Exquisite Arts Magazine Vol 1 - July/ August 2016 | Page 50

What is Transcendent Visualism?
David Curtis Glebe, Ph.D.

To all of those readers with the confidence, the passion, and the audacity to call themselves “artists,” I
issue this preliminary challenge: Do you take the endeavor of art seriously?
If your response is yes – indicating that you believe contemplating aesthetic issues and creating works of
art are personally meaningful endeavors, worthy of serious thought – I would like to introduce you to a new
conception of visual art that I have been thinking about for the past two decades, and which I have called
“Transcendent Visualism.”
As a starting point, let me pose another consideration: Why is the most common shape used for visual
works of art like paintings, the same shape used for the windows of buildings and houses, namely, rectangular or
square?
Obviously, we will occasionally come across paintings that have odd, non-rectangular shapes, as well as
windows or other portals that are round or irregularly-shaped rather than right-angled. But these are the rare
exceptions. For the most part, artists have continued to use the rectilinear format for their paintings. Indeed, even
Mondrian's display of his later paintings in a diagonal fashion underscored his choice of the square shape.
In my view, the rectangular shapes ordinarily adopted in paintings being similar to the rectangular shapes
adopted in windows, have served a useful purpose; they have facilitated the understanding and appreciation of
artwork in terms of a “simulated” visual experience.
Consider what happens when we look through a window. To begin with, we “locate ourselves in space,”
adopting a specific, personal perspective from which to make our visual observation. If we are inside of a structure,
we adopt that “inside” space and perspective, and proceed to look through the window towards whatever is on the
opposing side. By the same token, if we are on the outside of a structure and looking in, then we adopt the “outside”
space and perspective, and proceed to look through the window to whatever is inside.
Since most windows are rectilinear, moreover, the visualized field that we experience when looking
through them is always bracketed by the frame of the window itself. Accordingly, we do not only adopt a
personalized space and perspective with respect to whatever appears on the opposing side of the window, but we
experience a rectangular-shaped limitation of that appearance as well. Since we cannot see around corners, our
field of view has boundaries.

Page 50