The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

Chapter Four A VITAL SPIRITUALITY Junko is a spiritual artist for the twenty-first century. Her work exhibits a kind of spirituality which grows out of the shared experience of the twentieth century and which is honest to our age. Yet it has its roots deep in the spirituality of an earlier period. my readers may hear echoes throughout this book of a discourse that flourished a hundred years ago, from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s, around “the Spiritual in Art.”1 ideas that Van gogh had expressed in his letters, about the need for the artist to pursue his “inner necessity”and to “disentangle” the object from nature so that its eternal essence could be perceived2; kandinsky’s notion that the artist’s job is to raise the consciousness of the viewer, and that the artist’s talent is society’s only road to “the spirit of the future;”3 Worringer’s identification of “empathy” as a more advanced stage of art than “abstraction”4 —all those ideas have discernible echoes in Junko’s own writing about her art and they echo throughout this book. And there is more. The influence on the thinkers and artists of the early twentieth century of “spiritualism” in the form of Theosophy and the writings of mme. blavatsky seems to be felt also in Junko’s art and thinking.5 This influence, which was combined with a new respect for indian thought and culture that piggybacked on the burgeoning distaste for colonialism and for the arrogance that went with it6 spread to many of the artists whose work Junko admires: kandinsky, klee, Picasso, and mondrian.7 The deliberate dissociation among the Theosophists of the sphere of the truly “spiritual” from any form of organized religion, and their notion that an apprehension of true spirituality would form an “international brotherhood” that would transcend cultural and religious boundaries—these ideas also echo in Junko’s insistence part two // chapter four A Vital Spirituality p. 159

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

PREFACE

-Definition of Centripetal Art -Its Place In Art History: After the Postmodern Period -Introducing the Subject Matter: One Centripetal Artist's Journey -The Relationship With Multiculturalism -After the Death of God and of Art

FOREWORD

-How the Author's Connection With His Wife's Art Grew More Intimate Over the Years -Learning In Marriage -"Why Does God Need To Paint?" [Section One] Individual Visitants -Dead Flowers and Root -Lungs and Rib Cage

CHAPTER FOUR - A Vital Spirituality

-Why This Art Could Not Have Been Created Earlier -Echoes of the Spiritual Arts of the Early 20th Century -The Impact of the Atomic Bomb; Ecological Concerns -Markers for Spirituality -Centripetal Art Overflows the Studio: Therapy

CHAPTER SIX - A Complex Spirituality

-Spirituality of the 21st Century

AFTERWORD - THE FURNACE

-Polytheism and Monotheism in Art -Goethe’s Aphorism -Marriage and the Alchemist’s Furnace Themes In Series

PREFACE

(Page I) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -Definition of Centripetal Art (Page II) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -The Relationship With Multiculturalism (Page III) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -After the Death of God and of Art (Page IV) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

(Page VIII) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

(Page IX) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

(Page X) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

(Page XI) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

(Page XII) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.