BESKID, V. 2009. Integrated Perimeter of the Serpent Geometry. In BESKID, V. – VALOCH, J. – GAJDOŠ, R. Mária Balážová / 1985-2009. Trnava : Typi Universitatis Tyrnaviensis, p.17 – 21
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Integrated Perimeter of the Serpent Geometry
When making the definition of Maria Balážová’s work and her performance on the contemporary Slovak scene, it is necessary to mention that she has dedicated her life to the radical form of geometrical abstraction and it is not less important to add that in the new social conditions after 1989, the geometrical tendencies in our state had neither appropriate position nor recognition. However, this uncomplimentary situation has deeper historical and cultural roots. Literary contents, narrative figural scenes and illustrated stories in the form of national-ethnographical epopees, ideological heroisms or miniature description of the graphical school have always had bigger political and cultural acceptance and support. Concerning the acceptance as well as the development of the abstract tendencies and the geometric language, the necessary cultural-aesthetical frame has not been created. A signal system, a necessary frequency field has not been set. The statements of a more progressive line of our modern culture are considered as evidence of the reserved or even negative attitude regarding this sphere of visual culture.
Ľudo Fulla and Mikuláš Galanda in their letters dated 1930 delivered a flat statement: Elementarism, (is) the last phase of painting development through cubism and suprematism.The components of elementarism are: circle, rectangle and cross. Since the base of elementarism is the typographical components, its longer duration is possible only in typographical advertisement and in commercial art. In the painting of pictures it can not last too long without other combinations. It is very suitable for painting as well as decoration of interiors.” (1) Thus, the Slovak protagonists of modernism shift the language of geometry into a commercial position (typographical and decorative), as it was in the Czech Republic of that time a wide stream of abstract art already present. (2) The young “Galandists” in their performance in 1957 demonstratively refuse experienced impressionism, as well as “any kind of considerations concerning vague romanticism or spiritless abstractionism”. According to the words of Robert Dúbravec, the members of the group “are against radical abstract extravagance in their activity”.(3) After 1948, abstract art was totally unacceptable for the official scene due to the ideological positions of the dominant Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. Therefore, the geometric language began to be exerted in Slovakia considerably late – only in the 60’s of the 20th century, thus only during the “third wave” of geometry. (4) During its formation and assert, the key role was mostly played by Milan Dobeš, Alojz Klimo and Miloš Urbásek together with the notable performance of the Czech-Slovak association of the Club of Concretists (1967 – 71).(5) According to the words of the main theorist and organizer Arsén Pohribný:”Geometry is more than a base and skeleton of the concretistic creation as its system is universally regarded as certainty coordinate…The geometrical principle works like the geometrical code of concretism.” (6) Since 1998 Mária Balážová has also been a member of the renewed Club of Concretists.(7) However, up to the present time the Slovak geometrical abstraction has not been sufficiently included into the international context, moreover, its representatives often do not appear in the exhibitions or editorial projects, which thoroughly survey the situation in the central European environment.(8)
A short introduction of Mária Balážová, or a dictionary entry might be as follows: Mária Balážová (1956) after university graduation (1984), deals in the second half of the 80’s mainly with drawings, creation of objects and with fashion design. Since 1992 she has had a significant place in the media of painting with a serpent motive (Passing, 1992 – 93), but it was the following key cycle of canvases under the title Serpent Geometry (since 1994 until today) that was the turning point for her. It brings a penetrating approach to the definition of the own geometrical language and its entrench in the semantic stratifications. Up to these days it is an extensive cycle of more than seventy works, which present canvases with a black fleuer body of a cobra, at first on a grey background (since 1994), later in a clear red picture field (since 1999). In the last period (since 2006) a new surface in the picture series has appeared, namely just a contour line of a serpent body on a neutral background, but in a chaotic broken dance of forms. Together with Adam Szentpétery (1956) they represent the most noticeable contribution for the development of geometric language on the Slovak scene in the last decade.
