The letter of Cecil Touchon sent to me in 13 Mar 2006

Cecil Touchon writes about my articles in the 19th issue of THE SECRETS OF PERFECTION Spirituality in Art where among others her name was mentioned. My comments below in color. (J.M.)

Dear Jurate,

Thank you for including me in your discussion on spirituality in abstract art. It would be interesting to conduct a dialog on the subject. Personally I think you are not quite right on some of your ideas and conclusions. Additionally it could be more interesting for you to talk directly to the artists that you mention to see what they have to say. (Touchon's words "To talk directly to the artists" can be understood as correspondence or teaching. I have no free time for correspondence. If you would like to be trained by me, pay me money. Most interesting for me is to do my work and approach perfection. What artists have to say, they said through their art.)

When you mention spirituality in church paintings because they are in the church, I think that is not right. I think all these paintings have is the dogma of the church. I do not believe in that dogma but I do believe in a spiritual reality that the dogma attempts to articulate and simulate (very badly I would say). (Understanding of spirituality was different in any time and place. The definition of spirituality that is in contemporary dictionaries can represent contemporary attitude of spirituality best, because dictionaries are written by collectives and based on widely recognized conceptions. From that dictionaries' definition I abstracted few kinds of senses of spirituality, and church art depends to one from them. Church art is made with intention to be spiritual. Is all church art spiritual -- it is other question and it can be rephrased -- is all church art good? Spirituality about what Touchon mentions is included into kind of senses 'feelings'.)

Spirituality in art is a difficult thing to observe because spirituality can not actually be expressed in physical terms. So to look for the spirit in the physical things does not show the spirit in a clear way. I think there are paintings, representational paintings that tell stories of spiritual experiences. Mexican milagro paintings are sometimes a good example that depict anomalous events. (As we can ascertain on the Web, Mexican milagro is some kind of folk art, souvenirs, amulets with idea coming from the Middle Ages and designed for sale to gullible citizens. These milagro are not based on any scientific experience with exception of peculiar mesmerism.)

Aside from this kind of clear communication of some miraculous event, paintings can only express spirituality in the formation of the image; its proportion, feeling, harmonies, etc. These are things that can not be experienced as having a meaningfulness except with an intuitive feeling. All of these things are outside of science and therefore any sort of scientific 'research' as you call it is a waste of time leading to wrong questions and wrong conclusions. (In such manner people judged in the Middle Ages, ages of darkness. But since times of  the Middle Ages half millennium passed, and population reached a lot of strides. What was impossible, became possible. Words like "These are things that can not be experienced" are not any proof. Everything what exists can be experienced -- spiritual or spiritless art too.)

Again, Thank you for including me,

Cecil Touchon