Introduction to Virtuous Circles

VIRTUOUS CIRCLES

DIGITAL ELECTRONIC PAINTINGS (2003) BY JOHN O’LOUGHLIN

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INTRODUCTION

The twenty paintings in this project were created in 2003 and act as a kind of illustration of and symbolic analogue to aspects of the mature philosophy included in both CENTRETRUTHS - Journeys to the Centre of Truth (Collected Philosophy 1977-2009) and, more generally, OPERA D’OEUVRE (Collected Writings 1973-2009), which is to say, to those texts in which deliverance from sensuality to sensibility on both noumenal (time/space) and phenomenal (mass/volume) planes has been explored and effectively delineated in terms - elementally conditioned within a given gender reality - of rising or falling axes.

It is not for me to attempt to spell out or describe exactly what is being symbolized or illustrated by any of the paintings, since, quite apart from the irrelevance of such a procedure to the enjoyment of art, many of them will either prove self-explanatory or at least more intelligible after a study of the relevant philosophical works, which were, after all, the principal motive for their creation in the first place. They can, of course, be viewed and enjoyed without reference to the mature philosophy, but with a knowledge and understanding of it most of them should come to life in a way that will leave no doubt as to their symbolic significance and status as an adjunct to the philosophy in question.

Unlike Mondrian, who is in most respects my antithesis, I have not resorted to callipers or rulers in order to measure the exact placement of lines within any given painting, but have relied on intelligent guesswork, a sort of cultural intuition as to the correct or most advantageous positioning of a line, with a consequence that the result can never be more than an approximation to a central or equidistant position and overall impression - something crucial to the maintenance of art not only as distinct from, say, technical drawing or geometry, but in and of itself, where the artist's individual judgement is the touchstone by which the authenticity and, above all, cultural significance of his art should be evaluated!

For no man has the right to consider himself an artist for whom technique is more than the mere handmaiden of vision. Callipers and rulers simply result in craft, and craft can get along more than adequately without any vision at all, as evidenced by the paucity of imagination attending those works which have been so carefully and meticulously crafted ... that nothing demonstrably artistic or cultural is to be discerned in or, rather, on them at all, and their mass production becomes all the more feasible, if not inevitable!

Perish the thought that the viewer familiar with any of these paintings should come to a similar decision in regard to them!

John O’Loughlin, 2005 (Revised 2006-10)