Pages dedicated to Mercury1

Sahaif at-Taridiyah

by: Abdul-Hādī (Ivan Aguéli)

Among the different esoteric doctrines, none offers as many analogies with the Islamic
ones as Chinese Taoism, a fact expounded by Matgioi in several of his works. It is all
the more surprising that Islam, not solely in its exoteric but also its esoteric form is - we
would not say the combination - but the right milieu and equilibrium between Judaism
and Christianity. The Kabbalah can be a unifying treaty between Talmudists and
Christians, we could not deny it. Yet, the Muslim Kabbalah is not at all the same thing
as that of “Sepher ha-Zohar” and “Sepher Ietsirah”, despite the numerous
rapprochements. Even though Islam had to adopt most of the characters and the
geography of the two Testaments in its symbolism (even with identical meaning), its
spirit is another. It differs from the other traditions known as Semitic, only to be
distinctly approached to Taoism or the “primordial Tradition”. Islam, even at the
exoteric level, has always defended itself against being labelled a new religion, claiming
the title of din al-fitrah, that is, the primordial Religion, the religion of the beginning of
humanity. There is a very curious tradition related from the Prophet Muhammad, which
says: “Seek Knowledge, be it in China!” China is mentioned here in order to convey a
simple figure of speech, designating a far away, unknown land, as to suggest that no
effort should be spared to find Knowledge. But it may well be that the Prophet could
have alluded to Taoism, or the Yi-king, since the difference between Islam and Chinese
tradition is but that between the universal Religion and sacred Science. In order to bring
out all the points of comparison between Islam and Taoism, one needs to comment, line
by line and page by page, the above-mentioned books by Matgioi, followed by
Philastre’s translation of Yi-king. It would be worth the effort, due to the surprising
results such a study could entail. Here, we will content ourselves with signalling some
fundamental principles, such as: predestination, transcendental pantheism – for which
we use the term “supreme Identity”, universal man, the cerebral feature of visual
reasoning and unlimited tolerance, owing to their nature which is not counter-religious,
but extra-religious. We repeat that the list of points of agreement between the two
doctrines on the principles can be extended indefinitely.

Transcendental predestination has nothing to do with the present decadence of most

Orientals. The cause for the latter resides exclusively in the demoralizing action of
despotic governments, as well as the ethnical heterogeneity of those peoples. Wherever
one is in the presence of a homogeneous and free group, one finds as much collective
morality and individual valour as in the best European countries. Abjection does not
start but through government contacts, and, as a consequence, within the big cities, be
they capitols or trading centres. Predestination consists in the notion that Heaven does
everything, not so much directly, but indirectly, through people and other instruments.
Our destiny makes us consider the natural or human history like a sacred book, where
we are more or less an unimportant party. A great writer who calls himself a Catholic,
but whom the Catholics are inclined to disavow, Mr. Léon Bloy, has defined well our
fatalism through the notorious phrase: “Whatever happens is admirable.” It is our

1
Published in the journal La Gnose (January-February 1911).
fatalism which makes us find a monumental character in certain diverging facts.
Throughout Europe, we found but a handful of Parisians, sceptical urban people, who
would understand what could well be the resignation to Heaven’s will and
transcendental predestination.

Like Matgioi, we find that sentimentality has nothing to do with the esoteric
development of personality, because it is fundamentally egoistic. It is first of all
blindness and a dangerous confusion of backgrounds. It is difficult to distinguish therein
the universal from the particular; what is done exclusively “for God” from what is done
for petty earthly interests. Yet, the indispensable condition of the first gleam of the
“esoteric Illumination” (al-ishraq) is, rightly so, a place reserved solely for God in the
inner being. It does not matter if this locus is big or small, rich or poor, but it is of
paramount importance that it be completely pure and untainted. In the present, troubled
state of life, it is very difficult to reach sincerity and the condition of absolute divine
Solitude, even for sixty seconds.

