Anthropologies and the art of Roee Suffrin

I have written previously on the relationship between Persian anthropology and the works of Roee Suffrin
http://www.suffrin-art-friends.com/french/poesie-persane.htm
and on Jewish anthropology and the works of Roee Suffrin in a number of articles featured on the Ifrosa site.

The power of Suffrin’s works, witnessed by those who have placed them in their homes, derives from the fact that they never fall into an academic category whose components and originality could be the subject of an art lecture. For such academic or economic talks, the works would more likely have been placed in museum-cemeteries, to be taken out of cold rooms or vaults, examined in front of students and experts and replaced in the vaults at closing time.

The dialectic tension between simultaneous immutable forces

The existential experience of living with a painting by Suffrin – as in the daily life of an art lover – creates something altogether different: a dialectic tension between immutable forces. In what way?

1. The painting possesses, at such a moment, a double dimension: that created by the gaze of the painter, during his quest and execution: and that created in the gaze of the art lover who owns the painting.

2. There is an inner tension within this “double” gaze: the inner gaze of the initial creation and the current external gaze and inner reactions of the spectator. It is like an electric explosion or intimate conception between two parents.

3. The simultaneous tension between these dynamics dominates everything and is constantly stimulated by the static, decorative form the painting finally took.
It represents the ongoing tension that exists between the individual, spontaneous life of the painter and the art lover, on the one hand, and the structure of culture, on the other hand: indeed, the person who acquired the painting, did not do so solely out of desire but also out of a cultural appreciation. The painter himself never manages to completely escape cultural influences, no matter how “creative” and personal he is.

What is striking about Suffrin’s paintings is the way he succeeds in inserting these different tensions within the result represented by the work itself as a constant creative object.

How is this represented in his works?

This is seen at a double level:
- The gift of his representation which is more or less evident and always very varied (for example,: a child, a woman, a place of work or of worship, a social event).
The painter gives and the buyer receives the gift with satisfaction.
- At the same time there is an additional characteristic phenomenon: the artist leaves blanks on his canvas: areas of a person are missing or outside the frame, areas of space are left blank, as seen in his paintings of children, the cosmetic world, or office scenes.

(photos)

In other paintings, where this missing element is less evident and the individual seems complete, as do his surroundings, the absence and tension are represented in another way. This can take the form of a line which seems classical in its abstract modernity but which is in fact closer to Arabic or Persian calligraphy.

(photo)

Muslim anthropology

Below is an example of the work of Hassan Massoudy whom I have admired since the 1980s and who helped me understand the tension that exists in art: in his art, the message depicted is often a thought (a quote) of great universal value formulated by a Muslim sage. The graphic representation of the thought is not just embellished or sublimated by the calligraphy, it becomes a new aesthetic, personal creation which preserves the richness of traditional calligraphy and conveys its message with respect and loyalty but also breaks it through strokes endowed with freedom (real, beautiful, controlled but always incomplete, creative, and less evident than the text, questioning, disturbing, provoking).

(photo)

In 1981, Massoudy sent me a drawing of the declaration of human rights (all human beings are born free and equal) and a calligraphic representation of my name.

The drawing of the declaration is full of beauty, tradition, and dynamic renewal. But…
But the artist also placed before me an interrogation, a pure reflection of the tension between given, assured beauty and the incomprehensible/unknown. He does this, without cheating. All the art of Arabic calligraphy can be seen in his rendering of the Koran as in his calligraphies of individual signatures.

Indian anthropology

Let us try and understand further this living, vital, constant clash which the painter sets out in his paintings.

Art is universal. It places us in a dynamic which Huoang-Sy-Quy, professor of Indian philosophy at Saigon University, describes in his remarkable work: “le moi qui me depasse” (the I which surpasses me). This is the tension which Vedanta describes so precisely: all knowledge is double: that which is overt (asad-buddhi) and that which is covert (sad-buddhi).
The greatness of Suffrin is that he does not falsify things, unlike academic art systems (found in all avant garde schools, including repetitive conceptualism) which purport to have attained the “truth” and believe they convey it with consummate skill.

