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SEVERANCE and CONTINUANCE—MIMESIS in RELATION to SACHA KAGAN’S ART and SUSTAINABILITY By

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SEVERANCE and CONTINUANCE—MIMESIS in RELATION to SACHA KAGAN’S ART and SUSTAINABILITY By SEVERANCE AND CONTINUANCE—MIMESIS IN RELATION TO SACHA KAGAN’S ART AND SUSTAINABILITY by Daan Hoekstra A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) November 2016 © Daan Hoekstra, 2016 THESIS COMMITTEE The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Severance and Continuance—Mimesis in Relation to Sacha Kagan’s Art and Sustainability submitted by Daan Hoekstra in partial fulfilmentof the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts, Interdisciplinary Studies . Nancy Holmes, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisor, Professor (please print name and faculty/school above the line) Lael Parrott, Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) John Wagner, Community, Culture, and Global Studies, Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Margaret Reeves, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies UniversityExaminer, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Margo Tamez, Community, Culture, and Global Studies, Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences ExternalExaminer, Professor (please print name and university in the line above) November 29, 2016 (Date Submitted to Grad Studies) Additional Committee Members include: (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) ii ABSTRACT: Sacha Kagan’s Art and Sustainability refers to four fragments from Heraclitus as exemplifying “an aesthetic sensibility to complexity.” Kagan’s book, however, deals mostly with art in the 20th-21st centuries, without addressing links between Heraclitus’ time and the present. This thesis addresses the historical gap by suggesting that Western traditions of mimesis in the visual arts provided continuity of the sensuous immersion in the environment, in spite of the severance that occurred, according to David Abram, when culture transitioned from oral traditions to written language, and from a pictographic mode into an alphabetic mode. I make legible the connections between the thought of Heraclitus, artistic practice in the Western tradition of naturalistic painting, and the work of John Ruskin, William Morris and Ludwig von Bertalanffy, contending that mimetic traditions retained the thought of Heraclitus and Pythagoras, in methodologies of practice that became a sort of proto-systems-thinking and proto- complexity-theory. Through Ruskin and Morris, these mimetic traditions, about a way of seeing, led directly to 20th century environmentalism and concepts of sustainability. Through Bertalanffy, knowledge from the mimetic traditions led directly to the genesis of 20th century systems theory. Discussion of these issues is nested within a broader analysis of the several narratives about how environmental problems are the result of multiple cases of severance, schism that separated humans, intellectually, psychically and physically, from the sensuous immersion in the “more-than-human” to which Abram refers. I emphasize both the need to take stock of the resilient strands of rooted premodern cultural traditions that continued in spite of severance and the need to understand and study severance as a recurring historical phenomenon. I point out the way in which ancient influences frequently revitalize culture, contending that premodern mimetic traditions carry important ecological knowledge. iii PREFACE One paragraph on page 32, a quoted passage on pages 73-74 and endnote #4 are adapted from Hoekstra, Daan. “The Artist’s Study of Nature and its Relationship to Goethean Science.” Janus Head Journal 10.1 (2007): 329-349. The paper is briefly summarized on page 9 of the introduction. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS THESIS COMMITTEE ........................................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT: ............................................................................................................................................ iii PREFACE................................................................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................. viii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................................... x DEDICATION.......................................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................ 1 SUMMARY OF SACHA KAGAN’S ART AND SUSTAINABILITY..................................................... 1 THE THESIS........................................................................................................................................... 4 A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO HISTORY ........................................................................................ 5 ART AS KNOWLEDGE ........................................................................................................................ 6 RESEARCH METHOD.......................................................................................................................... 8 THE BODY CHAPTERS ....................................................................................................................... 9 DEFINITIONS—GLOSSARY............................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 2: SEVERANCE, CONTINUANCE AND THE ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE.. 18 ANTI-MODERNISM IN OPPOSITION TO SEVERANCE ............................................................... 22 ALTERNATIVE MODERNITIES AS POSSIBLE ANTIDOTES TO SEVERANCE ....................... 24 THE ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE .............................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3: MIMESIS AND THE CHINESE POET...................................................................... 29 DEFINING MIMESIS .......................................................................................................................... 29 OPPOSING VIEWS: CRITIQUES OF OBSERVATION ................................................................... 33 VISIBLE KNOWLEDGE, PHILOSOPHY MADE VISIBLE ............................................................. 37 AISTHETA, EMOTION AND ACTION:.............................................................................................. 42 CHAPTER 4: THE UNION OF OPPOSITES AND THE “INTERTWINED STRANDS OF KNOWLEDGE” ..................................................................................................................................... 43 v VARIATIONS UPON TWO THEMES: CREATION AND UNITY OF OPPOSITES...................... 44 ARTISTIC WAYS OF KNOWING, EAST AND WEST.................................................................... 47 CREATING THROUGH THE RECONCILLIATION OF OPPOSITES ............................................ 48 THE INTERTWINED STRANDS OF KNOWLEDGE....................................................................... 51 CHAPTER 5: SIGHT-SIZE AS MIMETIC SCIENCE...................................................................... 56 THE ATELIER TRADITION............................................................................................................... 57 ATELIER BASICS ............................................................................................................................... 59 THE ATELIER AS LABORATORY................................................................................................... 63 THE COLOR LAB................................................................................................................................ 66 HUMAN NATURE............................................................................................................................... 71 THE OUTDOOR LAB.......................................................................................................................... 72 MUSING ABOUT MIMESIS............................................................................................................... 74 CHAPTER 6: MIMESIS, THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SEVERANCE AND THE ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM....................................................................................................................... 77 GALILEO’S REMOVAL OF THE CREATURE ................................................................................ 77 RUSKIN AND THE SCIENCE OF ASPECTS (APPEARANCES).................................................... 79 RUSKIN AND THE PERCEPTION OF THE SOCIAL AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT.......... 83 MIMESIS AS PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION
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