If one objects that the growing of the Muslim esoterist consists in the progressive
transmutation of the “Passion” (shawq) and “Love” (ishq), we would reply that it is not
the sentimental man that the Sufis describe as “passionate” or “enamoured”; that
sentimentality, in the ordinary sense of the word, can prove useful in the evolution of
collectivities, because, under apt direction it can become prudishness, a “solidarity of
species” (Matgioi) or other forms of well-meant egoism; that it comprises, like egoism
and lack of conscience, the two greatest obstacles to the individual development of
personality; that the term al-wijdan ought to be translated as “emotivity”; that the term
al-dhawq (taste) ought to be translated as “intuitive taste”; and finally, that the
European word “sentimentality” in its ordinary sense has no correspondence whatsoever
to the language of the Sufis, but what is nearer to it is al-tawajjud, i.e. “simulation of
emotivity, pure and unmixed.”2

The “supreme Identity” (wahdat al-wujud = Identity of Existence) is based on the

perfect accord between the outward and the inward. God is Existence, and Existence is
always unique and absolute, as well as superior. As long as the human brain will be able
to perceive the singularity of supreme logic, monotheism will be the natural and
primordial religion (din al-fitrah) in perfect agreement with the “primordial tradition”
(Matgioi). We have tried to avoid the words pantheism and mysticism, since they bear
an outdated convention and give rise to regrettable misunderstandings. The “supreme
Identity” is a sort of transcendental and synthetic materialism. The free thinkers should
have been our brothers; but, having missed the breadth of the matter, they have stopped
halfway through, and being obedient to the obscure instinct of the “religious animal”
they’ve become pundits to ancient art, just like the rest.

2
The term “sentimentality” has several meanings, of which we mention but three: the Parisian, French
and pan-occidental. The Parisian meaning of “sentimentality” is a sort of moral convention, and has no
laudatory employment. For the other meanings, consult the dictionaries and etymology.
Sometimes one mixes sentiment with sensibility, which is not the same thing at all. Sensibility is the very
foundation of the esoteric mentality, because it is the departing point for the development of the sixth
sense, through which the “I” and “non-I” are identified. The initiating evolution is directly connected to
this identification. The development of sensibility is part of the “Dominican mysteries”. Most of the
heresies arise from a confusion of the terms. The confusion between sentimentality and sensibility allows
some embitterment to deviate all generous movement of the spirit.
The concept of “universal man” (al-insan al-kamil) in Muslim esoterism is nearer to
that of Taoism than to the dreams of “Messianism” or those of the “rule of God”, due to
its social modesty, its fatalism and intimate nature. The theory of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-
‘Arabi on the universal caliphate and the Mahdism has nothing in common with the
scoundrel of Alexandria and other anthropophagus, be they white or black.

The high cerebral feature of the visual reasoning makes sure that, despite the identity of
tradition, esoterism and exoterism live in two entirely different planes. Since they
cannot meet, all conflict is impossible, except in cases of the profanation of mysteries,
when it is always the doctors of the law who are right. Those are martyrs who die
combating, be it against the exclusivists, or for the rights of man and the citizen, that is,
against the tyrants. One cannot call martyrs the esoterists who have been crushed in the
street after deliberately falling from their ivory tower. We must not judge them. Only
Allah knows the matters of afterlife and what the depths of human soul contain.

We are alluding to the celebrated martyr Ibn Hallaj, who was executed as a heretic in
Baghdad.3 According to theological opinions, his punishment may be considered just or
unjust. The truth is that he was condemned justly, not as a heretic, but as a blasphemer
and disordered person. Among the judges were his initiates and today the same persons
who find his punishment just, venerate his memory. He spoke a language which was
foreign to the plebs, who got upset and executed him. Yet, the social misadventures
prove nothing, be they even tragic.

The heaviest imposition in Islam is not the tithe, but democracy and the respect for
certain rights of ignorance. We do not know what to admire most in Muhyi al-Din’s
style, the boldness or the tactfulness. Illuminated since his youth, the great Master had a
premonition of the delicacy of his mission and did not accept the position of secretary to
different princes of occidental Islam, except to train himself in managing the
susceptibilities. Still, he is more Muslim than all the Muslims, and it is also beyond
doubt that precisely meditation upon the Muhammadan spirit and the Koran awoke in
him the esoteric mentality, from which gush forth all the sacred sciences. Yet, it is
wrong to say that “he is orthodox, despite being a Master of esoterism.” It is qua
jurisprudent that he was orthodox. It is equally false to claim that the exoteric perfection
leads per force to illumination. One can practice the outward religion for a century
without perceiving anything of esoterism, whereas ‘Umar ibn Farid’s elevation to a high
level of spirituality was caused by a violent love. Therefore, one must conclude that the
relationship between the outward Path and the inward Path is rather minimal.4

We insist on the fact that the two are very hard to compare. The most perfect of all the
esoterists, the Malamatiyah, treat dogmatic discussions as pointless preoccupations,
worthy for the simple quietists, and they look for illumination in pragmatism. It is,
moreover, an almost general rule that, as soon as one passes the threshold of the
Sanctuary, one does not think anymore in words and formulae of current language.
Intelligences which are but auditory can advance only slowly in the inward and superior
Path, while all those who are not visionaries by birth must learn to reason through
geometrical figures and luminous points. It is therefore absurd to speak of orthodoxy or

