1. Espátulas rectas de Velasco
1.1. Características de las espátulas de Velasco
101
In chapter II, I tried to find parallelism between Culin’s theory and Pollock’s idea focusing on Korean influence of games and ideas, even though, there have been many possible origins which are discussed for influence on Pollock’s work: artists such as Benton, Picasso, Orzoco and Indian art. A recent study confirmed that Asian arts, Chinese and Japanese style of calligraphy and ideas were found in Pollock’s paintings.228 When we discuss Asian influence on Pollock’s work Korean calligraphy and art would be less known to the world than Japanese or Chinese art. However, in the ethnological focus, Korean Buddhist and folk art became well known as the Far Eastern origin in Culin’s study who is one of the finest American ethnologists. Culin introduced Americans to a Korean world view, ideas, folk art and even its foundation myth. The previous chapter looked into Culin’s study which was Korean Games and ‘American Indian Games’, ethnological studies by him have rich ethnological, mythic, philosophical information. Many Korean illustrations and folk paintings in the book are comparable with the numbers and figures in Pollock’s work and his idea of the basic universality. Above all, the Buddhist drawing and the other animal figures in Pollock’s work can also be compared to the illustrations in the Korean Games.
Some other works in later times can be seen in their connection with the other Korean Buddhist, folk art and ink paintings. However, these connections to an interest in Korean art in American artistic and ethnological circles have been somewhat overlooked.
Landau argues that the ethnographic element in Pollock was conveyed from Picasso by John Graham’s interpretation. Graham never mentioned Asian primitivism in ‘Primitive art and Picasso’ although he had an understanding of Asian art.
The decisive event precipitating Pollock’s move away from a visual and thematic dependence on the contemporary Mexicans seems to have been his making personal contact with John Graham- whose eloquently expressed belief that the achievements of Picasso were conceptually linked to ethnographic art Pollock clearly found to be eye-opening and thrilling.229
However, the interest about Picasso’s Asian characteristics has recently come to light. Secret
228
Belgrad, 1999: 168.
229 Landau, 1989: 63.
102
Images: Picasso and the Japanese Erotic Print, published in 2010, shows that Picasso was inspired as early as the 1900s by Asian paintings, for example, Japanese Ukiyoe and Chinese ink painting and calligraphy, popularised in Europe and the US. At that time Korean art was also popularised in Europe and America. Pollock was also interested in Picasso’s paintings and Asian art and ethology as well as international issues, particularly the ‘Manchurian business’. John Graham, a very influential critic and artist in Abstract Expressionism, also referred to Korean art in his book, System and Dialectics of Art (1937). It is possible that John Graham introduced Picasso’s primitive art element to Jackson Pollock. At the same time, all of them are interested in Far East Asian ethnology, arts and culture.
In this chapter, my purpose is to find out which characteristics among Asian arts, used by these artists and writers, is Korean. Also to show how Jackson Pollock came into contact with Korean art, through the works of Picasso and John Graham together with Culin.
And what do these three people have in common, related to Korean ideas and art. How Asian ideas and art were reflected on Graham’s writings, in particular, “Primitive Art and Picasso” and System and Dialectics of Art will be examined beforehand. If John Graham’s understanding of Asia had influenced Pollock, Korean features would also be extracted.
103
1. KOREAN TAEGEUK IDEA IN FAR EAST ASIA: PABLO PICASSO, JOHN GRAHAM AND JACKSON POLLOCK
The fundamental Asian ideas seem to have been misinterpreted by Western methodology while original Asian culture has remained mystical in the eyes of Western Modernism. Asian culture had participated in the development of American avant-garde but the Asian spirit and mind were leached out mainly by European psychology and philosophy. This was possible because ‘Jung presents a picture of wholeness in his description of the mind which is closer to the model of the Oriental philosophies and which was developed (in part) through a study of them’230 and therefore, ‘Jung provides a framework within which the concepts of Oriental thought can be made accessible to a western audience’.231
For example, W. Jackson Rushing even tried to relate Newman’s fascination in Northwest coast art to Jung, Nietzsche and Worringer.232 When Rushing studies Abstract Expressionism artists he seems to have found the origin of Worringer’s quest for
‘Kunstwollen’ and Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’ in Nietzsche’s metaphysical assumption, considering that he quoted Nietzsche in the connection with Jung because of the ambivalence. As he put it, ‘Nietzsche discovered that the more he came to understand the human need to redeem the horror of existence, the more he felt “driven to the metaphysical assumption that the Verily-Existent and Primordial Unity, as the Eternally Surffering and Self-Contradictory, requires the rapturous vision, the joyful appearance for its continuous salvation.”233 If Jungian theory works, Worringer’s Abstraktionsdrang could be seen as Dyonisian succession from the Greek vision to the unconscious of American modern artists.
