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Architecture and Art

Edited by Neil
Spiller

05 | Vol 93 | 2023
Architecture and Art

Edited by Neil
Spiller

05 | Vol 93 | 2023
 A SUBLIME SYNTHESIS: 05/2023
ARCHITECTURE AND ART

Recollected in 50
Tranquillity
About the Editor 5
Brendan Neiland –
Neil Spiller
Changing Sensibilities
Paul Finch
Introduction 6

In Constant Renewal
Interstitial Creativity
Neil Spiller

Transforming 14
the World
The Architectural Art of
Brian Clarke
Paul Greenhalgh

Dance of Light 22
and Line
When an Architect
Turns to Art 14

Ian Ritchie

Presenting a Truth 30 Connections 60

Ben Johnson – Time, Landscape, and the
Painting Illusions Art of Andy Goldsworthy
Neil Spiller Eva Menuhin

Exposed Agency 40 An Alchemist of 70

Poetic Architectural Super-Cooled Liquid
Projection Across and The Art and Craft
Between Disciplines of Danny Lane
Felix Robbins Neil Spiller

2
ISSN 0003-8504 ISBN 978 1 394 17079 1 Edited by Neil Spiller

Canaletto 104
Synthetic Compositions
of Maritime Greenwich
Simon Withers

Utopian Geometries 112

Turning Forms and the
(Science) Fictions of
Utopian Architecture
Nic Clear

Neo-Fluxus 120
Multimedia Performance
70
Art and Architecture
Mathew Emmett

Dynamic Reciprocities 80 Architecture and the other

Exploring the Site arts have been mutually
of Production entwined since humanity first
Peter J Baldwin drew animals on cave walls
or blew coloured pigment over
their hands to leave a trace
Tectonics of the Familiar 88 of human occupation.
The Transposed Landscapes
— Neil Spiller
of Zoe Zenghelis
Hamed Khosravi

From Another Perspective

The Artist as 96 Surreal Urbanity 128

Contemporary Sectors of the Exquisite City
Philanthropist Neil Spiller
Kathy Battista

Contributors 134

3
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 ABOUT THE
Neil Spiller sees architecture as the mother of the arts,
EDITOR always seeking to bring his wide knowledge of the latter,
particularly Surrealism and Dadaism, into his drawings
NEIL SPILLER and architectural designs. Over the course of a 40-year
career, first as a student and then as an architect, he
has experimented with automatic drawing techniques,
détournement, sculpture and painting to further the art
of architecture.
Neil is the Editor of 2, was Visiting Professor of
Architecture at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada
(2020–22), and Visiting Professor at IAUV Venice in 2021.
He was previously Hawksmoor Chair of Architecture
and Landscape and Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Greenwich, London. Prior to this he was
Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and
Construction and Professor of Architecture and Digital
Theory at Greenwich, and Vice-Dean and Graduate
Director of Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture,
University College London (UCL).
He has guest-edited eight 2 issues, including the highly
successful Architects in Cyberspace I and II (1995 and
1998) and Drawing Architecture (2013), and more recently
edited the issues Emerging Talents: Training Architects
(July/August 2021), Radical Architectural Drawing (July/
August 2022) and California Dreaming (March/April
2023). His books include Visionary Architecture: Blueprints
of the Modern Imagination (2006), Architecture and
Surrealism (2016) and Educating Architects (2014), all
published by Thames & Hudson. He is also the author of
How to Thrive in Architecture School: A Student Guide
(RIBA, 2020).
His architectural design work has been published and
exhibited worldwide. He is an internationally renowned
visionary architect and has been architecturally speculating
with drawing for four decades. He is also known as
the founding director of the Advanced Virtual and
Technological Architectural Research (AVATAR) group,
which conducts research into the impact of advanced
technologies such as virtuality and biotechnology on 21st-
century design. He is also recognised internationally for his
paradigm-shifting contribution to architectural discourse,
research/experiment and teaching. 1

Text © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Image © Robbie Munn

5
In Constant
Renewal
Interstitial
Creativity
INTRODUCTION
NEIL SPILLER

6
 Greenberg’s method conceives the field of art as at once
timeless and in constant flux. That is to say that certain things
like art itself, or painting or sculpture, or the masterpiece, are
universal, trans-historical forms.
— Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and
Other Modernist Myths, 19861
On the first page of the introduction to her book debunking the
notion that modern art was somehow a definite break from what
constituted art in previous centuries, Rosalind Krauss evokes
American art critic Clement Greenberg and his ideas about art as
‘it is to assert that the life of these forms is dependent on constant
renewal, not unlike that of the living organism’.2 This of course,
applies to architecture too.
Architecture and the other arts have been mutually entwined
since humanity first drew animals on cave walls or blew coloured
pigment over their hands to leave a trace of human occupation.
Since those initial millennia-old moments there has been a
continual dynamic process, a Greenbergian constant renewal.
This 2 explores, through examples of contemporary
architects’ and artists’ work, the mutual benefits of bringing
together the fields of architecture and art even closer and the
extraordinary creative results that can be developed from these
interstitial conditions.
Antique Artifice
All cultures make art and use that art – whether visual, haptic
or aural – to adorn places of inhabitation or worship as well as
objects. Encompassing a cornucopia of methods and practices,
it often embodies a culture’s perception of its place and/or
agency in the world and cosmos, and mediates its relationship
to the dead.
Since the early days the depiction of nature – of flora, fauna
and the mathematics it sometimes reveals – has inspired various
architectural languages and concepts. From the hexagons of the
beehive, to the acanthus leaves on the capital of the Corinthian
column, to the serpentine tendrils evoking sweet-pea stems in
Art Nouveau and much, much more.
We might think of the medieval stonemasons, sculptors
and woodcarvers and the sublime synthesis they achieved
over centuries, in numerous Gothic cathedrals and humbler
parish churches across Europe. This multiplicity of symbolism,
divinity, art and architecture created edifices capable of bringing
mere mortals to their knees in prayer and awe. These semiotic,
encrusted machines of worship resonate powerfully with all
the tricks of the architectural trade plus all the artistic tropes at
their creators’ disposal at the time, such as scale, storytelling,
coloured light, sound, music, monolithic materiality, ritual, faith
and not a small amount of people control.

Carl Laubin,
Another Professor’s Dream:
A Tribute to Charles
Robert Cockerell RA,
2005

opposite: Capriccios are artistic conceits

that bring views and scales of various
objects together in a fantasy. In this
case the life’s work of British architect
CR Cockerell (1788–1863) is imagined
in rooms of his own design. They are
useful in showing the constant renewal
and reinvention of their creator’s
architectural lexicon.

Carl Laubin,
Cloaked in an Ancient
Disguise,
2004

right: This capriccio illustrates the

oeuvre of British architect John Outram
(born 1934). Over the course of his
career, Outram has developed a formal
metaphysical architectural language
that melds aesthetically high-code and
low-code ideas and objects – producing
architectural elements, symbols,
geometries and mythologies that can be
read and interpreted on many levels.

7
Ian Chamberlain,
Network II,
2022

A contemporary analogy of the Gothic

cathedral’s spires, finials and jagged
profiles could be said to be telecom
aerials and masts. Their technologically
advanced silhouettes inhabit our cities,
thrusting into the sky similarly to how
their medieval counterparts do.

Ian Chamberlain,
Maststudio3,
2022

Chamberlain’s work is often etched on

copper plates. Here the Gothic nature
of communication masts is revealed in
all their pre-printed glory – a landscape
of scribings akin to the stonemasons’
tracings tables found in some cathedrals.

