourselves ways in which a stack of cardboard
boxes that once contained steel-wool scouring
pads could
somehow rival the Van Gogh: “The boxes speak to
us by depicting the pervasiveness of commercialism
in all aspects of modern life, even fine art!â€
we might exclaim. And we would not be wrong.
But what about
enjoyment? What about beauty?
The modern fine art expert will tell you that
beauty is just a matter of personal taste or a figment
of our culture’s collective imagination.
There is no sense in discussing it, since even those
who claim to see it,
disagree on what is beautiful and what is not. But
are we all really so different?
If you were allowed to take either the Brillo boxes
or the Van Gogh home (and assuming the monetary
values of both were equal), which of the
works would you take? Before you answer, let us
add one more element to the above scenario:
When you get home you will be locked
in a room with nothing in it but the work you
have chosen set behind glass, and you will not be
allowed to leave the room except to use the bathroom
for seven years.
Congratulations to those of you who would
choose the Van Gogh over the Brillo boxes. You
have provided hope for the possibility of beauty
that transcends individual differences. If you are
feeling condescended right now thinking, how
could anybody not choose the Van Gogh, take a
trip to your local art museum and look at what is
on display there. How many of those works could
you call beautiful? How many of
them could engage you visually for any significant
length of time? The unfortunate but probable
answer is few, if any. “Ah, but who says those
works are meant to be beautiful?†retorts the fine
art expert.
The expert seems to have a point.Maybe a given
work was created to shock the viewer or to
encourage the viewer to re-contextualize or
deconstruct some aspect of life, society, gender,
politics, etc. Thus, even if there is some universal
element to beauty, beauty was probably the last
thing on the artist’s mind when creating the work.
More likely, the artist made a conscious attempt
to avoid beauty. “Now you’re
catching on,†says our expert.
Let us imagine that, after your thought-provoking
visit to the local modern art museum, you decide
to try out a new restaurant nearby.When the food
comes, you are amazed; you have never seen cuisine
like this before and you wonder what it is
made of, from what
country it originates, and what techniques were
used to create it—very interesting. Then you take
a bite and find to your surprise that the food has
absolutely no taste. You try another bite; again, no
flavor at
all. You complain to the waiter, and he brings you
another dish, but again, the food has no taste! You
are beginning to think you have lost your mind,
when the chef storms out of the kitchen and
demands to know what all of the fuss is about.
You explain that the food is completely tasteless.
The chef looks at you as if you were a complete
dunce and says, “Who says it’s supposed to have
taste?â€
Our modern artist-turned-chef would not be in
business very long. However, museums and
schools of the fine arts continue to thrive, accepting
and producing work that lacks what would
logically seem to be the most important quality
for a visual work to possess: the
potential for long-term visual engagement and
enjoyment, aka beauty.Worse, we have been persuaded
that this situation is not a problem; that
the equivalent of a lifetime eating occasionally
thought-provoking, but utterly flavorless food is
the norm, if not the ideal. In fact, many of us have
been so focused on everything but the visual flavor
of the works we view as to lose or even fail to
ever gain the awareness that some works really do
have the power to visually engage us and provide
lasting enjoyment. Lacking the awareness of beauty,
we doom ourselves to a world in which there is
no difference between a Van
Gogh and a stack of cardboard boxes or a
Cezanne and jar of human feces (ala Manzoni,
1961).
The purpose of this book is to awaken us from
the purgatorial dream cast upon us by modern art
aficionados.“Alpha Seer†is a term invented by the
author referring to one who is fully awakened to
beauty. Through his lectures, master painter and
Alpha Seer Ben Lau helps summon and deepen
our ability to sense and appreciate the dynamic
interaction of form, line, and color in great works
of art. Although this
dynamism, which the author describes as a
supreme mathematical relationship, cannot be
distilled into a formula or recipe for beauty, it can
be pointed to through leading the viewer’s attention
to certain characteristics in a piece. To lead
our attention thus,Master Lau brings out the
geometric ground plan of masterworks in detailed
diagrams, while describing the relationships highlighted
in his commentaries.
Through the development of well-defined terminology,
eyeball comparisons of different works
and succinct logical arguments, Master Lau brings
the attentive reader to an understanding of
metaphor and the difference between a masterpiece,
which possesses metaphor, and an illustration,
which does not possess it. Throughout the
book,Master Lau makes clear that the views
expressed are not his alone but are also held by
other Alpha Seers including master painter Knox
Martin, who has contributed the preface of this
book, and other great masters who have come
before him.
Ultimately, the Alpha Seer helps us achieve an
understanding of great visual art as just one manifestation
of the rhythms and poetic movement
which also underlie master works in music, literature,
dance
and other forms of artistic expression. Moreover,
through sensitizing the reader to the supreme
mathematical relationships in masterful art, it
leads the attentive reader to the experience of
beauty which goes beyond the individual, beyond
culture, and beyond thought itself.
Leander S. Hughes holds a Bachelor of Arts in East
Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. He received his master’s degree in 2007 at
a Japanese university. He is currently a professor
teaching English at Saitama University, Japan.