veiled symmetry

8/17/2019 VEILED SYMMETRY

1/30

VEILED SYMMETRY

A Project

Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Art

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in

ART STUDIO

by

Mehran Mesbah

SPRING

2012


2/30

ii

© 2012

Mehran Mesbah

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


3/30

iii

VEILED SYMMETRY

A Project

by

Mehran Mesbah

Approved by:

__________________________________, Committee Chair Andrew Connelly

__________________________________, Second Reader

Sarah Flohr

____________________________Date


4/30

iv

Student: Mehran Mesbah

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format

manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for

the project.

__________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________Andrew Connelly Date

Department of Art


5/30

v

Abstract

of

VEILED SYMMETRY

by

Mehran Mesbah

Historically, Western and Islamic aesthetics alike derived from a desire to depict a

beauty which was absolute rather than relative. Each, however, have developed uniquely

different approaches to that end. Currently, these approaches seem to be locked in a

conflict of incompatibility. My work encourages a visual dialog between the two

contrasting perspectives. The following could be considered a guide for understanding

my motivation in creating a series of paintings titled Veiled Symmetry.

_______________________, Committee ChairAndrew Connelly

_______________________

Date


6/30

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

List of Figures......................................................................................................................... vii

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1

CONFLUENCE: TWO COME IN ........................................................................................... 3

ISLAMIC PATTERN ............................................................................................................... 5

DIVERGENCE: ONE GOES OUT........................................................................................ 10

ASSIMILATION: VEILED SYMMETRY ............................................................................ 14

A SPACE FOR CONVERSATION ....................................................................................... 16

HUMAN APPROPRIATION ................................................................................................. 18

CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................... 21

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 23


7/30

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figures Page

1. Formation of the Circle.................................... .………………………………. 5

2. Formation of the Triangle ..................................... ……………………………. 7

3. Formation of the Hexagon ........... ………….…………………………………. 8

4. Christ Pantocrator , 600-700 AD, encaustic on panel, Byzantine Period…….12

5. Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetry I , 2012, oil on wood panel, 44x47 in ........ 14

6. Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetr y II , 2012, oil on wood panel, 44x47 in….…16

7. Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetry III , 2012, oil on panel, 44x47 in . ….……18

8. Mehran Mesbah, V eiled Symmetry III , detail. … ……………………………. 19


8/30

1

INTRODUCTION

And so in the Libyan fable it is told,

That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,

Are we now stricken".

-Aeschylus

Before entering into an examination of my painting series Veiled Symmetry, I’ve

chosen a poem, which illustrates a central preoccupation relating to my work. Once an

Eagle is derived from an Old Persian poem translated by the Greek playwright

Aeschylus. A simplistic portrayal, full of multifaceted implications relevant as much

then as it is today. The eagle struck by an arrow contemplates the alien penetration of its

flesh as originating from its own being. The affliction implies wounds not only of the

body, but more so of the mind. Too often the condition that facilitates basic human

reason is the same condition that leaves it incapacitated. This is a common human

conundrum. Over the course of millennia, this puzzle takes the contour of pattern. The

shapes of which are like footprints I follow in order to stumble upon a forward path.

In respect to pictorial history, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish

between arrows and eagles. More curious, the metaphor brings many questions to mind:

At what point does the eagle become arrow? Or even better: Are there still eagles or just

arrows? Post-Structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida proposes an interesting

suggestion, referencing Michel de Montaigne, he writes, “we need to interpret

interpretations more than to interpret things” (Derrida 278). Returning to the previous

poem, the feather simultaneously represents the materiality of both objects. One could


9/30

2

consider the arrow as a reinterpretation of the eagle. Here, the irony becomes evident.

The reinterpretation kills the original. This is the eagle’s dying epiphany. Even more

humorous, it is also a Greek translation of a Persian poem. Nonetheless, it has survived

in this condition. And like the poem, my work holds the thing itself, the medium and

history of painting, suspended between two varying interpretations—a hybrid uniquely

my own. Moreover, Veiled Symmetry visually positions itself between the concerns of

both Western and Islamic aesthetics. Thus, in order to effectively communicate these

ocular ideas into words, I will utilize historical, religious, and philosophical perspectives

first, then excavate the meaning of the paintings visual attributes, and after include an

analysis of my own interpretation.