As for the analysis of Balážová’s production, we have chosen these supporting words: medium, serpent pattern and its possible readings (archetype, centripetal force, architecture, writing and figurative picture). Painting is the royal discipline in the fine art world, although, during the 20th century it was many times ridiculed and condemned. However, it is obvious that painting means something deeper saved in the brain as well as in the communication channels, it represents primary mythical visual thinking (before the text). In this way, painting ”forms the geometrical code of the European civilisation, but its present nervous system is represented by the electronic media”.(9) In this sense, painting becomes a clearly conservative force, which unites the image of the world. The world is summarised in a nonrecurring scene, sign or image system and inscribed into visual paths in the form of condensed information.
Painting becomes for Balážová a sensitive layer on which she records the visual data. It becomes a motherboard and basic code into which she inserts the encoded sign systems and in that way she defines her symbolic world of the serpent shapes. It is unique that the depersonalised interpretation and the exclusion of the painter’s brushwork paradoxically support the inner structure and the enigmatic force of the sign as well as the picture as a whole. Important period in Balážová’s work is the year 1992, when she unstoppably moved from drawing and graphics to paintings. We emphasize this intentional change and choice of another medium also because Balážová did not receive the classical education in painting, since she is a graduate of the University of Performing Arts, majoring in Stage and Costume Design (1984). During the years, we can notice only three colour phases in her work. After the initial yellow background with a pointilistic multicoloured serpent body (1993) comes a black serpent line on a mild grey background (1994 – 99) that is surpassed by a bloodred background (since 2000) with a more expressive insertion of the serpent figure into the foreground.
Sober colouring is followed by an even bigger reduction of the form and compression of the composition. A flat, cranked serpent trunk with the diamond-shaped head of a cobra remains the supporting “figure” in this geometrical pattern. The primary body labyrinth and the serpent head emblem become the symbols of Mária Balážová. It is about a programmed searching for one formula, concentration upon one pattern, one picture module. A significant change happened in 1992. In the key series of drawings Lexicon (1 – 9, 1990 – 92), a lot of levitating organic and geometrical elements are cumulated, compressed and overlapped. Cells, amoebas, unicellular organisms, fallopian tubes, schemes of organs, together with lines, arrows, geometric bodies and signs appear next to each other. The set of scattered elements shows the encyclopaedia of visual as well as mental signs of the present time. The painting series Passing (1992 – 93) already has a dominant element, a dominant shape – that is the linearity of the body with a diamond head.
It comes to a crucial change concerning not only of the already mentioned medium, picture lexicon, but also of the whole conception. Instead of a number of elements on one picture surface, we have one supporting element in a number of new compositions and transformations. Instead of a chaotic formation and multisonorous composition, the focus is on one tone, on one accord in an infinite sequence of variations. A systematic visual oneword lexicon arises that gives name to the present world, a minimalistic caleidoscope, where the serpent sign is spilled and settled again. Today, the serpent pattern forms both the basic and the central motive of Balážová’s picture thinking. Taking into consideration the backward “archaeology” of this sign in her work, we can surprisingly find out that in her vocabulary it has been latently present from the beginning of her creative progress. We can find the forms of triangles, diamonds and assigned lines even in the red-black colouring already in the author’s fashion designs from 1986-88 (MAB A-1, 1986; MAB B-2, 1988; MAB C-1, 1988). It is a unique phenomenon in Slovakia regarding the application of geometry language into the fashion design sector, remotely referring to the stage and fashion design of the Russian constructivists in the 20’s of the 20th century.(10) Also in the next drawing series Pose (1 – 7, 1989) and the Rocket Man (1 – 2, 1989) appear strong triangular forms as totems with a tangle of aggressive refracted lines, which are impaling, wrapping around or cutting into them. We can find this serpent contour in the shape of a long cranked dashed line at the end with a triangular arrow also in the stated cycle of Lexicons (1990 – 92). In the painting series Passing (1992 – 93) Already a closed perimeter of lines appears, firstly with two semicircular forms (Passing 1, 1992), and finally in the next variants we can see a story of the diamond-shaped head with two “eyes.” Thus, this is definitely a prologue to an extensive epopee of Serpent Geometry with a codified cobra pattern. It is the beginning of a long way, which intends to gain the maximum from one formula, let it speak in an infinite chain of metamorphosis, let it resound the “inner resonance” of this serpent sign. Referring to Kandinskys’ words:“Each form, whether abstract or geometrical is characterised by its own inner resonance, it represents a specific spiritual phenomenon…and therefore, each form has its own content. Thus, the form is the outer reflection of the inner content.” (11)
Due to a meaningful designation of Mária Balážová’s painting effort during the last 15 years, it is important to observe not only the chronological succession and application continuity of one shape, one pattern, but foremost it is necessary to decode this message in a picture field, uncover its possible meaning layers, conditioned by a cultural reading of visual text. The symbol of a “cranked” snake represents a strong creative code, certain inherited cultural “mem” (12) which only goes through the author’s canvas and refers to the outside picture and philosophical as well as semantic levels.