However his ethnological approach to the American Indian influence on Abstract Expressionism may have overlooked the fact that ancient Greece was not so similar. Most of
230
Clarke, 1988: 59.
231
Clarke, 1988: 59.
232
Rushing, 1988: 188.
233
Rushing, 1998: 188.
104
all, Rushing’s approach to find the origin of ambivalence from Nietzsche by using Jung’
ideas is within Asian mysticism or has a close relationship, because of the fact that Nietzsche was influenced by Buddhism. Therefore, comparing the ambivalent thoughts of Nietzsche, Worringer, Jung, Graham and Pollock the common experience found is about Asian characteristics and ambivalent ideas. This will provide a better understanding of how the Asian ambivalent idea of eum (yin) and yang in Taegeuk functioned in the development of Abstract Expressionism and the artist who reflected it in his work.
When considering the Taegeuk shape that Pollock drew (fig. 21) and the international issue in Far East Asia, particularly ‘Manchurian business’, it possibly still represents Korea in terms of the ethnological view, as I referred to in chapter I. It can be said that Teaguk is in the Korean collective unconscious, and that the idea comes from the Korean foundation myth. More over, Korean foundation myth was first recorded in A.D. 1280, 500 years before Bryart and Mongolian myths, which have a similar structure in the Far East and hold the beliefs in the Heavenly King from Korean foundation, thought to have been handed down through the ages by shamans.234 The shaman in the Far East area is believed to have been transmitted from the legendary ancient leader. Stewart Culin and Allen introduced Korean foundation myth in Korean Games with corresponding games of Japan and China in 1895 and Korean Tales in 1889. Japanese cultural origin and nobility is from Korea in terms of the historical and ethnological view. Moreover, the Taegeuk diagram that Pollock drew was the symbol of Korea untill Japan temporarily wiped it out when they illegally occupied Korea. Thus, the Taegeuk idea is not traditionally Japanese, seeing as they are not a Confucian country. Korean Buddhism used the Taegeuk symbol in many areas, but Japanese Buddhism did not.
John Graham was also regarded as a Jungian although he delivered a scorching indictment in his response to question 71, “What are the bases of Western Civilization and
234
Holstein, 1999: 117.
105
Western art?”235 Moreover he had a great interest in ethnological materials and relics of the American Indian culture and was passionate about Asian ethnology and art in System and Dialectics of Art. Pollock said that ‘only one man who really knows’ his work and the content was John Graham.236 System and Dialectics of Art is a collection of answers to which John Graham asked himself 129 questions. It displays his knowledge well, reflecting his critical thinking skills of art and history. Through the book, his understanding of Asia and the difference between Eastern and Western art can be seen. He observed Asian art in the 45th question: What are the characteristics of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Mesopotamo-Assyrian, Indo-Chinese, Byzantine, Mohammedan, Russian, Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-classicism, Romantic, Impressionist, Primitive (Negro, Oceanic, Precolombian), Populist and Modern Art?
Indo-Chinese (Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Khmer, Melanesian, Pamir):
aimless, decorative exuberance to the detriment of unity. The uniformity of treatment precludes great artistic value. Indo-Chinese art is not an abstract art but a craft, unemotionally, impersonally, objectively produced in series and therefore having the quality of an industry.237
There is no high praise to Asian art but he noticed the strong ethnological link between art, ideas and the unconscious in Asian arts including Korean art. Above all, he argued the difference between Chinese, Jews, Arabs, Russian races and Anglo-Saxon races with mysticism.
In the past history of mysticism some races developed it as an art in itself. Such mystic-moralist systems were produced by Hindus, Chinese, Jews, Arabs, Russians.
The Anglo-Saxon races produced no mysticism of their own but affected a great gusto for an imported brand of exotic, “drawing-room mysticism” in its cheapest, most practical manifestations.238
He would have known the significance mysticism played in Asian art. Notably, eastern mysticism in the East is actually made up of ideas, religion, truth, world views and the unconscious for Eastern people, but came to be termed mysticism by Westerners, as referred
235