10/30

3

CONFLUENCE: TWO COME IN

A somewhat counterintuitive starting point in discussing a confluence of Islamic

and Western aesthetics can be located in Greek philosophy. Beginning with the former,

early Muslim scholars and theologians looked to Greek aesthetics as a foundation for

their visual literacy. David Wade, an artist, architect, and author specializing in Islamic

pattern, states that the absorption of Greek mathematical knowledge “is particularly

relevant to the evolution of Islamic geometric ornament, for the latter is essentially the

interplay of Platonic figures and proportions on the Euclidean plane. In fact these

configurations of straight lines and circles may be seen as an extension of the Platonic

search for a form of beauty that is not relative but absolute” (Wade 10). Allah, or “the

God” is absolute. He is omnipotent. He is one. He is everywhere. Based on this

description, how would one then depict Allah? It would seem as if words, like art, have

their limitations.

It is for these reasons Islamic aesthetics focus on mathematical abstraction rather

than figuration when describing the absolute. Luca Mozzati, an art historian specializing

in the art of Central Asia, says these distinctions influenced all facets of Islamic life

because, “as understood in Islam, the difference between the sacred and the profane is

flexible: everything is sacred, since everything derives from the will of God. Thus nature

cannot exist as distinct from God and no values exist that are not essentially religious”

(Mozzati 15). Having this understanding, it becomes increasingly clear that any Islamic

aesthetic must be articulated through its own vernacular. Thus the importance of

revelation, translated through the Prophet Muhammad, has generally manifested itself


11/30

4

through objects and nonrepresentational forms—visually evident in architecture,

ceramics, calligraphy, painting, and carpets to name a few. However, in regards to my

work, Islamic arabesques in particular have been the concentration of my visual interests.

Although some of the same principles could be applied to these other distinct features, a

closer examination of Islamic pattern should reveal their rich, complex pictorial

relevance.


12/30

5

Figure 1 Formation of the Circle

ISLAMIC PATTERN

More than a mere decorative motif, the rationale of Islamic arabesques is highly

symbolic. As a visual representation of something not presentable, these designs depict a

harmonious universe, articulated through geometry, and embodied through an array of

polygons or floral patterns. In accordance with the oneness and omnipresence of Allah,

this seemingly infinite expanse of space has an origin, represented by the point. Keith

Critchlow, a leading expert of sacred architecture and sacred geometry, has unique

insight pertaining to the symbolic nature of Islamic patterns. Speaking of this origin, he


13/30

6

writes, “The point of emergence does not necessarily reveal its causation either in the

field of its emergence or in the mind of the viewer. In the mind the point represents a

unitary focus of conscious awareness; in the physical world it represents a focal event in

a field which was previously uninterrupted” (Critchlow 9). The point has potential. It

creates something out of nothing. This creation will be the unseen intentionality by

which all other polygons locate themselves.

Upon having a point of reference, other relationships quickly solidify. As shown

in Figure 1, by connecting points equidistant from the center, a curvilinear line forms a

circle. Once the shape is connected, it creates a harmonious equilibrium between the two

relationships. To the Muslim, Critchlow explains, “the circle is not only the perfect

expression of justice—equality in all directions in a finite domain—but also the most

beautiful ‘parent’ of all the polygons, both containing and underlying them” (Critchlow

9). This brings us to the first polygon—the triangle. Referring to Figure 2, Critchlow

describes it as “the minimal expression of an area, and the simplest figure to which all

other polygons can be reduced. It is also symbolic of the minimal needs of consciousness

(i.e. Knower, Known, and act of Knowing), as well as the minimal description of the

basic biological needs: ingestion, absorption and excretion” (Critchlow 16). Lastly,

Figure 3 displays six circles rotating around a seventh, original circle at its center forming

the hexagon. These particular juxtapositions are not without meaning. As we will see


14/30

7

Figure 2 Formation of the Triangle

further on, though here Critchlow explains, “the centre circle loses none of its

significance as the fulcrum, but in this situation it becomes the balancing point between

manifestation below and metaphysical origins above, represented respectively by the

lower circle (the sensorial world and above as the upper circle (the world of being)”

(Critchlow 23). Moreover, the formation of these shapes, gives way to ideas, and these

ideas revert back to Greek mathematical geometry and even before.


