Page 58 - Studio International - May 1974

isolation or differentiation. l he colours flow and The image of water in these paintings is
The paintings overlap, and the eye-to-eye confrontation with enlarged beyond the threshold of
disintegration and is easily lost in the
the animal face suggests a continuum of living
forms, 'one life within us and abroad.' awareness of paint on canvas. But the spectator
of Joseph Raffael Comedy in these paintings is movement within moves back and forth through the zone which
a larger medium, and tragedy is separation
separates focus on the physical painting from
from that movement and that medium, like a focus on the pictured image. The image, which
fish caught in a net. achieves integration only at a certain distance,
The experience of painting separate images disintegrates when approached, because then
with related meanings and the experience of one sees parts as such, instead of seeing how
painting whole images such as Salmon, or they bear upon the whole. (See the writings of
Angel Fish, and the complementary experience Michael Polanyi for the details of the
of emotional growth toward wholeness, are all argument.) But then how does the image of the
experiences of a continuous process underlying surface of water exist, in dry paint on flat
apparent discontinuities. How to paint this canvas, when the positive fact is that there is
unified process which is felt within the nothing there but paint and canvas ? The
Knowing that these are paintings; knowing particularities of experience, but which feels pictured image is in excess of the painterly
that these are paintings by Joseph Raffael; more real than any particular does ? This facts as they appear. But the image is verifiably
knowing Joseph Raffael for almost ten years; process is felt as undifferentiated flow. And if there to be seen, and it exists the way any
knowing that an artist scans experience one flows with the flow, one sees all lines turning perception of unity exists : only at a certain
according to principles and values which are a back into a primal unity, and all relations distance from the facts and materials. Such
definition of him, maybe the best definition; absorbed in the relation of a part to a wholeness is possible, however, only with the
knowing that perception of a whole requires comprehensive process. The problem is to spectator's commitment to wholeness, for
commitment to wholeness; and that a picture paint an image which will prove process wholeness, like beauty, is never quite to be
plane is an ethical plane; knowing that the without losing the feeling of the discrete believed. The focal plane of these paintings is a
artist has the task of proving his reality in a experiences which give rise to the feeling of focal plane of faith. But one is not asked to
way that is a pleasure to behold; knowing that process. The problem is to save the believe the impossible. The spectator can
these paintings are influenced not merely by appearances by making reality visible in the consult his own experience, and his experience
the past of painting and of the painter, but also appearances. The solution is an image of water is of wholeness, integration, synthesis, and
by the future, by what painting and painter are painted on canvas as a theory of a continuum unity. This integrated image disintegrates and
to become in some future integration; knowing which transcends and underlies reintegrates the same; it constrains sight, and
all this it becomes possible to say that Joseph discontinuities. thus is objective as well as personal. The image
Raffael has moved forward in his life and art The image of water solves the problem of is like the pears in Wallace Stevens's poem:
into a field which he has created for himself; and proving an experience of a continuum without `The pears are not seen/ As the observer wills.'
while knowing every reason to reduce painting losing clear focus in empty transcendence. If we The large paintings, looked at closely, do not
to fragments, to formalities, or to minimal look at actual water, we have three focal planes : make sense. And photographs reduce the
operations with materials; he for a period in the the surface of the water, say ten feet away; the paintings to sheer image, and release all the
196os painted scissored magazine-photo depths of the water, perhaps the bottom, which unstable meanings associated with water
images which were about emotional and cannot be in the same focal plane as the surface; symbolism in dreams. The meaning of the
painterly tenderness and vulnerability. These and any image reflected from above, like trees paintings exists in the actual experience of
paintings, I wrote then, 'don't yield much to or clouds, which requires you to focus at the them, an experience neither sheerly physical
formal analysis; it is enough to notice that there distance you are from the water plus the nor merely imaginary, but an experience of
is no foreground and no background; no part is distance from the water to the thing reflected. meaning itself felt as an achievement of an
more important than the other parts; there is no Narcissus's image was twice his distance from integration through a commitment.
single centre of interest, and no problem of the surface of the water. In these paintings, The spectator, in deciding on a distance from
what to do with the corners; nothing is one has the single focus on the surface, but that the paintings, decides on his relation to
subordinate, everything is co-ordinate. The surface is moved in patterns by the deep mass wholeness. This is an ethical distance because
distance between images is an emotional, not a of water, and it is coloured by reflections from the assent to wholeness is like an assent to love
spatial, distance. The images have several trees and clouds. The water absorbs these or happiness, emotional experiences which are
identities, and modify each other in endlessly patterns of movement and these colours of inferences not fully reversible to their premises.
enlarging combinations'. (`The Paintings of reflections, no matter how particular, without Ordinary binocular vision of the world requires
Joe Raffaele*: In the Franciscan Mood,' losing its unity. In fact, the absorption of these an integration of two disparate images into a
Art and Artists, September, 1966.) These particulars makes the transparent surface of the single deep view, an ability which has survival
paintings cleared a space for him, and he grew water visible as a whole. This relation of value to animals. A painting feels disinterested,
into and then beyond that clearing. concrete detail to an abstract whole is a theory and belongs to culture, not nature, because it
The paintings of discrete ideogrammatic of the life of the individual in relation to larger offers two similar retinal images which do not
images which relate to a pervasive meaning processes of life. One does not lose oneself in need integration. But these paintings of the
were followed by paintings of a single image, blind depths, nor can one focus on images surface of water do require conscious
often the face of an animal, which fills the reflected from an abstruse blue sky. The integration of the parts into a whole image, and
canvas. These paintings, with short intervals energy which would have gone into depths they show the spectator the effect of his
between the colours, suggest a transcendence of and heights is used to explore the lateral commitment or lack of commitment. The
surface. This then is a theory that the paintings represent an insight into unity
*Spelling changed since 1966. information we need about the whole is in fact which throws attention not beyond the surface
on the surface. Coomaraswamy writes, 'The but on to the surface, an implication that a part
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Joseph Raffael, Water Painting IV, 1973 (detail) world is the unknowable as we know it.' is most fully itself when it is seen as part of
Oil on canvas, 78 x 114 in. Collection of Walter Elsewhere it is written, 'The outer is all of the a whole.
Goodman, Stanley Picher, San Francisco. inner that can be known.' WILLIAM S. WILSON

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