Suffrin perfectly connects the gift of personal beauty and the cultural theme, but he always retains the element of uncertainty of life.
This is what Sankara and Vedanta philosophy gave to humanity: even if we lean towards the essence, existence remains primary. Olivier Lacome, a great scholar of these philosophies who taught me Indian philosophy when I attended university in 1960, expressed this well (in his book: L’absolu selon le Vedanta, the absolute according to Vedanta) when he wrote that a successful representation (as in a painting by Suffrin) can only by achieved by a detour, a “laksana or indirect expression.” Indian tradition, as formulated by the ancient master Shankarasharya, says that the essential “does not express itself (usyat)” but is only “indicated” (lashyat).

The great M.P.Massoun-Oursel, who studied philosophy with Henri Bergson, psychology with Pierre Janet, sociology with Geroges Dumas, Lucient Levy-Bruhl, Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Indian philosophy with Alfred Foucher, Hellenism with Sylvain Levi, Chinese philosophy with Edouard Chavannes, described this Vedantic science of reality “as tension between manifestation and non-manifestation.”
He wrote that the Absolute, in this tradition, is that the unity and multiplicity which sustain the universe only possess value through their inter-relationship… and both have “a physical appearance.” We never have direct access to the absolute which resides beyond appearances, whether in a code or in knowledge.

A painter-artist, such as Roee Suffrin, who responds with art and beauty to the expectations of those who gaze at the canvas of a master, also plunges us into these true, multiple dimension through the diverse themes he deals with. His themes always concern man and the contemporary world. His mastery of academic techniques is used to produce something beautiful and there is no specialization of themes. His themes are varied but this does not mean that he has not yet found himself. On the contrary, the multi-faceted unity of his paintings possesses an immense, vital meaning like that of a living organism.

His paintings, therefore, never leave us in a state of soporific calm, for Suffrin plunges us constantly into this dynamic which reveals itself in the most humble aspect of existence. Sometimes we are plunged in the beauty of the universe, of spirituality, of inter-personal relations, etc, but – often – this duality or multiplicity of dynamics, that is always connected to existence, creates a painful tension in the visual work or in ourselves.

The canvas arouses a gradual emotion which requires time and does not diminish with time: this is the constant dynamic which Indian philosophy understands when it analyzes with “art” everything related to the “spectacle-spectator interaction” (Book Drg-drcya-viveka. English translation by Swami Nikhilanada: French translation by M. Sauton: Comment discriminer le spectateur du spectacle. Adrien-Maisonneuve. Paris 1946).

As Jean During so masterfully demonstrated in his many works on the music and mysticism of Persian traditions, Indian tradition gives us an answer to the immense emotion aroused by art or traditional music: it is that every limitation (avaccheda), such as a painting, is an illusion for everything concrete is just a witness (sakshin), intrinsically connected to complete reality.

A great painter – such as Roee Suffrin – knows how to render this global connection of unity within multiplicity, and the coexistence between multiplicity and unity within the appearance (“jiva”) of a painting. When this is successful, a painting comes alive before our eyes, interrogates us, and the spectator lives in front and through the painting. The painter has the great generosity to give it to us and to detach himself, in order to enable his painting to become the autonomous companion of the other’s journey. This is what art lovers experience in front of his works.

Looking at his paintings simply from an artistic, technical, academic perspective would mean missing the richness of his work, and would have little relevance for the artist who created it, as a gift for us and in the name of multiple cultures. In this, Suffrin joins traditional Jewish anthropologies which acknowledge the greatness of other civilizations and do not seek to conquer or dominate them.

The common anthropological approach which I have described – and which is seen in the very special art of Roee Suffrin – does not just belong to ancient cultures. It is also found in contemporary societies made up of immigrants from a variety of cultures. Thus, in the US, the great avant-garde poet Rochelle Owens practices this approach which I can describe as a beautiful, poetic calligraphy which unites the message of language in its common cultural affiliation, with an inner rupture of language and being. These are the two inseparable dimensions of a work of art.

The work of a true painter and the work of Roee Suffrin, in particular, have an affinity to all these, ever present, processes.

Yehoshua Rahamin Dufour