15/30

8

Figure 3 Formation of the Hexagon

It could be said of all the varying polygons, the triangle and the hexagon retain

much of their religious significance. The Islamic study of Cosmology, in particular,

reinforced the reciprocal nature of the physical universe with the spiritual. Critchlow

clarifies that the significance of these shapes are not an isolated Islamic phenomena, but

complicit with two, major monotheistic religions. “Three gives rise to six, and six has a

vital role in Islamic cosmology as it does in the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism


16/30

9

and Christianity; and that role relates to the number of days in which God created the

world. The Abrahamic wisdom insists that we regard the inner and outer meaning of this

cosmogony, the symbolic and literal dimensions. The six-pointed star is a symbol of

perfection in all three religions” (Critchlow 58). Here, the origin of these religious

positions presents a commonality, an interweaving of their reinterpretations.

These geometric forms when repeated as pattern become decorative but retain

their meanings as symbol. And as Critchlow so elegantly expounds, “Symbols can

exhaust verbal explanation but verbal explanation can in no way exhaust symbols…

Pattern like number, is one of the fundamental conditions of existence and is likewise a

vehicle of archetypes… These three basic shapes are used to symbolize the square of

earth or materiality, the triangle of human consciousness, and the hexagon (or circle) of

Heaven” (Critchlow 24). If we accept that “verbal explanation can in no way exhaust

symbols”, then it could be allowed that there exists a never ending cycle of their

reinterpretation. Moreover, as long as there is human cognition, symbols will be

continually reinterpreted ad infinitum.


17/30

10

DIVERGENCE: ONE GOES OUT

Now that a thorough investigation of a few, pivotal aspects of Islamic geometry

have emerged, let us examine a couple features of Western Aesthetic development.

Much like its Islamic counterpart, a distinct Christian aesthetic derived from the same

Greek philosophy. At this point I would like to direct my discussion towards a historical

significance where both perspectives overlap, then elucidate possible reasons why their

aesthetics diverged.

The beginnings of the Byzantine Empire affectively redirected Greek polytheism,

eroded by the Roman Empire, to a distinct Christian orientation. Similarly, the use of

images for spiritual purposes transferred, e.g. Greek/Roman gods to Jesus, Mary, the

Saints, etc., though it did not completely change in character. It was during this moment

in history that Mohammed would have his revelation. Robert Browning, a professor of

Ancient History and author of Byzantine culture, explains, “In the very year in which

Heraclius set out from Constantinople to destroy the Persian empire, Mohammed and his

followers migrated from Mecca to the safety of Medina, where the Prophet soon won

many new adherents and, more from necessity than from design, began to lay the

foundations of a Moslem Arab state. The success of the new movement was in large part

due to the weakness displayed by the two great empires, which for so long had confined

the Arabs to carrying out as auxiliaries the policies of others. Both Rome and Persia had

conquered and been conquered in turn, and now it was time for the Arabs to make their

own history. Within a few years of the death of Mohammed in 632, Moslem armies had

broken out of the Arabian Peninsula, invaded Roman and Persian territory, and begun the


18/30

11

career of conquest that in the course of a century was to take them to the banks of the

Loire in the west and the Indus in the east” (Browning 11-12). It was during this time I

consider the two aesthetics to be in closest proximity to each other, both historically, and

as I will explain, aesthetically.

The intimacy I wish to articulate between Christian and Islamic artistic practice at

this time is not necessarily visual, but more philosophical. The early Christian church

embraced Greek philosophical aesthetics, much like their Islamic complement, and

sought to describe the absolute over the relative. Constantine Cavarnos, an Art historian

on the Byzantine Empire, describes that “the Byzantines emphasized spirituality. By

covering up with clothes the anatomically distorted body, by the stiffness of the

representations, by the indifference to the ugliness of a person’s characteristic features,

the Byzantine painter accentuates ‘the inwardness of the representations and impresses

the spectator with the idea that these beings have forgotten their body….’ The icon

painter is not afraid to distort the natural proportions of the body, to exaggerate the size

of some parts and diminish that of others, because in this way he expresses inner

qualities. He is indifferent to the correct proportions of the body, to the outer form of

man, because he wants chiefly to represent the inner man. “The interest of the onlooker

is withdrawn from the body and focused on the face and especially on the eyes….’ Here

are expressed the virtues of meekness, humility, purity, spiritual love and wisdom, and so

on” (Cavarnos 64). Since Christianity during this time saw its Savior as both human and

divine, the figure, however distorted, remained. An early Byzantine example of this

bodily distortion has been provided in Figure 4. Christ Pantocrator reveals a shift in


19/30

12

aesthetics, which purposely abstracts the human form to emphasize the absolute over the

relative.