3
In a Tuesday of Thu’l-Qadah of the year 309 Hijri (921 C.E), near the al-Thak gate.
4
We translate Shari‘ah as the “outward path”, Tariqah as the “inward path” and Haqiqah as the
“supreme path”, the latter being the goal of spiritual development.
heterodoxy of the great masters of Islamic metaphysics, because any confrontation
between their opinions and those of the doctors of the outward path is completely
impossible.5

Where do the similarities between Islamic esoterism and Chinese Taoism that we are
about to notice, come from? We exclude a priori any historical affiliation, because no
serious documents can prove it. Rather, we believe that the two schools resemble each
other because they have reached the same depths of human conscience. They have seen
the same reality, and it is necessary to enjoy similar faculties in order to experience the
same vision. We negate neither the unity of the “primordial Tradition”, nor the spiritual
genealogy of initiates, but we want to say that certain parts of the chain can be found in
an extra-temporal plane, and are therefore out of the reach of historical research.

The two initiatic chains

One is historical, the other spontaneous. The first is communicated within the
established and known Sanctuaries, under the direction of a living, authorized Shaykh,
possessing the keys of mystery. Such is al-talim al-rijal, the instruction of men. The
other is al-talim al-rabbani, or Godly instruction, which we will allow ourselves to call
Marian initiation, because it is received by the Holy Virgin, mother of Jesus son of
Mary. In this initiation one draws the same spiritual substance that the others draw from
antiquity. It is indeed quite frequent in Europe - less so in its lower degrees, while it
remains almost unknown in the East. For the last eight centuries Marian initiation has
been so frequent in the Muslim east, because it is primarily pragmatic.

The numerous parcels of truth widespread in works of poets or heroes of the West are
remnants of more or less uncompleted Marian initiations.

We and our times

Abu’l-Hasan al-Shadhili warns against those who invite to mischief, because one
undertakes the inward path to reach peace, not agitation. Ibn ‘Arabi speaks of the
exclusivists, that is, the fanatics and those led astray, who exhort people to become like
them, to act like them in everything, having no respect for the legitimate freedom of the
individual. Everything comes from God, the disbelief of the atheist as well as the faith
of the believer. All the zeal behind the public show is an inconsiderate act, committed
by individuals who have a simple-minded conception of God’s might. There is some
impiety to intervene without a legitimate motive – preferably outward – in the
development of human beings. The delirium of the pontificate is one of those enormous
antediluvian sins, which make the miseries of the Adamic fall look like benefit because
it is due to them that the sin of cosmic mortality can only reach a certain limit in their
consequences. Instead of cataclysms, one has the ugliness of the middle class. We,
therefore, do not ignore that it is as grave a thing as inviting the mediators to guard the

5
Esoterism can either be perceived, or not. In the latter case, the most beautiful discourses and the most
subtle dialectics are incapable of demonstrating it. In the former, the words are superfluous. In both cases,
discussion is useless.
world. Rather, we do not wish to trouble anyone, or make any sort of propaganda for
our personal thoughts. But we consider the world to be a Book of God. His signs are
everywhere and human beings are signs too. All of His books seek to explain one group
of signs through the others, and what is obscure in a certain passage may find its
explanation in another.

Therefore, the difference between the outward world and the inward one is illusory.
What is called “matter” is opaque only in the lower “degrees” of Existence. The more
one evolves, the more it [matter] becomes transparent. Moreover, it has multiple
meanings. What would a book be without paper or letters? Besides, in almost every
language there are words of a very noble origin designating both the world and matter;
nothing reflects the “primordial Tradition” better than etymology.

So, nine tenth of the quietists are simple runaways. Since the world is bigger than their
spirit, they seek to diminish it in order to look great. For them, Muhyi al-Din is severe,
as he criticises those who look for beauty in a small artificial world.

Life is an obligation, we agree on that here below. The decadence of the Islamic East
coincides with the disappearance of the Malamatiyah (the pragmatic Path) and the
appearance of quietist paths, whose names we won’t mention.

There are, therefore, all sorts of good reasons to react against quietism, because its
inactivity is the equivalent of the worst destructive agitations.