8
Nicholas Bava,
Monument to a New Landscape, 2022
A work inspired by the imagined jungles of proto-Surrealist artist
Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). Never having been to an actual jungle
himself, Rousseau’s images were inspired by numerous visits to
Paris’s Jardin des Plantes and Jardin d’Acclimatation, which were
artfully designed with often-flawed representations of the real thing.
Bava’s work mimics this uncanny aesthetic and reimagines it in the
age of synthetic biology.
One is guided through their vast, highly articulated volumes,
which also deny access for some to certain parts, dependent on
who one is. The invention of the pointed arch served a joint
benefit in that it is both structural and ecclesiastical (it represents
the Holy Trinity, and is formed by three interlocking circles).
The innovation of the Gothic arch was then extrapolated, put to
use to configure high vaulted, pointed ceilings and structurally
enabled by flying buttresses (all derived from the pointed arch’s
architectural genetics), and richly carved in stone inside and out
– a perfect synthesis. Artist Ian Chamberlain treats the finials and
spires of communication masts in a reverential way, portraying
them with a sense of wonder similar to the Gothic church; they
are conduits for communication with higher numinous powers
and virtual entities.
We might also think of the Baroque architectures and
sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini who created many of
the sublime urban design set-pieces of Rome (such as the
colonnade at the front of St Peter’s Basilica, 1656–67), many
of its most revered architectures and interiors and many of its
most beautiful and extraordinary crafted, sculptural objects.
He was the most talented, foremost multivalent designer of his
generation. His marvellous artifice and skills combined with an
ingenious aptitude to portray mythic, religious, metamorphic
movement and ecstasy, plus an incredible ability to sculpt
marble to look like flesh, all earned him long years of papal
patronage. This was not all of the artistic pursuits at which he
excelled; he also painted, designed furniture, fountains, funerary
monuments, stage scenery and theatrical machinery and wrote/
directed/acted in plays. His mastery and integration of nearly
all the arts in his work was simply extraordinary – another
perfect synthesis. Similarly to Bernini, famed for his Apollo
and Daphne (1622–5) depicting Daphne metamorphosing into
a tree, but in a contemporary manner, artist and architectural
designer Nicholas Bava has created a series of charcoal
drawings that explore the metamorphic technologised landscape
of today and its hybrid ontology, both natural and unnatural –
strangely unnerving and glowering.
9
Vistas of Reflection
A more contemporary architect whose career followed a path of
integrating the arts and also landscape into his architecture was
Italian Carlo Scarpa. He was inspired by the craftsmanship and
history of the Venetians, their glassmaking, their stonemasonry
and their boat- and shipbuilding. He was also interested in
Japan and the Japanese attention to detail and contemplation
in both their buildings and their gardens. Such preoccupations
conditioned highly original and subsequently much-admired
buildings. A particular much-revered scheme, commissioned in
1968 and finished in 1978, is his Brion Sanctuary in San Vito
d’Altivole near Treviso in Italy. Its centrepoint are the sarcophagi
of Giuseppe Brion and his wife Onorina Tomasin. It is a masterful
essay in its concrete materiality, the use of craft in its detail, water,
and pensive, thoughtful vistas exhibiting a fusion of all of Scarpa’s
Venetian and oriental references but reworked into an original
architectonic synthesis. Whilst monolithic concrete is used to great
sensitive effect by Scarpa, it was also the material of choice for
the architectures of warfare. Ian Chamberlain, again, seizes on the
daunting appearance of these architectures and represents them
beautifully in their rough majesty.
city as a creative engine; in long walks through its glistening
modern surfaces, he waits for it to reveal itself to him in jump-
cut reflections, and captures its dazzling, collaged sublimity
on his camera. He then retreats to his studio to produce his
paintings with a painstaking methodology of precision and
patience that creates the amazing vitality of his art.
Whilst Neiland’s work is imbued with the influence of
the modern metropolis, Andy Goldsworthy’s art is often
constructed with nature’s leaves, stones, ice and branches, to
name but a few of the materials he has found and bent to his
service. Here, as well as giving a lyrical context to his work in
nature, writer Eva Menuhin takes us on a tour of his recent
work of very architectural and interventionist pieces including
‘Hanging Stones’, which are both a landscape journey as well as
a series of installations in small derelict buildings.

The Roster
This 2 features architects and artists who, today, are seeking
other sublime syntheses, with articles penned by themselves or
by writers who admire them. The arrangement and order of
pieces follows no predefined thematic structure but was merely
constructed to surprise, keep the eye moving and intrigue.
The issue commences with historian and curator Paul
Greenhalgh discussing recent work by British painter, architectural
artist and printmaker Brian Clarke who has long been innovative
in the realms of successfully combining the arts for sublime
effect. He is particularly known for stunning, often large, modern
stained-glass interventions into buildings.
Next is an article by Ian Ritchie, a consummate architect,
displaying imagination, flair and skill in all aspects of architectural
discourse. He could be described as a Renaissance Man, with a
deep knowledge of the sciences as well as the arts. His creativity
manifests itself in numerous forms, such as prose, academic
papers, books, poetry, drawing, etching and sculpture as well as
buildings. Here he outlines his creative methods and discusses
some of his artist friends who inspire him.
Artist Ben Johnson produces intricate paintings. Whilst at first
viewing they seem hyperrealist, they are in fact highly articulated
meditations on the underlying geometries of architecture. In an
interview he talks of his formative years, the evolution of his work
and current preoccupations.
For years, architect Felix Robbins has been experimenting
with integrating the underlying rhythms and detail of historical
buildings, digitally collaging them and deconstructing them to
create highly contemporary capriccios, diaphanous in their line
work. His drawings are also embedded in his studies of second-
order cybernetics and he has certainly created a personal universe
of architectural discourse unique to himself.
The monotone of Robbins' pieces is followed by artist Brendan
Neiland’s highly colourful, airbrushed recent work which is
described and extrapolated by his close friend, founding director
of the World Architecture Festival, Paul Finch. Neiland uses the

10
Ian Chamberlain,
Mirror III,
2016

An illustration of a 30-foot (9-metre)

diameter, cast concrete, parabolic sound
mirror. Such acoustic mirrors were built
along the UK coastline from 1916 to 1930.
They were the forerunners of radar and
constructed to give early warning of enemy
aircraft by amplifying their sound.

11
 Chris Bigg,
The Beauty of Imperfection,
2020

Bigg has earned an international reputation

as a graphic designer for his mastery of
creating beauty from wonderfully composed
fragmented marks, objects, textures and
photographs, often using the pentimenti and
palimpsests of previous works. Here, a room
is implied with a window and a distorted tree
– all flawed to perfection.

Nick Wilkey,
These Towers We Build,
2023

Like Zoe Zenghelis’s recent work,

architectural designer and artist Nick Wilkey
is interested in a painterly representation
of archetypal architectural elements that
are abstracted to a powerful yet simple
geometry. Wilkey often sets his tableaux in
a deep-horizon, Surrealist ground.