Figure 4 Christ Pantocrator , 600-700 AD, encaustic on panel, Byzantine Period

At this point it should be clarified that it would not always remain this way.

Slowly, over the course many centuries, Western Aesthetics began developing a secular

rather than religious character. This, however, would be too lengthy a topic to be

discussed in full here. So, for the purposes of this discussion, I will submit that Western


20/30

13

aesthetic philosophy evolved to question the very idea of the absolute. This new found

freedom allowed flexibility in content. Depictions of everyday objects and scenes began

to flood tableaux otherwise previously reserved for spiritual scenes. Even the idea of

representation was called into question through the Abstract Expressionist School. And

ironically enough, these two aesthetics again crossed paths in quality though from

complete opposite positions—one secular, the other religious.

Returning again to Once and Eagle, the metaphor could allude this divergence of

aesthetics to the fashioning of the arrow from the eagle—again, the interpretation of an

interpretation. Despite these inherent differences, to maintain a meaningful dialogue, one

must allow the other their line of thought. The modern, Western perspective that

questions the relevance and, or existence of God; and the Islamic perspective that

maintains that one can in no way separate the two, even when doubting or questioning its

very existence.


21/30

14

Figure 5 Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetry I , 2012, oil on wood panel, 44x47 in

ASSIMILATION: VEILED SYMMETRY

Veiled Symmetry assimilates two distinct visual characteristics that can be found

in Western and Islamic art, respectively. At first glance, a six-point Islamic star pattern

dominates the space with its field and repetition. This pattern, typically flat, is rich in


22/30

15

complexity and symbolic meaning as discussed earlier. And second, as seen in Figure 5,

I utilized chiaroscuro techniques, exemplified by western painting traditions, to

illuminate the pattern with form, taking a resemblance of spiraling fluid. Moreover, by

distorting these patterns with a phenomenological event, I absolve the absolute of that

which it symbolizes, and the relativity in which it now stands. Comparatively dissimilar

to the Byzantine distortion of the figurative form, where the icon purposely abstracts the

physical to stress the spiritual. It is in this similar fashion that I have distorted pattern to

remind the spiritual of its humanity, of its relativity.

However, I have approached this sensitive position with reverence rather than

offence. For to the devout Muslim, figuration, when illustrating the divine, is not an

option. Once again, David Wade, an expert on Islamic pattern points out, “the making of

imitations of living beings is dangerously close to being in blasphemous competition with

Allah and the presumer may, according to another tradition, be required on the Day of

Judgement to breath life into his work and, failing, be condemned” (Wade 9). With this

consideration in mind, the distortions I have chosen are not figurative. They are

phenomenological. They are rooted in what the senses can perceive. They have no

breath of their own. They have the weight of gravity, and the fluidity of water. They, in

effect, mimic natural phenomena—all of which point to the same Greek philosophical

origin.


23/30

16

Figure 6 Mehran Mesbah. Veiled Symmetry II , 2012, oil on wood panel, 44x47 in

A SPACE FOR CONVERSATION

In order to provide a space for visual dialogue, a few, basic conditions are

beneficial for meaningful correspondence. First, placing the vast ideas presented by

Western and Islamic Aesthetics on the same playing field neutralizes their more obvious


24/30

17

disagreements, while strengthening areas of commonality. Second, they should be

equally represented. For example, in Figure 6 the various visually motifs i.e. the pattern,

and chiaroscuro effect partake of a dynamic yet even handed balance. And lastly, they

should have some metaphoric resemblance to each other, like the eagle/arrow relationship

in the poem Once an Eagle.

The eagle-arrow becomes the hinge, by which two stories intertwine.