Polarisation
The world being that of contrasts, alam al-asdad, the study of phenomena comprises,
first of all, the discernment of complementary contrasts, through which they subsist.
Thought, just like electric current, breaks down the subject into two categories of
elements, positive and negative; intelligence then reconstitutes those elements into a
new, purely mental product. The soul restores in a crystalline, eternalized and hieratic
form what it has taken in a crude form. Let’s have a look at the formula below:

Idea : Hierarchy
– × + : Antithesis
Subject : Nature

Let us for a moment imagine under this formula the problem of societies’ renascence
and decadence. We see that today’s most general antithesis is: past × future. The first
figure will be:

Each of the coupled terms can develop Present, past × future. Fixed time,
indefinitely, parallel to the other. stability, the absolute calm of an
integrated society, totality of material
times.

Who speaks of the past, speaks of tradition, custom and collectivity. In esthetical
parlance, one says: class and style. In politics, one says: conservative. Future means:
emotion, initiative and individuality. In art: romanticism. In politics: liberalism, at least
in principle. Individualism is always futurist, since the secret, rigorously personal
aspirations always have a tendency towards the future. If you mark your x in the line of
tradition, for example, you will find that the ideal tradition will be that which develops
individuality through all the means of ancient wisdom, i.e. the intellectual heritage of all
humanity. With such a tradition, there will never be any decadence.

For Muslims, the spiritual master is called murabb al-murideen, which means the
educator of the aspirants, or more generally Shaykh. The real Shaykh is not one who
shapes the aspirant according to his personal image, but rather, he who develops the
murid in accordance with God’s will, that is, one who makes you yourself and expands
your real “I”. You think you are following in the Shaykh’s footsteps, whereas in reality
you are following your own path, i.e. the way which is personal to you, in accordance
with Divine destiny.

Pure art
The title of this series of articles provides, in itself, an explanation for the diversity of
the subjects dealt with therein. We do not wish at all to delve in contemporary
aesthetics, but solely to define the question, to show the importance of pure art in
esoteric studies, to outline the principles of this art and illustrate our theory by a few
brief critiques based on examples.

The plastic arts are, so to speak, the graphology of the human soul, as well as a
spontaneous revelation, however abstract, of personal and superior desire. Their study
constitutes an excellent training for visualizing, and thus for the logic of light, which is
almost indispensable for opening oneself to the metaphysics of forms. In many cases, it
is placed between theory and practice. Those who’ve read Tolstoy – whom we’re not
presenting as an initiate in any way – may recall one of the heroes of his War and
Peace, who, having been hit by a bullet, looked amazed at the sky, as if he was seeing it
for the first time. This sensation of luminous hollowness, consoling and rich in
meanings, which ordinary words cannot translate, is in a certain way a prime matter
from which one can sculpt an esoteric mentality. We confess, to our great regret, of not
knowing the Greek civilization, but we suppose that the philosophers of the Greek
antiquity did not use the word “music” except in a much broader sense than
‘harmonious sounds’, thus wanting to express the emotive eloquence, evoking a new
world, almost what we call today “aesthesia”. It can be said that art is the passion
which, through mathematics, makes the spirit play with matter. It is nevertheless to be
noted that it is the passion here which constitutes the spirit, and mathematics is that
which relates to matter, whose perfect science it constitutes. Therefore, matter is itself
science and science is matter. Yet, matter, as the “Great Innocent”, is - whatever the
priests may say - absolutely sacred. It is so, primarily thanks to the Holy Virgin and the
Immaculate Conception, a fundamental and indispensable dogma without which
esoterism would be a quietist’s daydreaming or a sort of embezzled alcoholism.

More specifically, art enables us to catch a glimpse of “fixed time” or “the permanent
actuality of the extra-temporal and inaccessible me”, which, in its turn leads to the
intellection of the fourth dimension, whose esoteric importance cannot be
overemphasized.

Many a person write about modern music in publications reserved for esoteric studies.
Therefore, we are only following a precedent, albeit in a freer fashion.

We can but speak about pure art, the only one that should interest us here. This is why
we make a distinction between cerebral art and sentimental art. The latter, which is
more common, has its aesthetical effect especially in the medium of the spectator’s
memory, by the association of ideas, stirring more or less confused recollections;
whereas the former gains impressions directly, with no intermediaries of any sort, by the
- though inward - sensation matérielle of the pulsating beat of life. We would like to
remark that its superiority consists solely in the great interval between the two extremes
of its extension – even quality and quantity – as well as in the concentration of the
intermediaries within those extremes. It is futile to try and make the profane understand
the whole primordial grandeur of a realist work, whose material precision increases
exactly because of the abstraction that its author makes from himself, and from his
effacement in the universal life.6 The intelligence of this transcendent simplicity is a
demarcation line between the vulgar and the elite.