12
 Goldsworthy’s rough-hewn and organic surfaces contrast
radically with American artist Danny Lane’s glasswork. Lane has
a long history making glass furniture and architecturally scaled
sculptures, often employing techniques he has developed himself
– ‘bastard techniques’, as he calls them. In an interview he charts
his influences, history and the philosophy within his oeuvre.
Exploring the second-order art produced almost at random
as a by-product of creative activity, architect Peter J Baldwin
documents some interesting pentimenti and palimpsests that are
associated with art and architecture. The tangible and sometimes
intangible residues of this other site of artistic production widen
the conceptual spectrum of this 2 and give us another view
of what might be worth considering as we search for sublime
synthesis.
Zoe Zenghelis’s painting has long been associated
with architecture and the early work of OMA (Office for
Metropolitan Architecture), of which she was a founder member.
Later she became recognised as a painter in her own right.
Her output often consists of delicate tones and architectonic,
abstracted forms. Architect and educator Hamed Khosravi
examines her recent work, its themes and preoccupations.
New Models of Artistic Production
In similar but very different ways to Goldsworthy’s ‘Hanging
Stones’, art curator, writer and scholar Kathy Battista asks
three fundamental questions: Why are artists, one of the least
governmentally supported demographics in the US, providing
community building projects where the cities have failed?
How are these projects a form of artistic practice that builds
upon the social practice of 1960s artists? How can disused
architecture support urban regeneration and new models of
artistic production?
Another model of artistic and architectural production are
the high-tech methods of the spatial modelling research group
Captivate, which creates high-fidelity virtual models using
remote-sensing technologies to document historic buildings and
landscapes for archaeological and pedagogic purposes. One
of its three founding members, Simon Withers, writes on their
activities, particularly in relation to work done in conjunction
with the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Nic Clear, Dean of the School of Art, Design and
Architecture at the University of Huddersfield, and Leeds
Beckett University architectural tutor Hyun Jun Park use
3D-scanning equipment to create the raw material for their
architectural propositions. This brings the technology out of
the domain of just recording urban, architectural and artistic
conditions: instead of passively surveying, it becomes a
proactive element in the work.
The issue then moves on to sonic interactive environments.
Architect, digital artist and sonic tapestry weaver Mathew
Emmett asks: ‘What happens to architecture when you
combine a legend of the German avant-garde and innovator
of the Krautrock music genre with an architect-artist whose
visionary work defines space as psychoactive? The answer lies
in the futuristic worlds of Space Interface’ – an ongoing series
of collaborative multimedia performances involving both.
On the Spectrum
This issue seeks to provide a brief glimpse into a spectrum
of activities that can be leveraged in the pursuit of aesthetic,
artistic and architectural joy. It introduces the reader to a cast
of characters whose work may be unknown to them – or, if
known, further elucidates their understanding and knowledge
of them. Like the examples given in this introduction, each
architect or artist has a history of constant renewal and
sublime synthesis in their work. This is the only way for a
successful creative to be. Each article explores the individuality
of its subject and their creative practice. Enjoy soaking up the
ambience and take inspiration from them. 1
Notes
1. Rosalind E Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths,
MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1986, p 1.
2. Ibid.
Text © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 6–7 © Carl Lubin/Plus
One Gallery; pp 8, 10–11 © Ian Chamberlain; p 9 © Nick Bava; p 12(tl) ©
Design and photography by Chris Bigg; pp 12–13(b) © Nick Wilkey
13
Transfo
the Wor
The Architectural
Art of Brian Clarke
Brian Clarke is one of the UK’s foremost international artists.
For the last four decades he has specialised in creating highly
beautiful stained-glass work, instantly recognisable for its bright
and arresting colours. His work is often thoughtfully integrated
into buildings, providing them with a special sense of place.
Paul Greenhalgh, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation,
investigates Clarke’s creative trajectory.

14
rming
Paul Greenhalgh

ld
Brian Clarke,
Mosaic interior of
St James’s House,
London,
2019

Commissioned for a private home in 2016,

and completed in 2019, the St James’s
project is one of Clarke’s most important
interiors. The initial brief for a mosaic
floor developed via his ideology of
Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art,
into a fully homogeneous environment.

15
The life and practice of Brian Clarke is in many respects an
exemplary product of 150 years of the Modernist project. More
than this, for over 40 years his art has had a seminal relationship
with architecture. In his own words, ‘Ever since my youth I’ve
always proclaimed to be, in some mysterious way that I have
difficulty explaining, connected to architecture. I respond to
architectural culture, and to the way architects think. Over the
years I’ve had many close relationships with architects, fewer
with painters.’1
This is all the more interesting given that he is not an
architect. In fact, his oeuvre has defied any of the available
categorisations. He has on occasion referred to himself as
an ‘architectural artist’. While this nomenclature does offer
a description of much of what he does, for decades he has
enjoyed recognition on the international scene as a painter in a
mainstream sense. There is also a considerable body of sculpture,
and over the past decade, his mosaic and tile work has been at
the forefront of those disciplines.

Spectacular Pioneer
However, most significantly in the context of this publication,
he is widely understood to be the most important stained-glass
artist at work in the world today. He has worked with some
of the leading architects of our times, including Zaha Hadid
and Norman Foster. The latter has asserted that ‘Clarke is a
contemporary pioneer in this field, and his direct involvement
in the production of this medium is responsible for the molten
fluidity that he has started to achieve.’2 He and Clarke have
worked together on a number of spectacular projects.
At root Clarke’s oeuvre occupies a space created by key
Modernist thinkers. He exemplifies the notion of Modernity as
‘an unfinished project’, and the underlying positivism of the first
generation of pioneer Modernists is at the heart of his outlook.
Central to this is the philosophical commitment to all practices
in the arts functioning in an integrative, interdisciplinary
way. It was integral to early Modernist manifestoes, summed
up in the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of Brian Clarke,
art. Architecture, as the most important of the visual arts, Stained-glass windows,
Cistercian Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu,
was to be the site on which the integration of the arts took Romont, Switzerland,
place. Interestingly, the term was first used by the composer 1990–97

Richard Wagner, in 1849, to describe his ambitions for opera.
Gesamtkunstwerk underpinned the outlook of Wagner’s
contemporaries, the Art Nouveau architect-designers such
as Hector Guimard and Henri van de Velde, both of whose
lives straddled the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and in
turn it was the central vision of Walter Gropius as he led the
establishment of the Bauhaus from 1919).
above: Clarke’s new windows, set in the existing Gothic
embrasures, animate the interior of the 13th-century
abbey with a clever use of light and colour that recaptures
the otherworldly ambience and retrospection so
characteristic of ecclesiastical places – mythologies that
can be read and interpreted on many levels.
opposite: The sanctuary window eschews the traditional
motifs of Christianity in favour of an abstraction that
inculcates a sense of appreciation of nature in the viewer.

Reintegrating Ornament
Yet in many respects, and despite the revival of ornamentation
in Postmodern decades, architecture is less integrated now
than it was then, and the intellectual culture of architecture
remains distressingly isolated. Of course, there have been
powerful exceptions to the generalised picture presented
here. Le Corbusier considered himself as a painter as well
as an architect, and felt the two arts to be interdependent.
In our own era, the career of Sir Peter Cook has been one
of crossing boundaries; and most spectacularly, Zaha Hadid

16
The general failure
was committed to practice that brought the arts together. While
she was an architect through and through, she is widely – and
rightly – regarded as a painter of mainstream importance, and

to realise an her aesthetic vision has resulted in masterpieces across the

disciplines. She and Brian Clarke were occasional collaborators,

integration of the as well as close friends.

But the general failure to realise an integration of the arts
has in some respects given Clarke’s practice a sense of mission.
arts has in some Art historian Martin Harrison has said of his oeuvre that he ‘is
fulfilling his ambition to re-integrate art and architecture’.3 We

respects given can recognise this impulse as one which roots back to his earliest
career. Born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1953, Clarke benefited

Clarke’s practice
from the very liberal and progressive attitude to art education
in the region, and so developed rapidly into a highly competent
professional. He was first and foremost a painter, and recognised

a sense of mission on the national scene as such, as well as a beguilingly gifted

draughtsman. Despite the range of his practice in the following
decades, painting has always been there, not simply as a practice,
but as a way of seeing the world: ‘It is through painting that I
understand how to view architecture. It is through painting that
I can appreciate the rhythm of a poem. It is through painting
that I can appreciate and draw pleasure from the structure of
a well-composed sentence. And it is through painting that the
complexity of music makes itself understood to me. It is through
painting, in fact, that I am.’4
Norman Foster has shrewdly noted that ‘Brian Clarke is for
me one of the most interesting of contemporary painters. I say
“painter” because I know, from many conversations that we
have shared, how important the act of painting is to him. He has
come to regard it as a kind of touchstone to which he constantly
returns, to be nourished by its disciplines.’5

The Discourse of Painting

In short, painting is a discourse, rather than simply a means of
making imagery, and as a discourse it is one which has revealed
itself capable of conceptually engaging with other major
practices, not least architecture.
Most major painters who have engaged with stained glass
came to it relatively late in their careers, such as John Piper,
Henri Matisse and Fernand Léger. By contrast, Clarke grasped
its significance as a child, and so began to work in earnest with
the medium early in his professional career, in 1973.6 By 1980,
he was firmly established as a world figure in the medium.
While wholly a thing in itself, we might view the
extraordinary power of Clarke’s stained-glass oeuvre as a
product of the complex fusion of his obsessions with painting
and architecture. More than this, as an art quintessentially
about light, and the projection of colour through light, he
realised that more than any other medium, it was capable of
transforming space. Stained glass has always been a vital aspect
of his art because from his earliest days, it allowed him to
intervene in architecture.

