How many artists will tell you that they work by intuition? Quite a few. In the last hundred years or so it has become the go-to explanation for modernism and everything that followed. In essence it defies all explanation and attempts to explain intuition in words inevitably reinforces the rubbery nature of words. Underlying the idea of intuition though lie two ideas. One is that there is a pool or source of Divine knowledge-truth external to humankind waiting to be discovered and the other that all of humankind have a pathway to the subconscious where the lived experience is stored. The Divine has largely gone out of fashion in this humanitarian age but what artists seem to be talking about is something else, a force outside of the conscious, subconscious and lived experience that bears an uncanny resemblance to magic. The mysticism of sometimes described as ‘genius’ and sometimes to cover up that the artist has little idea what they are doing other than that they are doing it. The dictionary defines intuition in part as being ‘‘Independent of any reasoning process” so using the explanation of ‘working by intuition’ staves off all attempts to either explain intuition or define it. The accepted state is that it simply ‘is’. So just what are all of these intuitive artists going on about?
The romantic view of art is that certain artists spend a lifetime searching for a doorway, to an artistic Nirvana. The assumption is that such a Nirvana actually exists, whether it is a god-defined realm as sought by William Blake, or a more humanitarian one just outside the grasp of a Brett Whitely who did his best to enter the realm by steeping himself in heroin. Others believed that if they drank enough alcohol or deprived themselves of sleep then an hallucinatory state would open the door. Inevitably the frailties of the human body caught up with them or they sought the comfort of the psychiatrist’s couch.
An idea that goes back to the Ancient Greeks and Euclid is that geometry is the paradigm of knowledge. More recent thinkers maintain that geometry must have an historical basis otherwise it was down to an individual work out the relationship of point, line and distance through intuition whereafter it took on a life of its own. Whatever its origins Kandinsky and Mondrian are examples of artists seeking access to a universal truth through geometry and once Renaissance artists worked out the principles of perspective and the golden section which had been forgotten for a millennium or so, they too were taken on board. The belief of artists that intuitively organised lines, shapes and colours could have deeper meaning fuelled a whole generation of artistic thinkers. However, the results led to more questions than answers. There is no doubt that both Kandinsky and Mondrian produced pleasing arrangements but any attempt at deconstruction of their work relied, not upon logic, but intuition lived memory. Critics were quick to point out that in their opinion Broadway Boogie Woogie may have mystical qualities but Mondrian’s love of jazz and yellow cabs was why a slab of blue or yellow was balanced by a black line. The relativism of lived experience came to the fore.
Is the same true of all works of art? Despite whatever the artist believes or writes, is all art simply meaningless without the intervention of an audience bringing to the table their own experiences? If the point of creating art is comminication and there is an acceptance that the audience plays a vital role, then whatever intuition is at play attempts not to tap into a universal truth, unless all human beings have access to it, but a mechanism for shared experience. Communication is only possible if both parties share similar memories and experiences. In the case of Kandinsky, Mondrian and the art public it may come down to living in a rectilinear environment of houses and streets.
The less geometrically inclined artists present a different side. Pollock and his legion of followers relied upon a universal belief in the rightness of gesture. As a tool for communication, gesture derives from any action of hand, arm and body. Signalling, emotional expression and writing all underwrite communication and we all learn to read such gestures from birth. If there is something like a universal language, then such gestures precede words. When an audience looks at a painting composed of gestural marks, it is those signals, expressive moments and writing that come into play no matter how big or small they are. Intuition may be the word most applicable to gestural painting, but the style is based in the lived experience of humanity rather than suggestions of divine consciousness.
How the brain processes and stores information remains a mystery. Leaps in understanding seem to be inevitable and any number of individuals have contributed to human knowledge through such intuitive leaps. Art relies upon the organisation of such processed information into a coherent whole. Order In art, however it is arrived at, is a human process. The dictionary doesn’t help either with its definition of intuition as ‘direct perception of truth, fact, independent of any reasoning process.’ There is no such thing as truth or fact according to recent thinkers such as Derrida or Foucault as both truth and fact are subject to constant change through the lens of culture. Sartre, Foucault and Derrida all noted that using logic based upon words to define intuition was flawed from the outset. Foucault expressed the opinion that the semiotic sub text is more important than whatever the text purports to say and Derrida had much to say about using intuitive understanding to understand intuition. For him a universal truth was a logical fallacy in that if it derives from a superior and finite intellect, then he/she/it cannot possibly know whether the intuited truth actually matches the truth of what is. Confusing isn’t it. Better not to think about it and just paint.
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