Pulchrist Manifesto (see the addendum or jessewaugh.com/manifesto). But there is a major difference between the motivation behind Japanese Zen art and the nihilistic art produced predominantly in Western countries in the 20th and 21st centuries: The difference is that Japanese abstraction has traditionally aimed at balance and creation, while modern Western art – at least that chosen for exhibition at major museums and galleries – has had existentialist annihilation (of matter, of substance) as its primary objective.
Moreover, Zen art from both Japan and China is concerned principally with the sublime transcendent – this it admittedly has in common with certain works of contemporary art – but Zen art is rarely deliberately demonstrative of the ugly, decayed or destroyed.[20] The very core function of Shintoism, as well as that of its spiritual antecedent Taoism, is worship of the awe-inspiring Kami spirit force of nature which is in varying manifestations terrifying and overwhelming – much like the Kantian notion the sublime. But this veneration of the awesome does not usually focus on the worship of trash, as does its superficially resemblant Western cousin – contemporary, conceptual art. There is respect for beauty inherent in the Kami and Chi (life-force) worship normal to Oriental religions. Without respect for beautiful order, there can be no sublimity and no transcendence.
Tantrism, as opposed to Zen, does indeed, in certain instances, put forth death, decay, destruction, and degradation as objects of worship. The "nothing exists that is not divine" (nasivam vidyate kvacit) mantra at the core of tantrism abolishes the division between the sacred and profane.[21] This opens up possibilities for good and evil, but fully allows for attempting transcendence through depravity. Many Hindus would argue that Kali or Durga worship brings them closer to god. Let’s accept this for the sake of argument and ponder what the varying forms of Hindu immolation – which tend to result from the veneration of death and destruction embodied in deities such as Durga – might achieve: Do they achieve sublimation? Is total destruction sublime? By definition it cannot be, as it actually destroys its participant. The sublime can be terrifying, but once it crosses the line into actual destruction it kills its audience.
This is the awful (though not awesome) conundrum we find ourselves in at the end of the Modern era: we find ourselves worshiping death, rather than the dynamo constructed by the thrilling natural opposition of beautiful life contrasted with terrifying death – chiaroscuro only exists where there is also light present. If we revere the corpses and faecal matter given sacred space in our museums and galleries, we ignore the existence of half the universe. A cursory comparison of the art of Alexander McQueen with the ironic mock-art of Damien Hirst illustrates this dichotomy clearly: where McQueen succeeded at creating a balanced, amazing Savage Beauty which included both life and death in its colourful and rich motifs, Hirst has failed because his oeuvre consists almost solely of one giant memento mori.
In other words, like a Puritan who has tried his hardest to rid the world of evil, Hirst has focused on trying to rid the world of life, although his use of butterflies might be considered a sort of penance to make up for all his sad morbidity, if there is indeed any sincerity in any of his art. Beauty and ugliness must be maintained as separate phenomena, and cannot be transposed by art relativists and subjectivists, if dynamism – not one-sided puritanism – is to prevail and make art beautiful.
Here is the crux of the problem of relativism: If everything is art, then nothing is art. If nothing is art, then everything is art. If everything is beautiful, then nothing is beautiful. If nothing is beautiful, then everything is beautiful.
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