Whoever says pulsation says rhythms, i.e. action of numbers.7 Pure art does not exercise
its mind-blowing empire over the spirit, except through the fact that it only takes from
matter its subtleties and power, leaving all the rest. In fact, matter is limited by time and
space, which numbers regulate immediately. An English aesthete whose name we could
not find has said: “In art, everything is series, contrasts and repetitions.” Here, after all,
lies the whole science of aesthetics.

Whereas, according to the principles of the purity of art, we refuse to see, for example,
in a painting, anything but the colour on the canvas, esoteric mentality is met – like
always – with good sense. What we want to say is that a painting has to be picturesque,
a sculpture sculptural etc. All emotion stemming from the subject is extra-artistic and
therefore harmful, since it is irrelevant, even if it were moral. All that art says through
means other than eloquent proportion, i.e. the harmony of number having an individual
and impassioned sense, come from the Devil. That is why a still-life of Chardin
(vegetables, kitchen utensils) has more artistic value than the great historical or religious
machines of our fire-fighters.

Anyone who looks down upon still-life is not a painter. He can be a writer, a poet,
whatever you like, except a painter, because what is called “still-nature” is for a canvass
the same as pantomime for dramatic art.

All workings of plastic art consist in specifying its passionate or amorous will through
measured accents in three-dimensional Euclidian space, in other words, through design.
This word, taken in its largest and most artistic sense, signifies form, which always

6
When rancour would grow, [Paul] Cézanne would say: “I’m going to the landscape.” Gauguin left for
Tahiti primarily to immerse himself back into the primitive world of simple emotions. It was, in a certain
sense, a bath of innocence along with a return to the origin. The critics from Paris do not understand that
his journey was more than anything else a displacement in time rather than space.
7
It is during dhikr that dervishes assimilate certain rhythms. Dhikr is therefore, a kind of Hatha -Yoga.
implies light, therefore colour – explicit or implicit. The perfect identity between what
is vulgarly called design, and coloris is the touchstone of the artistic or non-artistic
nature of a particular work, because the antithesis line × colour finds its immediate
solution in light. One cannot but consider an ancient masters’ design: despite its
monochrome or black and white composition it always gives an impression of colour.

Their paintings, even after turning black or pale by time, look lit up by a sun that God
would have expressly created for each of them.

Summing up, pure plastic art is less a creation of objects than an establishing of
personal and volitional proportions in all directions of Euclidian space. We will
designate each dimension of this space by its typical axis. Therefore, we have three
axes: vertical, horizontal and optical, or visual; we designate thus the anterior-posterior
direction, which stretches from the eye to the horizon. We wish to avoid the term
‘perspective’, because it has but a very narrow meaning in current language: that of
linear perspective, to the exclusion of everything else. Yet, within art, the solar
perspective and especially that which corresponds to the mental state of the moved
spectator are much more important than those of engineers.

The mysterious element of art is manifested especially in the design on this axis. It is its
accord with the design on the other two (the vertical and the horizontal) which makes
line and colour to be identified in an impression of luminosity, giving way to the magic
in a work of art. Its exactitude can never become an object of calculation, however
ingenious this may be, whereas the design on the two other plans supports calculation
and discussion up to a certain point. The profundity of a painting, which is to say its
luminous, psychic and other perspectives, comes solely from spontaneity and
inspiration. Either one has it, or not. If one does not have it, it can be gained only
through a stroke of unexpected grace, whereas one can teach the whole world how to
design in the other two directions. Such a design can be of a certain extra-picturesque
interest. It can be literary, dramatic, psychological, whatever you like. From the point of
view of pure art, it will never be anything more than dullness.

The design of certain modern masters is mental. The figure is not what the material
qualities represent, but another one, implied - though too precise - which is formed by
the tendencies of these qualities. It is design through motion, indicated indirectly. A
dynamic parallelogram will illustrate the idea well. If we mark with A, B, and C its two
sides and diagonal respectively, A and B will be the expressed qualities, whereas C the
resultant. The latter is implicit and through its direction and intensity it determines the
mental figure which was the object of artistic operation. The number of composing
elements and resultants of an ordinary design is incalculable; here we are only
formulating the theory.

