Extract from: Beyond the Stage of Time, Volume I Realised Realms. The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat

22 23 To answer that question properly, though, I need to step out onto some ice that is decidedly thin in the opinion of my peers, so bear with me as I take a diversion into the broader theory of art that I propose. I am convinced that the world has completely misunderstood what happened in the modern western revolution in the arts of the past century or so. As I argue in Th e Art of Understanding Art, I think we’ve got pretty much all of it wrong, mainly because we haven’t understood what happened at a deep enough level. We’re fi ne at understanding the surface movements and trends—the -isms (cubism, modernism, et al.)—but I really believe that we have fundamentally misunderstood the underly- ing nature of the revolution, and what it actually achieved. Once we understand that, it puts everything into a di ff erent, more sensible perspective. It helps us to cut through the obvious confusion visible at every modern art fair, and in galleries globally. Most importantly, it allows us to recognise that the modern revolution in the arts wasn’t as signi fi cant for the entire world as it was for the West, with its Greek, Roman, Eu- ropean, American cultural line. It was of very little signi fi cance indeed for Chinese art, which had achieved the same fundamental shi ft in its arts and their perception centuries earlier. My contention is that by labelling what happened in the West as ‘modernism’, the world was diverted from recognising what was happening to when it was happen- ing. We assumed that because we had a lot of hegemonic clout at this same time, the rest of the world would look upon our revolution as the cutting edge of art globally . Th at’s really not the case, and it led to the immense confusion that permeates the art world today—a confusion that still encourages the banality of the ‘new’ long a ft er the revolution has packed its bags and gone home. Had we switched the weasel-word ‘modern’ for ‘mature’ we would have found it easier to recognise what de fi ned that maturity. We’d also see that China in particular had reached it far earlier, resulting in an extraordinary sophistication of media, formats and meaning that preceded ours by centuries. So to answer your question in this very roundabout way, I like these tools because they give me direct access to something the subtlety of which I believe has been somewhat lost in the creeping twentieth-century hegemony of western art develop- ments. We’ve grasped the surface elements of fully mature art, with hugely exciting results, but I believe we have yet to tap much of the subtler, more profound aspects as explored over the centuries in the Chinese tradition. G I’m familiar with the argument and some of the particular ideas and materials in question—so I happen to agree, but I know that others have a lot more trouble with it. Can you tell me a bit more about your opposition to the widely held view about western artistic superiority, and why you’re so convinced you’re right? M I concede that this isn’t an easy theoretical shi ft to take on board. Th at’s particu- larly true if you are in any way invested in the conventional thinking, as so many highly trained western theorists and academics are. In my view, much of the global art world has been deluding itself for more than a hundred years. When most of the vocal establishment is locked into the delusion, change looks more frightening than sticking to conventional versions of the truth, whatever the price paid in confusion. I suppose it’s possible that I’m barking mad, and it is I who am totally delusional; there’s no shortage of people who believe that, not least a particularly scathing online reviewer who called my views on process-based aesthetics ‘o ff ensive’. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have actually read what I wrote before allowing his prejudices to point him angrily at his web browser. My opposition to the conventional viewpoint is the subject of my book, so I won’t repeat it in full here. But my conviction that I am right rests upon two factors. Th e fi rst is that it seems to make sense of all art, from any culture at any time, within the same theoretical framework. Th e second is that in the several years since I re fi ned it to the point of making publication feasible, I have yet to hear an argument against it that wasn’t missing the point. Usually, if you’ve got something wrong—and with the amount I’ve written about art over the years, I am certainly no stranger to that experience—you discover something that refutes it within about twenty minutes of publication. So far, a ft er a lot longer than that, I have yet to read or hear anything that convinces me I should rethink my theory. G I sense that we’re going to have to elaborate on this argument a bit before we convince the sceptics. How does this shi ft in theoretical approach from an object- based to a process-based one help us clarify the puzzles of modern (or, to use your word, mature) art in this context? M I noted three basic tenets of fully mature art in the book. Th e fi rst was a shi ft away from a separate theory of art to a uni fi ed theory of art and consciousness, where en- hanced consciousness was the end product of the artistic process rather than just the physical work of art. We’ve come to accept that art is communication, but it helps to link it to the purpose of that communication for greater clarity. Th e second was to put the horse before the cart by de fi ning art as any creative response to experience , leav- ing judgement as to its level of banality or profundity as a secondary exercise. We’ve tended to approach art in the past with an initial prejudice about what is and is not art. Th at caused a huge amount of trouble when our modern revolution threw up such a novel and exciting range of creative responses to fresh experience—responses that the old guard emphatically decided couldn’t be art to begin with. We’d su ff er less confu- sion if we le ft such judgements as a separate exercise about artistic weight, rather than start out with an initial binary prejudice about what counts as art in the fi rst place. Th e third main idea, which is the one that concerns us when considering your question, is the shi ft from product- to process-based theory. Th e product-based theory was based on the pre-mature (pre-modern in western terms) idea that the process was seen as artistic vision, which, with the help of acquired technique, led to a fi nished work that was then seen as the end product of the artistic process. Th e audience was then expected to approach the art object as a detached observer, work their way as best they could through the encoded languages of the surface (both subject matter, with its obvious, symbolic, metaphorical, allegorical or even sublimi- nal levels of meaning; and the line, form, colour and texture that constitute the work itself) to grasp as much as possible of the artist’s vision. Th at has always struck me as imposing a second-hand experience on the audience, rather than embracing it as an essential and vital part of the process.