Career Landmarks
There have been many landmarks in Clarke’s architectural
career. An early seminal work, the roof canopy of the Queen
Victoria Street Arcade in Leeds (1990) fused the grand tradition
of Victorian arcades with the modern age. At the time, this

17
composition was the largest work in stained glass in Europe.
Commissioned in 1996 and completed in 1997, his hundreds
of ceiling panels for the Pfizer World Headquarters in New
York accumulated into a giant environment. The core
theme of the whole was the microbiology of viruses. Most
spectacularly perhaps, in 2000 in Riyadh, in a collaboration
with Norman Foster, he created the façade of the Al Faisaliah
Center on an extraordinary scale. This was the largest
work in stained glass in the world at the time. In 2006
in Kazakhstan, he worked again with Norman Foster on
the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, known also as the
Pyramid of Peace and Accord. This is perhaps one of his
most overtly spiritual works: the tower exudes a sense of
humanist spirituality.
While he has provided stained glass for a range of
religious buildings, across faiths, Clarke does not view
stained glass as intrinsically religious. As witnessed by
his numerous works on public and corporate buildings,
and on domestic architecture, he regards the medium as
technologically driven, modern and a secular means
of expression.

Brian Clarke,
Roof of Queen Victoria Street Arcade,
Leeds,
UK,
1990

above: In its time this roof canopy was the largest

secular stained-glass art installation in the world – 120
metres (400 feet) long and spanning from one end of
the arcade to the other. It is sandwiched between theatre
architect Frank Matcham’s Victorian façades.

Brian Clarke and Norman Foster,

Palace of Peace and Reconciliation,
Astana, Kazakhstan,
2006

right: Brian Clarke and Norman Foster worked

together to create a crystalline, pyramidic structure
that surmounts Foster + Partners’ Palace of Peace
and Reconciliation. Clark’s artwork at the apex of the
pyramid acts as a beacon in the landscape.

18
Brian Clarke,
Ceiling of Pfizer
World Headquarters,
Manhattan, New York,
1997

The worldwide pharmaceutical

company Pfizer commissioned
Clarke in 1996 to design an
illuminated ceiling depicting some
of its highpoints as a company.
Anatomical motifs abound.

Brian Clarke,
Stained-glass façade
of Al Faisaliah Center,
Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia,
2000

Clarke’s art easily makes the transition

between cultural difference, motifs
and semiotics. Here, within a building
designed by Foster + Partners,
the Arab world is assimilated and
interpreted expertly and majestically.

19
Brian Clarke,
Multi-faith and
Wellbeing Centre,
University of
East Anglia,
Norwich, UK,
2023–

In this Gesamtkunstwerk
project begun in 2023, Clarke’s
stained-glass window designs
skilfully evoke the fecundity
and beauty of nature and the
cyclic renewal of spring, and
will bathe those inside the
building with a sense of peace
and warmth.

20
‘Brian Clarke: The Art of Light’ exhibition,
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich, UK,
2018
opposite: Sculpting with the effect of the eye receiving photons
through coloured glass, Clarke utilises the glazed end of the
Sainsbury Centre to create spectacular views from outside the
building, but the views are even more effective from the inside out.
Brian Clarke,
Coach House Spa, Beaverbrook Hotel,
Leatherhead, Surrey, UK,
2019
below: In a highly dynamic interior refurbished from an
old coach house, Clarke has created a calm and beautiful
progression of spaces reminiscent of nature and with
episodes of various degrees of enclosure in the work.
Having said this, over the last few years he has continually
worked on a project that has moved him into new terrain and
carried the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk to its logical conclusion.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich (founded 1963)
is celebrated for its late Modernist campus architecture. It is
home to the Sainsbury Centre (1978), for example, Norman
Foster’s first major public building, and Denys Lasdun’s famous
campus, including his Ziggurat student residences (1966). The
university asked Clarke to create a new centre for multifaith
religious worship, which would also be its centre for wellbeing.
He determined that he would create the entire building in a
spectacular integration of all of the arts: stained glass, painting,
mosaic, ceramic, metalwork and architecture. Most of all, the
many huge stained-glass panels will throw light across the space
and bathe those inside the building in colour.
Much of the glass in the UEA centre is based on nature,
and especially on the flower form. A major theme in Clarke’s
work of the last number of years, flower iconography has the
important ability to simultaneously convey spiritual values in
a pan-religious way, and celebrate the universal dimension of
spirituality. And so, in the UEA Multi-faith and Wellbeing Centre,
the artist, with his dynamic team, is creating a Gesamtkunstwerk
for our times.
In conclusion, it is perhaps important to emphasise, in these
politically dubious times, that for Clarke, architecture and
stained glass have a public role. Neither has any meaning outside
of the public arena, and both impact the quality of life of the
communities they inhabit. Writer Kenneth Powell has noted
that if one mentions public art to Brian Clarke, ‘you are likely
to set him off on a line of argument which, though it is one he
has often pursued, constantly causes him to question his own
work, as well as that of others, and to urge a return to a way
of working which was as familiar to the late Victorians as it
was to the ancient Greeks but has got lost in the aftermath of
the Modern Movement’.7
A public art for our times, that is capable of transforming
the way we see the world. One cannot ask more of any artist. 1
Notes
1. Brian Clarke in Phillips de Pury & Company, Brian Clarke: Works on Paper
1969–2011, gallery brochure, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2011, unpaginated.
2. Norman Foster, ‘Introduction’, in Brian Clarke: Into and Out Of Architecture,
Mayor Gallery (London), 1990, p 6.
3. Brian Clarke in Phillips de Pury & Company, op cit.
4. Interview with Paul Beldock, in gallery brochure, Hessisches Landesmuseum
(Darmstadt), 1989, unpaginated.
5. Norman Foster, ‘Preface’, in Brian Clarke: Microcosm (Stained Glass and
Paintings), exh cat, Sezon Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo), 1987, unpaginated.
6. See Brian Clarke, The Great East Window, HENI Talk, 2021: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=VYMMheq9DSg.
7. Kenneth Powell, Brian Clarke: Architectural Artist, Academy Editions (London),
1994, p 12.
Text © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 15, 18–20 Courtesy
Brian Clarke Studio; pp 16–17, 21 Photography by Chris Gascoigne
21
 Ian Ritchie

22
Ian Ritchie, Imaginative representations made ‘before’ and ‘after’ visiting the Arctic with Barbara Rae
Arctic Imagined 2, 2016 in 2016. Contrary to their expectations, there was little sea ice, and although the glaciers
Arctic Warming 3, 2018 (ooposite) meeting the sea were an impressive sight, global warming was a very real presence.

23
Ian Ritchie is not bound by stylistic fetishes
and long-established, old-fashioned protocols
of solving architectural problems. Each of his
projects is designed from first principles, even
before spaces and materials are projected.
He prefers to get to know his clients and their
organisations in extreme detail. At concept
stage he uses the other arts to inspire his
outputs – poetry, etching and painting,
to name but a few. Here he describes his
methodologies.

Barbara Rae,
Achill Fence,
2013

Rae’s work explores the

human impact on, and
perception of, the world
around us; how humankind’s
presence in the landscape
is defined by the marks we
leave, and how colour and
form affect our emotions,
memory and imagination.
The physical layering
of texture and colour in
her work, such as in the
silkscreen print here, echoes
the layered history, mood
and atmosphere that her
vision depicts.