The fundamental antithesis - whose solution is the artist’s problem – is emotion

(individual love, personality, nature) and style (collectivity, external order, tradition).
The exclusive perfection of style produces a work without defects, but without merits
too. Without emotion there is no merit, but a personal work without style makes a
confusion of merits and flaws which is not any worthier than an impersonal work of a
cold style. Paris does not exert its absolute power on modern art except through the
right measure it maintains between tradition and nature. Nowhere except Paris does one
see the painters which are called romanticists appreciate and study the ancient masters
in an intelligent fashion. Also, the most modern painters are at the same time the most
fervent regarding Louvre. Tradition without initiative produces nothing but guile and
retraction on well intended art, whereas the secret of equalling the great masters of the
most fortunate periods - from the point of view of beauty - consists in the combination
of initiative with method, of amorous and personal study with intelligence and taste
moulded by ancient tradition. This is how the masterpieces of a royal appearance are
born, yet they have an effect of collectivity through the beneficent and hieratic order of
a single personal and luminous will. The purest and most cerebral painters of the
nineteenth century are Daumier and Cézanne. Among our young contemporaries there is
Picasso, Le Fauconnier and Léger.

***
In the previous pages we established a profound difference between cerebral art and
sentimental art. Only the former is of interest to us, from an esoteric perspective. It
teaches the solar logic and develops the sense of fixed time or the permanent actuality
of extra-temporal and inaccessible me, without which the fourth dimension is an
impossibility. This art, based on emotive number, partly corresponds to the music of the
Western classical period. There are many Muslim treatises on esoterism in the form of
explanations of the principles of Arabic grammar. The aesthesia of sentimental art is
indirect. It affects especially the memory of the spectator, through association of ideas,
stirring confused recollections, atavistic and common ones. Cerebral art deserves the
name of pure art, due to its direct aesthesia, because it impresses without the
intervention of any foreign self or external object, through nothing but the inward
feeling of the pulsating beat of life, i.e. rhythm. Yet, rhythm is nothing but number in
psycho-physiological activity. That is why the dhikr of the dervishes is a vital
assimilation of certain rhythms of the initiates. The first condition of a sacred, or even
sacerdotal, language is thus to let itself be rhythmic without much effort, i.e. to balance
its consonants and vowels by itself. The importance of pure art, from the point of view
of gnosis, is to link the concrete to the abstract, quantity to quality, space to time,
through none other than the extreme limit of matter, i.e. numbers. We call this pure art
because it takes nothing from matter except its own principles - what it most profound,
general and subtle in it. As a consequence, we say that all emotion arising from the
subject is extra-artistic and thus harmful and irrelevant. All what art seeks to express
through means other than eloquent proportion, i.e. harmony of numbers with an
individual and passionate sense, comes from the Devil.

All work of plastic art consists in specifying its passionate or amorous will through
measured emphasis in three-dimensional Euclidian space, in other words through
design, through form in the widest sense of the word. Yet, whoever says form, says
light, whoever says light says colours, expressed or implied. Thus, after a certain
spiritual elevation, one notices the antithesis line × colour disappearing in luminous
perfection.

The identity between line and colour is the criterion for exactitude of the solar or mental
perspective. It is the perspective of the moved spectator, and it is formed by a new
disposition of the three planes. Only the dominant one is what is called subjective, while
the rest follows the known laws.
This article is addressed only to persons who know what the mental perspective is.
Those who do not know its meaning would better read something else. But whoever
would really like to learn about it, should study Ibn al-‘Arabi. If language represents an
obstacle, one should study Islamic art. One should simply look for the reason why the
ancient monuments of purely Islamic architecture, even the most modest ones, always
look greater than reality. They seem to be getting bigger by the look, through a sort of
unfolding of the wings or movement of the opening fan. But in the absence of access to
Islamic art, one can study the transformation that space undergoes with the approaching
of death. It suffices to observe with artistic attention the moment of real and conscious
danger of death. There are plenty of marines and servicemen among those who study
the Kabbala.

The human antithesis, whose solution imposes itself to the artist, is emotion × style. The
problem has always different approaches, according to the different forms of universal
opposition, like: individual love, personality, nature, innate gift (emotional side),
external order, tradition, acquired ability (stylistic side). Without emotion, one obtains a
work of banal style, with no merits, be it even impeccable. Without style, there is a
confusion of flaws and merits, which isn’t any worthier than a work in a cold, soul-less
and vaguely prostituted style.

The aim of the scrupulous artist is the style personnel, through the combination of
amorous and personal study of nature with intelligence and taste developed through the
study of artistic past. Art is the equilibrium between nature and tradition, not just in
alchemy but also in aesthetics.