At the same time every picture represents its own processual field, where an ancient morphing of signs, alternating of forms and their natural reproduction occurs. Both logical calculi and algorithms are overlapping here with the imagination of creation and cumulating of energies and meanings. Serpent Geometry means establishing the picture order and balance of picture forces, therefore also the frequent use of symmetric compositions. Particular branches of the serpent body create connected vessels in order to equalise the spiritual surface. Their combination determines the basic geometric platform, where the concentrated system of forms and signs plays a part. The painting canvases are introversive and strongly centripetal in a sense of traditional picture thinking (especially HG 1 – 23, 1994 – 96; on a grey groundwork). Their “central power” (13) does not stand only on circle layouts, on rotating in four and six-branch forms, which are usually symmetrical according to two axis, but also on complete adjustment of picture field to the central archaic sign with a symbolic-spiritual tone in the form of cross, wreath, swastika, hexagram, quatrefoil, flower, etc. Thus, a unique series of new visual cosmograms arises in an ascetic form, emotional satiation and spiritual power. It allows us to look through the painting surface into symbolic space, where the serpent shapes and patterns create only transformed values in a constant field of self-knowledge and self-reflection. It is about circular centres, a particular sort of mandala, jantra and contemplation. This everlasting ritual serpent dance around the magic circular “fire” metaphorically discloses “ouroboros” – a curled serpent swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. This symbol represents the infinite cycle of time and shapes, the sign of rebirth and renewal (similar to a snake sloughing its skin). Balážová’s canvases restore the ancient signs, archetypes, in the sense of Kundalini-Yoga, they also connect the strengths of male and female features.(14)
We can perceive the stated cycle as a real snake alphabet, pictographs used to write the messages for the knowledgeable (apropos, the icons in the Orthodox world are written, not painted – icon writing). The pictures might be some kind of secret writing, a visual cryptogram, inscription in an unknown or forgotten language. The author is not only inspired by the culture of writing, she directly transcribes chosen letters into a pictorial code (HG 20 – Islamic; 1998, HG 27 – Z, 2000; HG 54 – J, 2005 – 06; Alphabet 1 – 3, 2001 – 02), she inscribes her own monogram into conductive perimeters of the serpent body (HG 33 – Fatum, 2000, HG 49 – Portrait, 2005/6), but we can perceive every new image, every new picture field as a letter, which gains sense by sequencing the pictures one after another. In this way it becomes a part of a linear story of a picture text. Taking into consideration the basic general literacy as well as the language and computer literacy that are so appreciated today, we do believe we will not forget the alphabet of sensitive contemplation, deeper visual literacy. Serpent alphabet is only the next tool of this literacy, next text, where both the present and the past are written down by the creative art. It naturally develops signs of cultural memory, the signs of historic-symbolic awareness. It is about an intuitive definition of the neologism and in the same time it is about the intentional bond referring to the ancient cultures (references to the Greek, Christian, Islamic, Indian cultures, to the Oriental philosophies, and the like). The Serpent Geometry brings an original form of picture architecture. The author systematically builds particular structures of serpent dwellings as well as monuments. She suggests and constructs hard forms, rationally gives reasons concerning the relation of the part to the whole, projects a new picture space on the two-dimensional surface. On the canvas there appear pious architecture monoliths, monumental portals, pillars and totems, architraves of the sanctuaries and ground-plans of sacred groves, but also the stonecutter marks, concrete girders and plans of sewage structure and the like (HG 15 – Temple, 1997; HG 31 – 32 – Slavín 1 – 2, 2000; HG 44 – Slavín 3, 2004; HG 64 – Dukla, 2006). Thus, the cycle inclines towards the overall conception of “art as a construction” versus “art as a picture”, where the main role is not played by mimesis of facts, but by the very act of “creation of the world”.(15) To the architecture of the picture contributes also the favourite square form. It is a symbol of stability, earth bond as well as intellectual preferences and it forces economic expression and compression of used data. We can even perceive the synoptic projection of the serpent architecture in the square picture field as the author’s quiet homage to the square, Malevich’s icon of the modern world (HG 55 – 57 – Homage to the square, 2005 – 07).