24
‘You need to stop thinking. Just do.’ Easier said than done for
an architect attempting to make a work of art in a medium with
which he is unfamiliar. But when the artist offering advice is a
good friend graciously letting him explore and play with the
inks, rollers and materials in her Edinburgh studio, and happens
to be Barbara Rae, whose sensuous use of colour in abstract,
complex landscape paintings and prints has made her world-
renowned, this architect meekly bows his head and attempts to
coerce the analytic mind into emptiness. Time spent in Japan as
a young man gave me some insight into the art of seeing and
the contemplative practice of silencing thought. Yet it is still
difficult, especially for someone who initially reflects upon a
new commission with words rather than drawings as most
architects do.
There is a reason behind this seemingly anti-intuitive method
of working. During the first preconceptual response to a project,
a melding of cognitive knowledge and imagination takes place;
inspiration and creativity are combined to produce percepts –
words and images. Although drawing is the fundamental way of
communicating an architect’s concepts and most architects begin
that way, an architectural image, even if subsequently discarded,
can leave a visual trace in the mind that locks in an initial idea.
For the same reason artists will often scrape down a canvas
completely after a false start, to begin again, rather than rework
an existing painting. Words are more fugitive; they allow the
freedom to explore various concepts for longer.
Architectural Calligraphy
Once I have a sense of the emerging project, the tentative
phrases develop into a poem or even an aphorism influenced by
a wide range of subjects, some of which have only tangential
links with the project. It is only then that the Japanese brush pen
comes into play and a few lines are made – usually in black sumi
ink on white paper. The drawing, never more than a few simple
lines of architectural calligraphy, attempts to synthesise and reveal
the essential aspects of the project from the words in a way that
makes an object or space immediately tangible. Just as the poem
or aphorism was the synthesis and distillation of multiple ideas
and emotions, the subsequent calligraphic image incorporates
complexity within simplicity, becoming more powerful as a
result of the layers of embodied meaning within each line. These
thoughtful and precise actions of hand and mind are the antithesis
of the process of creating monotypes at Barbara Rae’s studio.
Leipzig Glass Hall
A framed emptiness
brings down the sky
to meet the earth.
Diaphanous shell
stretched taut over
squared silhouettes
of thin round metal.
Light chases darkness.
Shadows are holes
in light. Colours flow
throughout the space.
Sunlight and cloud,
the shadows come and go.1
This is the start of the conceptual and collaborative stage of
the architectural design, which embraces both an aesthetic and
pragmatic assessment and continues to cycle between the two,
refining the concept to its ultimate end.

Ian Ritchie,
Leipzig Glass Hall,
Leipzig, Germany,
1996

Framed in an imposing yet

delicate steel vault, 25,000
square metres (270,000 square
feet) of glass arch over a light-
flooded interior that still feels
as new today as when it was
finished. The etching, made in
2000, captures the essential
aspect through two curved
lines – one structural, the other
glass – and hints of the links
to the exhibition halls and the
trees within: Portuguese oak
and magnolia.

25
Ink, Acid and Metal
Occasionally the drawn lines translate the essential from the
words in a way that is immediately identifiable. In such cases,
these first brush drawings are often produced as etchings into a
copper or zinc plate in the London studio of another friend – the
artist, printmaker and Royal Academician Norman Ackroyd. One
of the world’s most skilful masters of aquatints, Ackroyd is to acid
as the painter JMW Turner was to water, using his vision and skill
to capture the spirit and essence of landscapes on pale paper using
only tones of black ink, just as the Chinese and Japanese masters
of ink-wash painting did.
Ackroyd’s work was a revelation, because architectural
drawings are a means to an end, primarily a tool and a source of
information, although they can be, rarely, something of intrinsic
aesthetic value. Architects use black and white primarily as
proxies or alternates for light and shadow, to define space and
volume, only a step in the process of converting their vision into
structures. Ackroyd reveals the hidden rainbow within black,
that most ancient, achromatic colour, transforming it by working
through our memories to create landscapes that evoke a response
from all the senses.
Silently watching him work is an education in the application
of acids, sometimes delicately, with a fine brush, and in how acids
etch metal; in the use of resins, aquatint and ink; in ink touching
paper, and paper absorbing ink under pressure – and in slowing
down when turning the drawings into etchings, for etching is
not about speed but about reflection and light. Etching offers the
artist the ability to layer tone, texture and line, to build them up
using all the glorious effects the process makes available to invoke
colour, and also to lay down the simplicity of lines that create
architectural calligraphy. Yet there is nothing more frustrating
than when a calligraphic line, carefully placed and beautifully
formed after several attempts, is burned by over-etching – foul
biting – the plate in the acid. There is agony within the ecstasy of
creation using what William Blake calls the ‘infernal method’.2
Norman Ackroyd,
Stac an Armin – Evening,
St Kilda, Scotland,
2010
The rocks of this sea stack in the St Kilda
archipelago are partially covered with
guano, white as snow, from its gannetry,
one of the largest in the world. The artist
has brought them alive in this etching
with wonderful changing tones of black
and white, capturing the essence of their
stark beauty.
26
Ian Ritchie,
Spire of Dublin,
Dublin, Ireland,
2003
One tapering line drawn from the base
– with a hint of a Celtic spiral – ends
in Ireland’s ever-changing skies. The
simple line conceals the enormous
design challenges of realising this
urban sculpture. It is 3 metres (10
feet) in diameter at its base, anchored
into the granite below, rising to 120
metres (394 feet) and narrowing to 15
centimetres (6 inches) at its tip.
Architectural Chimerism
There is, naturally, a concordance between an architect’s initial
brushstrokes (or pen strokes or CAD drawings) and the built
reality of the final architectural or industrial design. Architecture
is about feeling spaces, surfaces and textures in one’s mind
through imagination, and then translating these into spaces
that respond to the demands of the project. And architecture
will inevitably have the architect’s own personality embodied
within it, as with any artist’s work. Here lies the unquestionable
origin of the art in architecture – as opposed to mere buildings
– and it is the characteristic that gives architecture its tangible
humanity. It can also be its downfall, if the architect forgets
their responsibility to the building’s users. Architecture has a
function, a social commitment, whereas art is a personal act
of communication. Architects with an eye on posterity self-
consciously create drawings and buildings that reinforce the idea
of individual artistry as a basis for their buildings, with poor
(non-functional) architectural results.
Ian Ritchie,
Stenness Stones 12,
Orkney, Scotland,
Architecture has
2017
a function, a social
below: More than 5,000 years old, the four menhirs are what remain
of a Neolithic circle of 12 stones, sited on a thin sliver of land between
the freshwater Loch of Harray and the sea Loch of Stenness. As the
commitment, whereas
stones are lifted from the bedrock, they break along natural fracture
lines, creating the angular ‘cut’ at the top. The monotype here attempts
art is a personal act
to capture their age and physical presence, and an impression of the
colossal energy needed to erect them. of communication

There are some projects where the architectural synthesis of

the man-made with nature – the synthesis of ideas, intentions
and materials into form and space in time and light – can be
turned to a purely artistic end, as was the case with the Spire
of Dublin, or Monument of Light (2003), designed to replace
Nelson’s Pillar (1809), blown up by the Irish Republican
Army in 1966. It is a refined engineered structure designed to
conduct light — a light pipe turned inside out. The concept, an
embodied search for a beautiful expression of optimism in the
form of a monument without individual or political allegiance,
gave the structure meaning in itself. The quality of its surface
‘captures’ the lights of Dublin’s changing skies and brings it to
earth as a soft line, allowing it to flow to the street below and
disappear into the granite rock on which it is anchored. Its base
is patterned, leaving partly polished areas surrounded by the
shot-peened surface that reflects the light of street life. Its pattern
is derived from the interplay between a scanned sample of the
granite rock and the double helix of DNA representing the Irish
diaspora. At night the Spire becomes darker than the sky, as if
the earth’s shadow is being drawn upwards, leaving a tapered
cut in the horizon.