It can be said that all picturesque emotion oscillates between Spain and China, as it
were within two poles. China represents the element formal succession of the inward
sensation, whereas Spanish art carries us immediately to the new world of the artist,
where the plenitude of perspective effaces all preoccupation of past and future. Chinese
art is tasted bit by bit. Spanish art, on the contrary, surrounds one with a mental
atmosphere of simultaneous rays. In art, China signifies time, while Spain signifies
space. We need to add that, without the union of these two elements, there can never be
art, i.e. progressing towards God through the union of complementary contrasts in the
reality of forms. China and Spain provide this union, but not in the same fashion: what
marks a beginning in one is an end in the other. The personality of a Chinese artist is
specified in the succession of notes, which makes a great and dominical core, whereas a
Spanish artist manifests his self through the simultaneous accentuation of the three
traditional planes of space. From there proceeds the emotive intensity of his art, where
forms break away. In art, Italy is nearer to China than to Spain, whereas France is closer
to the latter, and Tintoretto is the most Spanish of the great Italians. Many persons will
perhaps oppose our classification of French aesthesia, but we can only speak here of
principles. It suffices to look at the primitive French people in order to notice the
enormous difference between them and the old Flemish masters, be they German or
Italian. One cannot attribute to them any kinship outside Spain.

No part of the union between succession and simultaneity is more perfect and profound
than in Arabic art, African art and Malayo-Polynesian art. By African art we mean not
only that of Egyptian antiquity (sculpture), but also that of the Berbers of Sudan and
that of Abyssinia. In Malay art, one should also link certain elements of Khmer art.
We’re going to call all these beauties equatorial art, even though Egypt and Arabia are
not tropical countries, properly speaking. One should include here Sinhalese art, of the
Javanese antiquity, as well as that of Dravidians, because a Nordic element has turned
them away from their primitive tendency.

What distinguishes equatorial art from others, giving an extraordinary importance to all
of its products – even the most modest of them – is the notion that it possesses in the
highest degree what we can only designate as vibrant immobility, due to its eternal and
infinite nature, which leaves a fascination of great calmness in the soul and whose
hallucinating power is profounder than the most subtle drugs.

The contradicting and abrogative antithesis of this art is (modern) German art. The first,
despite its ecstasy, is never sentimental; the second is always so and cannot be
otherwise. The first is always cerebral, despite the intensity of its excitement; the second
is never so. The artist of the tropic, be he even a savage, knows instinctively that
aesthetic equilibrium rests on the threefold unison, which in itself comprises the
foundation of eurhythmic tradition. All Chinese, Spanish, Italian, and French artists
agree on this matter.

The purists, however numerous, form a homogenous group. In spite of this, they are
nothing short of doctrinaires; and even less pastiche-makers; but since they pursue the
same goal through the same path, they are – though very distinct among themselves –
even more estranged from other painters. All their theories can be summarized by
saying that they search for truth in the precision of light, through the highest simplicity
of means. This double condensation results in an intense, personal theory, besides a
frank and perspicacious art. In front of a purist’s work, one knows immediately what
one is dealing with. Nothing but the preconception of extreme clarity should make it, if
not sympathetic, at least worthy of respect, because it will never waste your time.

In all schools, there is a doctrine (theory) which indicates the goal, and a method
(practice) which enables one to reach the goal proposed by the theory. Let’s take a look
at our case. Is it true that picturesque reality is found exclusively in the precision of
light? We believe it is so, and all French painting confirms that the most important
elements in a picture are the values, i.e. the exact and intelligent distribution of light. In
other words, it is the architecture of space and the equilibrium of volume in emptiness.
There are some unformed sketches which give a striking impression of reality. That is
why the accuracy of certain principal values takes the place of all the lines which give
the objects their forms.

The reader may perhaps object that determining the gradations between a black patch
and a white one is not an occupation which involves the superior faculties of man. It is a
deep mistake. Wisdom (al-hikmah) is nothing but the art of putting each thing in its
proper place, giving it its due, showing it in its real light. The unconscious (or
subconscious) esoterism of the purist painters – of whom a few realize the admirable
type of crude transcendence – has understood that this modest work, this small detail of
nothingness is in reality the Great Arcane, the core of orthodoxy, the crown of sacred
and primitive Tradition. Thus, they sacrifice everything for the accuracy of tone. It is
precisely this which proves that the first principle of this school is absolute honesty and
good sense. It is deplorable to see them being treated like wags who are mocked by
people. Those who have chosen as their only discipline the abstraction of all that could
tangle up their dominating thought cannot be liars. The sole reproach that a loyal
adversary would raise is perhaps to want too much clarity, and to push the evidence up
to blunt nudity. To this attack, one can respond by saying that there is paradisiacal
nudity and profane nudity, that the Lady of the well can best be dressed by a sunbeam.
It is nice to have intelligent adversaries; in spite of themselves, they apprise us.