The picture series appeared recently, where the strict order of symmetrical shapes is spread into chaotic, deconstructive constellations. In the intricate situations, particular serpent signs crash into each other in a disoriented way, anxiously vibrate, mutually overlap and shout at each other (HG – Chaos 1 – 6 2006, drawing in Chinese ink on paper). Possibly a new picture (dis)order is simultaneously formed, or maybe these spread structures express nervousness and panic of the present day, a big Babylonian confusion of languages and values? Or is it a possible collapse of our cultural architecture into itself? Even big cultures and civilisations leave behind only fragments, torsos and shards.
On the one side, Balážová introduces constricted architecture of a picture as well as the reduction of form, and on the other hand, she opens a big communication space for the post modern play and combinatorics of signs and symbols. Exactly this limit exceeding the geometrical abstraction, elaboration of the enriched morphology and insertion of new content levels brings a figurative reading of the author’s creation. On the Picture scene appear anonymous geometrical shapes, which in particular groupings and together with other forms gain a new identity, they become an intelligible figure on the neutral ground. They represent an encounter of the serpent “ornament” archaic and the individual form in the new constructed post-modern coordinates. It appears as a fence, test tube, mask, another time it can be a missile, rocket, alien (HG 14 – Rocket, 1997; HG 28 – Mask, 2000; HG 29 – Fountain, 2000; HG 30 – Alien, 2000; HG 34 – Madonna 1, 2001; HG 52 – Missile, 2005-06; HG 61 – Test Tube, 2006 – 07; HG 65 – Guillotine, 2006 and the like). Serpent Geometry incorporates also the cryptic gender messages, metaphorical encounter and overlapping the male and female principle (phallic body and diamond shaped serpent head) in the organism of a single picture. We can find an ironic undertone of this issue encoded also in author’s “self-portrait” (HG 49 – Portrait, 2005 – 06).
We fing the perception of each picture important as an open field of associations with an eclectic interweaving of levels and meanings. Exactly this exceeding of the geometrical frame and enquiring after the possible content of the abstract pattern creates a significant contribution of Mária Balážová to the post-constructive, post-geometrical abstraction in a wider central-European context. In the end, after multiple projections of individual small frames, scenes and sequences of a feature film titled as Serpent Geometry, we notice it was all about gradual unravelling of the “Serpent coil” shapes – strongly centric, bound compositions are being released and unravelled into asymmetric compositions and figures which lead to an unrolled chaotic grid of serpent ribbons, scattered on the paper. However, Balážová in the position of an experienced “snake charmer” does not lose both the excitement and intensity of particular sequences, what is more, she constantly collects new meanings as well as possible readings. Watching this serial story – a story of one “refracted” serpent series remains an intellectual adventure not only for the author but also for us – and despite the mental strain it has a relaxing and cathartic effect.
b.skid
Translation: Ajša Margita Muranová