27
For the Delight of Art Ian Ritchie,
Study in Light 2,
But the seductive notion of making art for its own sake again, 2014
simply for the sheer delight of it, not done since childhood,
Monoprint from a series made with no thought
came relatively recently, about 25 years ago, as a result of other than of how to capture the day, the night
accompanying Norman Ackroyd on his annual boat trips and their combined spectrum in one imaginary
landscape of light. It was also an experiment in
through the wild waters surrounding some of the most remote the technique of colour overlays.
and beautiful landscapes of the British Isles, where he captures
the flickering, shifting moods of light as it reflects off land-
and seascape. The drawings done during those holidays are a
rediscovery of what it means to have the time to look at the
natural world, and to find joy in the act of drawing.
One stereotype about architects, among many, is that they
don’t ‘do’ colour. Another is that they only wear black. Many
architects do use colour, of course, but like many clichés
these have a basis in fact. When the architect creates a space,
they are also creating a stage for the lives of the people who
will occupy it, so neutral colours are a way of ensuring their
preferences can be accommodated.

28
 For an architect for whom light and shadow create forms and
colour seldom enters into the equation, the late John Hoyland’s
paintings cannot help but be intoxicating. In his hands, colour
– that most difficult of mediums – becomes the raw material of
art, complete unto itself, its own reason for existence. Looking
at his paintings, it is easy to be overcome by a sensation of
diving into a kind of infinity, especially when gazing at his large-
scale later works, celebrations of the essence and sensation of
the colour by which we see the world. Only a master can take
acrylic paint – that synthetic polymer invented in the 1950s –
and give it such magical life.
In a talk at the Tate Gallery in 1994, Hoyland remarked that
‘Art plays a game of structural truthfulness, it becomes alive. It
contains and understands ecstasy through colour as light. The
artist must try to make every song sing and push beyond the
fixing of appearances.’ 3 Experiencing a Hoyland painting in his
studio was to see colours engaging in glorious battle over the
canvas’s field. This was a demonstration of freedom flowing
from the brush with no barriers. It seems to take a while to
escape one’s tutors, then one’s masters, followed by a period of
genuine personal research and experiment to finally arrive at this
level of abandon.
Each year, Royal Academicians, including myself, must
submit work to be hung in the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer
Exhibition. Most architect Academicians submit models, prints
or photographs, which are not original works from their own
hand. One could argue that it is the architectural brain that
is being exhibited, as the architect’s architecture itself and its
style of representation are regarded as most relevant in their
submissions. The personal expression, the act of drawing itself,
reflects the one tool all Academicians share: the ability and
desire to draw in order to capture, express, reveal and transform.
The etchings and monoprints I made in Norman Ackroyd’s and
Barbara Rae’s respective studios are private events between
mind and hand that have become public. And, sometimes,
they are private challenges that have nothing at all to do with
architecture, submitted in a spirit of mild anarchy and rebellion:
‘He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases.’4 The
question about what that might say about this architect’s brain
will probably never be answered. 1
Notes
1. From Ian Ritchie, Lines, Royal Academy of Arts (London), 2010, p 12.
2. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (A Song of Liberty)
[1790], John W Luce and Company (Boston), 1906, p 26.
3. From a talk first given at the Tate Gallery in 1994; and again
in 2005 in Mauritius (titled ‘Invisible Artist or Performing Bear’):
http://www.johnhoyland.com/about/quotes-from-a-life/.
4. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Macmillan (London),
1865, p 85.
John Hoyland,
Moon in the Water
(Mysteries 21),
2011
Hoyland’s last painting. The dark hole in the centre
of this acrylic on canvas, symbolic of cosmic
infinity, became a theme in his paintings in the
decade before his death, during which time he also
read and was influenced by the death poems of
Zen Buddhist masters.
Text © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 22–3,
27(b), 28 © Ian Ritchie CBE RA; p 24 © Dr Barbara
Rae CBE RA; p 25 etching: Ian Ritchie, photo:
ritchie*studio; p 26 © Nornan Ackroyd CBE RA;
p 27(t) etching: Ian ritchie, photos Barry Mason ©
ritchie*studio; p 29 John Hoyland RA, courtesy
of The John Hoyland Estate, photo Ian Ritchie
29
30
Neil Spiller

Presenting
a Truth
Ben Johnson –
Painting Illusions
In a wide-ranging interview with 2 Editor Neil Spiller,
architectural artist Ben Johnson charts the course of his career
to date – from his formative years at art school, through his
epiphany moment when architecture took its key place in his
practice, and beyond. He recalls the impact of painting the work
of Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, particularly the reflections
caused by their use of glass, and discusses the spiritual aspects
that the act of painting instills in him, along with his more recent
interest in depicting the geometries of Islamic religious buildings.

Ben Johnson,
Dock Reflection,
1974

In a moment of epiphany, Johnson enjoyed the reflections in the minimalist

glass façade of Norman Foster’s amenity centre and passenger terminal for
Fred Olsen at Millwall Docks in East London (1968–70), and wanted to paint
them. This was his introduction to the world of the High-Tech architects.

31

I am the opposite of a stage
magician. He gives you illusion
that has the appearance of
truth. I give you truth in the
pleasant disguise of illusion.
— Tennessee Williams,
The Glass Menagerie, 19441
32
It is the early 1960s, an acutely dyslexic youth, aged 15, leaves
school with no qualifications and enters art college – a familiar
story for many artists. For British artist Ben Johnson a whole
world of exploration and creativity opened up that to date
has sustained a 60-year career – a painting odyssey. Johnson
specialises in depicting architecture and cities, his style instantly
recognisable whether the subject is a high-tech Lord’s oeuvre,
an Islamic mosque or an urban panorama. From the age of
15 to 18 he was at Chester Art School (now part of the city’s
university) and Wrexham School of Art (now part of Wrexham
Glyndwr University) in Wales. ‘Initially I was on a Foundation
course at Wrexham, but I used to “sneak” into evening lectures
given by the head of the school that were for the general public
not the students. They were mainly based on the Bauhaus and
early 20th-century architects.’2
Ben Johnson,
Untitled,
1967–8
An example of Johnson’s early
postgraduate phase, a ‘pseudo
German Expressionist’ work
inspired by Max Beckmann.
Painting an Apprenticeship Ben Johnson,
Inmos Central Spine,
The make-up of the student body at Wrexham reflected 1985
a very specific place and time. Johnson remembers three
This Richard Rogers-designed building for
distinct groups: ‘People like myself who had left school with microprocessor production, with its colour-coded
no qualifications and little interest in the academic; a second services, caught Johnson’s imagination.

group who were very academic and had a deep knowledge of

contemporary art theory and the qualifications to match; and
a very significant group who were the sons and daughters of
the local mining and farming community. Many of them were
in their mid-20s and had seen military action, but they bonded
over the task of finding themselves as artists regardless of their
background or age differences, and were a powerful influence
on each other.’
The artist Rose Wiley encouraged Johnson to apply to the
Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. There, in the mid-1960s,
the fashionable preoccupations of most students involved
abstraction and nurturing the nascent ideas of conceptualism.
None of this interested the young Johnson: ‘I had come from
rural North Wales, but was fortunate enough to meet and
then share a flat with my fellow student John Bellany. We had
many shared interests and my first year also coincided with an
exhibition of German Expressionist artist Max Beckmann at the
Tate. This directed me for the next three years – tough, physical,
painterly statements.’

33
 Ben Johnson,
Tokyo Pool,
2006

The lines of symmetry that can be

evoked by the artful use of pools
of water are a Johnson speciality.