Interestingly enough, Jacques Derrida refers to this ‘hinge’, if it can be called one, as a

monster . He writes, “A monster may be obviously a composite figure of heterogeneous

organisms that are grafted onto each other. This graft, this hybridization, this

composition that puts heterogeneous bodies together may be called a monster (Derrida

385). Although, on the other hand, he goes on to announce that the monster , once

encountered, “one begins to domesticate it, one begins […] to compare it to the norms, to

analyze it, consequently to master whatever could be frightening in this figure of the

monster. And the movement of accustoming oneself, but also of legitimization, and,

consequently, of normalization has already begun (Derrida 386). Here, I believe the

work begins to foster an environment which “interprets interpretations”, as Derrida has

suggested. However, I would include the interpretations of things as well, because a

thing as simple as a feather can serve as both lock and key to a multitude of

interpretations.


25/30

18

Figure 7 Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetry III , 2012, oil on panel, 44x47 in

HUMAN APPROPRIATION

A reinterpretation can also be beautiful. If the appropriation seeks to develop

rather than destroy its predecessor. This idea could be seen as mutually beneficial for

both perspectives. Figure 7 visually attempts to do just that. The hexagon has been


26/30

19

replaced with the flat image of a boy and girl. A fascinating discovery that could be

“monstrous” can also be read as both pattern and figure. However, the figure also

contains a dimensionality of the five-pointed star, symbolic of humanity. Figure 8 is a

detail of Veiled Symmetry III . Here, the diamond formed triangles expose hexagons that

contain human pattern figures. This juxtaposition maintains both the hexagonal

connotation of perfection, and the pentagonal idea of humanity.

Figure 8 Mehran Mesbah, Veiled Symmetry III , detail

At this juncture, it could be said, is the fleeting moment where the eagle

contemplates the arrow. However, hopefully Veiled Symmetry has interwoven this

continuous metaphor with a positive outcome. Returning to Figure 8, it reveals a closer

look into the intermixing of human figure patterns. Through the distorting of the overall


27/30

20

pattern, each detail is of different size, value, and position in relation to the greater whole.

This variation could be thought as contingent with the reciprocal nature of the absolute

and the relative. A universal relativity grounded by humanity. However, each figure

poses a unique relation to the one next to it. These relations accumulate into a projecting

mass, which moves toward the viewer—extending an invitation to participate in the

visual dialog.


28/30

21

CONCLUSION

There is nothing to be known about anything except an initially large, and

forever expandable, web of relations to other things. Everything that canserve as a term of relation can be dissolved into another set of relations,

and so on for ever. There are, so to speak, relations all the way down, allthe way up, and all the way out in every direction: you never reach

something which is not just one more nexus of relations.

-Richard Rorty

The main preoccupation of Veiled Symmetry revolves around the juxtaposition of

a few relations. Just as Richard Rorty, a modern, pragmatic philosopher, points out that

the “web of relations” will continue on in every direction and is inexhaustible. It is no

coincidence that I chose Islamic pattern as the ideal catalyst to both visually and

philosophically imbue the fractal quality of possible relations. For it has been my

lifelong pursuit to make interesting connections to ideas, to things, and now to

“interpretations”.

Islamic arabesques, full of symbolic meaning, simultaneously describe the

singular and the infinite. This encourages spectators to reflect on the absolute, rather than

the finite material world. On the other hand, western painting techniques also have an

intuitive quality that leaves the viewer in awe, reminding them of the medium’s

materiality but also their role as observer. These are two innate qualities in Veiled

Symmetry —intuition and reflection. The universe is big and our humanity small. I

believe at no time in our future history will we exhaust all of its possibilities. The only


29/30

22

unanswered riddle could be that our greatest potential has a relation to our most common

deficit—one where eagles become arrows.


30/30

23

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeschylus. “Once an Eagle” (translation from Persian), 525–456 B.C

http://www.bartleby.com/100/694.10.html

Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire, revised edition.

Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1980

Cavarnos, Constantine. Byzantine Thought and Art: a collection of essays. Belmost, Mass.: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1968

Derrida, Jacques. Points…Interviews, 1974-1994. Trans. Peggy Kamuf, et al. Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1995

Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan BassChicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978

Mozzati, Luca. Islamic Art: Architecture, Painting, Calligraphy, Ceramics, Glass,

carpets / Luca Mozzati Trans. D. Radzinowicz … [et al.]Munich; Berlin; London; New York: Prestel, c2010

Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and Social Hope.

New York: Penguin Books, 1999

Wade, David. Pattern in Islamic Art .

London: Studio Vista, 1976

veiled symmetry

Documents