The reader may also object that one cannot fully understand the relationship between
the self and a learned gradation of black and white. We say that even light from the Sun
is not the same for everybody. In the first pages of this article, we have laid out in
principle that the artist is a person who feels that God has created a special Sun. It is by
specifying, through a simple workman’s conscious piece, a ray of this Sun, from his Sun
to him, that the artist attains the highest summits of wisdom and personality. If he
prefers to imagine that his personal Sun is in fact the only one in the universe, we see
nothing inconvenient therein. Here lays, therefore, a matter of intimate consciousness:
perhaps the innocent habit of this petty fanaticism is part of his working hygiene. Few
things in modern life can console the artist; a bit of alcohol – figuratively speaking, of
course – is therefore nothing but a venial sin.

Simplicity is not only the principle of all art, but of all spiritual activity as well. It is the
seal of mastery. With his preconception of parallel touches, from the upper right corner
to the lower left, Cézanne used [simplicity] as a means to control a material element of
work, an element which distracts the searching artists from the highest problems of
painting. Being unable and unwilling to suppress this indispensable and often rebellious
matter, he will regulate it by circumscribing it to the conventional forms, making
eloquent rhythms out of them. He can include such a prevailing idea without difficulty
into his technical speculations, wherefrom will stem the superb visions which are the
glory of these highly celebrated works. The purists of our times have recaptured and
developed this idea, and their design is to the works of other artists what algebra is to
ordinary calculation. The reduction of all the forms to geometrical figures gives an
unusual appearance to their works, which shocks the profane. However, it is an
ingenious system for precisely determining not just the volumes, plans and distances,
but also the standards and the low key. Through this means one obtains an indissoluble
link between line and colour, which produces a rhythmical progression in the sense of
visual axes. It establishes the luminous psychic perspective, which manifests all
mystical elements that an artistic work expresses. We said that design on the visual or
optical axes cannot be obtained by just any apprenticeship, since it is exclusively the
fruit of inspiration. The design through geometrical abstraction is in any case the same
as mental design. The latter, formed by implied resultants whose components are
expressed visually, is to painting what la nuance seulement relative to colour is in
literature, in the famous aphorism by Verlaine. It is well understood that this system
does not convene to everybody; one has to be well inspired and very sure in oneself to
design in such fashion.

The purist discipline renders all sentimentality impossible; but what is lost from this
edge, is found with vantage in cerebrality. We have seen some works of Picasso whose
luminous beam is crystallized in a mosaic of precious cut stone and enormous diamonds
of an extraordinary transparency. But we have also seen, from the same master, designs
that support very well the proximity of the greatest Italians. It is through purism that we
will end up discovering the ancient Greek, Arabic, Gothic and Renaissance arts. Picasso
has made all aesthesia of ancient Spain evolve by bending it to the tendencies and
virginities of Polynesia. Le Fauconnier possesses all the wonderful qualities of an old
primitive Frenchman. Léger has recaptured the aesthetic problem which haunted Ingres,
who looked for the secret of Raphael, who in his turn looked for the ideal of Greeks.
Yet, while staying true to himself, Léger has expressed beauties that followed Ingres. It
goes without saying that the purist of our time has suppressed all kinds of guitars in his
play.

When we say that art is the union of contrasts, we refer especially to the union of
complementary contrasts, primarily that of time and space, succession and simultaneity.
The repelling contrasts are beyond our subject-matter, since they do not pick up their
influence from Mercury. We can summarize in a definitive and inclusive way by saying
that rhythm is a unifying series of linear or dynamic contrasts; that the values and
contrasts between the bright and the dark are nothing but rhythms in the direction of
depth on the visual axis. That is why the perfect gradation of values evokes immediately
the other rhythms evolving in the directions of the other axes, horizontal and vertical,
which constitute form in its ordinary sense. The contrast of complementary colours is
rightly neglected by the purists, because the famous theory concerning them - which has
poisoned a generation of painters - is but a lab theory. On the contrary, they observe
attentively the contrasts among deaf colours and sonorous colours, which are much
more important than those between, e.g. a green and a red, because they sometime
resemble a conflict between the active and the inert, or even between life and death.

The purist movement is the modern manifestation of the eternal principle of “art for
art’s sake”. One can consider Cézanne as its founder, in continuation of the tradition of
Chardin.