A Sudden Epiphany
Soon after Johnson graduated from the RCA, he was offered
One-point perspective
a solo show in New York. The exhibition consisted of what is often used as a
he now calls his ‘pseudo German Expressionist work’ inspired way of pulling in
by his infatuation with Beckmann: ‘Seeing it on the walls of a
Madison Avenue gallery shocked me and made me see it for the viewer and is an
the first time as what it was – a pastiche of a movement. Then, invitation to focus on
having spent six months living in a dynamic and modern city,
I realised how important architecture was to me.’ On his
and appreciate the
return to London there followed a period of self-reflection that artifice of the work
sent him back to re-evaluate the early sketchbooks he made
in his teenage years in art education. They were a revelation,
bursting with diagrams and drawings of Modernist structures
by Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Vladimir Tatlin,
and among them a photograph of a building that ‘struck a
raw nerve, but as I had cut off all creditation I had no idea
who the architect was or what the building was. I decided to
explore its underlying geometry and re-present it on a large
canvas. For me this was a big adventure. It was another five
years before I found out it was James Stirling’s University of
Leicester Engineering Building [1963].’
Following this, Johnson’s research focused more on the
contemporary and was inspired by a powerful photo he took
of another building that reflected its surroundings. Its façade
consisted of large sheets of glass held together with minimalist
steel mullions. It presented him with an image, not of itself but
of everything that was behind him. For Johnson, this opened
the debate of what any painting represents – is it an illusion
Ben Johnson,
or is it an alternative reality? The building turned out to be Looking Back to Richmond House
Norman Foster’s amenity centre and passenger terminal for (Trafalgar Square),
2010
Fred Olsen at Millwall Docks in East London (1968–70).
There is a period in Johnson’s works that celebrates some As well as paintings of individual buildings,
Johnson is also known for his wide city
of the High-Tech iconic buildings of the 1970s and 1980s panoramas. Here we see the painstaking
produced by the offices of Foster and Richard Rogers. Asked process partially complete.

34
specifically about Rogers’ Inmos microprocessor factory in
Newport, Wales (1980), Johnson remarks: ‘Inmos was a very
special painting for me. I went to study the building in almost its
first week of opening. It is a perfect manifestation of an architect
using their skills to increase the quality of life of its occupants. A
central corridor which became a meeting place of two diverse
groups – office workers and microprocessor technicians.’ But the
longer-term success of this space was compromised: ‘I returned
five years later to re-create and enjoy my first experience, but it
had become a sad version of its initial being. The social meeting
place had become a storage area with little space given over to
social interaction. I decided I must make a painting that reflected
my first impressions. I went to Richard Rogers’ office and took
away the plans and elevations, and reconstructed the space at its
purest, devoid of insensitive degradation of the architect’s initial
intentions by “management”.’
On Reflection
The cornerstone of Johnson’s work is one of a meditative
pilgrimage full of personal reflection that allows him to
perceive and chart the world as he wants to see it, enjoying
and transcribing its underlying geometries. Referencing the
importance to his creative practice of the Tennessee Williams
quote at the beginning of this article, he says he sees his paintings
‘not as representations of architecture, but manifestations of
an obsessive creativity leading to stillness and reflection. I am
preoccupied with the physical act of manipulating raw materials
to provoke an emotion.’ One-point perspective is often used as
a way of pulling in the viewer and is an invitation to focus on
and appreciate the artifice of the work: ‘The starting point is the
apparent representation of a “real” space, but as you are drawn
into the surface you realise what exists is only paint on a piece of
cloth. The vanishing point pulls you in and then allows you back
where you find yourself standing in front of an illusion.’
For Johnson, the notion of a personal reflection and stillness
and the representation of the reflections of light and colour in
the materials of a building reveal a paradox between the quest
for the purely unmarked, rejoicing in its underlying abstract
geometry of the artwork, and the fact that individually we are
all continually marked by events around us and the emotions
they evoke: ‘Many of my paintings do represent reflections and
for me these are often an indication of a world that is unmarked,
35
Ben Johnson, pure and without distortion. I am not sure if this is an unrealistic
The Unattended Moment,
1993 wish to live in such a world or whether I paint the world which
is so often far from the ideal. None of us are left unmarked or
Johnson’s interest in shadows, transparency and
liquidity, and his dexterity in representing them, unaffected by our pasts.’
is illustrated beautifully in this work.

The Artist and His Studio

Johnson has always worked in his own studio, but acknowledges
that a building with multiple studios can cosset a community of
creative practices that can be supportive and also inspiring: ‘I
think community and communication are very important. Whilst
considered to be a professional artist, I never think of myself
as anything other than a student. I learn from my own
experimentation, but I continue to be inspired by the ambitions
of the architects I celebrate.’
When asked about the way he goes about creating a painting,
he notes that the first creative act of any architect, artist or
designer is selecting what to work on: ‘First and foremost I am
looking for an image from the world outside my studio that
reflects my constant search for an object of meditation.’ The next
phase is one of research and photographic representation. Then
comes a phase that involves the assimilation of that knowledge
that is simultaneously tacit, haptic and visual, which leads to
the creation of an individual interpretation. ‘Once identified

Ben Johnson,
Fin Garden,
2019

Representing Islamic architectures pushes Johnson’s undeniable

skills to the limit – where semiotics, architecture and calligraphy
collide in the most extraordinary ways.

36
through painstaking searches, both through existing imagery and
my own process of making carefully constructed large-format
photographs, I then return to the isolated world of the studio
to deconstruct, analyse and recompose an image. Just as the
photograph is an object independent of its subject, the drawing
becomes independent of the photograph and a new starting point.’
However, Johnson also often seeks the help of computerised
technology: ‘Increasingly, digital processes are essential in
providing the level of detail I require to start the process of
applying paint to canvas. My subject matter varies so much that
it is very hard to give an average length of time in making any
work. Two months might be the very minimum, and three years
the most extreme.’ Whilst sometimes utilising modern modes
of transcription in his work, Johnson can also see the parallels
between his working methods and the studio methodologies of
previous eras. ‘Despite using digital technology which allows
me to explore space and shapes, and produce stencils and plot
drawings, my studio is not unlike that of a 15th-century studio.
Johnson recognises aspects
of himself in a roster of artists
from across the centuries
I work with assistants and over the last 10 years many different
skills have been brought to any completed work.’
Johnson recognises aspects of himself in a roster of artists
from across the centuries, and it is their creative struggle and
the originality they have produced that interests him and
provokes his admiration: ‘The people who interest me are those
who take risks on their journeys of self-discovery, but maybe
all start from a similar base which is an exploration through
materials and craftsmanship of something that is universal and
probably spiritual. Artists with integrity and an uncompromising
ambition to present a truth.’ These artists include the Italian
Early Renaissance painters Fra Angelico (1395–1455) and Piero
della Francesca (1415–92), Early Netherlandish painter Jan van
Eyck (1390–1441) and Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer
(1632–75), abstract painters Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1994), Ben
Nicholson (1894–1982), Mark Rothko (1903–1970) and Agnes
Martin (1912–2004), and William Kentridge (1955–), noted for
his hand-drawn animated films of the 1990s.
Ben Johnson in
his studio,
2022
The long hours of concentration
required to construct works of this
quality demand a rigorously still
mental attitude and considerable
physical fitness.
37
Ben Johnson,
Dome of the Rock triptych,
2016–17

Johnson has recently found much artistic

'Geometry and mathematics
pleasure in painting Islamic structures
and revealing their underlying geometry
and precision.
underlie all of my work. One
of the things that unifies
people is the relationship of
forces and elements'

38

An Islamic Interest
In recent work, Johnson has been portraying Islamic
architecture with its breathtaking geometries and beautiful
calligraphy. These preoccupations fuel his personal take on his
art, his way of operating in the world and his relationships with
others: ‘I think geometry and mathematics underlie all of my
work. One of the things that unifies people is the relationship
of forces and elements. Numbers are a way of quantifying
many mysterious and spiritual elements that control our
lives. I admire and respond to objects and buildings made
with love, passion and craftsmanship. All buildings to me
tell the stories of their making and history. What I choose to
focus on within the world of Islamic buildings is a skilful use
of sacred geometry and messages of unity and respect.’ These
interests have continued in his new work, including a piece he
is currently completing, entitled I’Timad ud Daulah, which
is one of his first on Mughal architecture. ‘This is a highly
decorated building. One aspect in this work that I want to
Ben Johnson,
I’Timad ud Daulah,
2022
Johnson at work on his first painting of Mughal architecture, the
great tomb of I’Timad ud Daulah in Agra, India, built in 1628.
pursue is the representation of a mathematical latticework in
the foreground. Whilst this for me is a magical manifestation of
geometry, what is important within the painting is an invitation
to see the view that lies behind.’
So, in the substantial oeuvre of Ben Johnson, over six
decades, there have been moments of self-reflection, delightful
chartings of a myriad of geometries and numerous plottings of
the shifting prima materia of architecture: light, shadow, colour,
transparency, material, void and mass. He is undoubtedly a
master of illusion and an artisan of extreme skill and patience –
the work and the man cannot be separated, one is the other and
vice versa. 1
Note
1. Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, Scene 1, University of the South,
Sewanee, Tennessee, 1944
2. All quotes from an interview with the author on 23 November 2022.
Text © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Images © Ben Johnson. All rights reserved DACS
39
 Felix Robbins

40
Felix Robbins,
Projection of Pliny’s villa at
Laurentum, Italy,
after Robert Castell,
2022

Inhabiting a ‘negative capability’ of an

archetypical description – the opportunities for
projection that recognises the shifting dynamics
of uncertainty. After the reconstruction of Pliny’s
Laurentian villa in Robert Castell’s The Villas of
the Ancients Illustrated (1728).

