The Sublime.
The works of the artists, presented by the Séraphine gallery in this exhibition, are inspired by the movement of life and seek to convey above all emotions. We can therefore approach questions of aesthetics from the angle of emotions. The goal of art, for Gilles Deleuze, is to extract blocks of sensations from chaos or infinity to make what he calls a "Compound of sensations". Art has this ability to create in our hearts and minds a universe out of chaos. The Russian cinematographer Andrei Tarkovsky said on this subject: "My duty is to ensure that those who see my films feel the need to love, and that they perceive the call of beauty". You will understand that we will not talk here about contemporary conceptual art, we will not talk about the illustration of ideas or concepts either. Rather, we move from this extremely intellectual art to an extremely emotional art. Paint to paint, without prejudice. The artwork becomes a reflection of how the artist was feeling at the time they made it, and it can also elicit emotional reactions from the viewer. So, we will prefer to use the concept of "sublime" (developed for the first time by Pseudo-Longinus) which seems more appropriate to us than that of "beauty". This is why this collective exhibition bears the title "Sublime". Our point of view is that "beauty" is a concept that is too locked into social limits and cultural prejudices. The sublime encompasses a more universal human experience. The soul or the sentimental and thinking part in us rises by tending towards greatness. We feel faced with something that overwhelms us. One can undeniably find the sublime in nature, but also in culture.
The history of art is full of examples of paintings provoking the strongest feelings, capable of bringing the viewer to ecstasy. And that is precisely what our artists do. Exactly, as Séraphine de Senlis did in her pictorial creations. And in fact, neuroscience bears witness to this phenomenon today. The research of Jean Pierre Changeux, for example, tends to explain the effect produced on our brain and our nervous system when contemplating a work of art. It causes an intense reaction in the brain, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex are inflamed. The spectator is not only amazed, but dazzled, overwhelmed, almost hypnotized. And it's not just about the activation of pleasure and reward neurons, like dopamine. As the knowledge neurons are very close to the reward neurons, there is a kind of consciousness, a resonance between emotions and reasoning. This is why we here support the idea that the concept of "sublime" gives better means of understanding this phenomenon.
- Iva Chirpanlieva
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