41
 The combination of an understanding of
architectural history and a compositionally advanced
architectural ‘eye’, integrated with a PhD in second-
order cybernetics, has shaped the preoccupations
es

42
 agency: from Latin agentem […]
present participle of agere ‘to set in
motion, drive forward; to do, perform,’
figuratively ‘incite to action; keep in
movement’1
Designing is a synthetic process – an
oscillating and combinatory dynamic that
speculates beyond any preconception
of resolution as an ongoing enquiry.
Projection forms the method within
which this synthesis is enacted in an
architectural enquiry – the construction of
an architectural project. Conventionally
however, this process is typically expected
to result in a direct correlation between
representation and objectification
(with an architectural product acting
as a demonstrable outcome of this
synthesis). But there is also the capacity
to speculate differently – working within
an open ecology and evolving as multiple
contingent possibilities that are exposed
and nondemonstrable (the ‘immanent
sublime’ of Jean-François Lyotard2). The
activity of ‘projecting’ architecturally
suggests an irresolute and uncertain
representation that moves across
and between disciplinary constraints
of aesthetic production – reframing
architectural practice as an agency.
The research presented here can be seen
therefore as a continuous enquiry into what
a ‘sublime synthesis’ might mean in the
construction of an architectural project. It
forms a constant movement – an enquiry
within the discipline of architecture that
attempts to create and keep open this room
for speculative projection. It attempts to
operate within uncertain and contradictory
dynamic systems for producing work
across disciplinary boundaries: a drawing
programme that shifts and slides between
lost archetypical constructions, disciplinary
fragments and speculative reconstructions/
projections as models for architecture
(a distinction between models of and
models for drawn from the cybernetic
work of Ranulph Glanville3). It continues
to question and reconstruct the ‘product’
through ways of working that explore,
adopt, appropriate and reconstruct a
mixture of poetic processes and technical
references between disciplines.
An exploratory space for architectural
reconstruction that ‘exposes’ an
objectification of architecture, the research
tests constructions with analogue and
digital mixtures of technique and co-opting
speculative and poetic tactics that similarly
aspire to articulate and paradoxically
occupy an unnamable4 condition.
Attempting to expose the fallacies of fixed
disciplinary positions and identify potential
in continuous contingent movement,
it occupies and reframes the unstable
dynamics of ever-changing ecologies
of practice within which we inevitably
participate, construct and fail to understand
(and fail to acknowledge our collective
incomprehension).
The research becomes an agency for
practice that emerges both through and
within the processes of drawing and
making as thinking – considering potential
reconstructions of an architectural project
as a dynamic and irresolute process for
projecting within variable and contingent
patterns of problematic situations. It is
a matter of irresolute opportunities, as
‘opposed’ to ever resolving as a singular
preconceived product or aesthetic solution
– an architectural practice moving within a
subjunctive mood.5
The Passing Third
In the short story ‘The Night Driver’ by
Italo Calvino (forming part of his t-zero
collection written in 1967), Calvino
constructs a problematic situation. The
story begins by locating us in transit,
driving between positions on a motorway
at night with an in-between lane for passing

Felix Robbins,
Diagram of brick-stone
construction, after
Isaac Ware,
2022

opposite: A ‘passing third’ of material

construction projecting between the ‘body
of architecture’ as represented in a typical
brick-stone elevation/section/plan detail
fabrication. After Plate 13 of Isaac Ware’s
A Complete Body of Architecture (1756).

Felix Robbins,
Landing of the former
Pembroke House,
London,
2022

right: Exposed occupation of a lost

fragment – the demolished Palladian villa
of Pembroke House – and the dynamics of
reconstructing a process of objectification
for architecture in terms of unexpected and
contingent possibility.

43
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
tämän synnin Intian omaltatunnolta. Hän suunnitteli apua alennetuille
veljilleen. Ei koskaan hänen henkensä ilmene vapaampana kuin
silloin, kun hän palvelee heidän asiaansa. Tästä voi päättää, että
hän olisi ollut valmis uhraamaan uskontonsakin, jos hänelle olisi
todistettu, että »halveksiminen» oli yksi sen opinkappaleita. Ja tämä
ainut vääryys selittää hänen silmissään kaiken sen, mitä intialaiset
saavat kärsiä maailmassa…

»On vain ikuisen oikeuden palaamista se, että intialaiset ovat

tulleet keisarikunnan paarioiksi. Peskööt intialaiset ensin
verentahraamat kätensä… Koskemiskielto on alentanut Intian. Etelä-
Afrikassa, itäisessä Afrikassa, Kanadassa intialaisia suorastaan on
kohdeltu paarioina. Swarâj (Home Rule) on mahdoton, niin kauan
kuin on olemassa paarioita. Intia on syypää. Englanti ei ole tehnyt
mitään sen mustempaa. Ensimmäinen velvollisuus on suojella
heikkoja ja olla loukkaamatta ihmisen omaatuntoa. Emme ole
roistoja parempia hamaan siihen saakka kunnes olemme
peseytyneet tästä synnistä. Swarâjin tulee olla oikeuden
hallitsemista yli koko maan…»

Gandhi tahtoi, että kansallinen lakialaativa kokous parantaisi mitä

pikimmin paaria-veljien kohtalon, että heille suotaisiin suuri joukko
kouluja ja kaivoja — sillä yleisten kaivojen käyttö oli heiltä kielletty. —
Mutta suo siellä, vetelä täällä … Hänen kärsimättömyytensä, joka ei
salli hänen odottaa kädet ristissä, kunnes etuoikeutetut luokat ovat
parantaneet vääryytensä, saattaa hänet paariain leiriin; hän asettuu
heidän etunenäänsä, koettaa heitä ryhmittää. Hän tutkii heidän
kanssaan eri toimintamuotoja: mitä voivat he? Vedota tässä asiassa
Intian hallitukseen? Se merkitsisi orjuuden vaihtamista toiseen…
Hyljätä hindulaisuus — (huomattakoon tämä suuren
hinduuskovaisen ylevä rohkeus!) — ja kääntyä kristinuskoon tai
muhamettilaisuuteen? Gandhi olisi valmis sitä ehdottamaan, jos
hindulaisuus ja koskettamiskielto olisivat erottamattomat. Mutta hän
on vakuutettu, että se on vain hindulaisuuden epäterve
kasvannainen, joka täytyy poistaa. Paariain tulee siis järjestäytyä
puolustautuakseen. Heillä olisi yksi keino; käyttää »pois
yhteistoiminta» -asetta hindulaisuuttakin vastaan, lopettaen kaikki
suhteet muihin hinduihin (tämän isänmaanystävän suussa
ihmeellisen rohkea neuvo yhteiskunnalliseen kapinaan!). Mutta,
Gandhi jatkaa, paariat eivät kykene mihinkään järjestäytymiseen,
heillä ei ole johtajia. Yhtykööt he siis — se on ainoa keino, mikä
heille jää — yleiseen intialaiseen »pois yhteistoiminta» -liikkeeseen,
jonka ensimmäinen ehto on luokkien yhtyminen! Todellinen »pois
yhteistoiminta» -aate on puhdistava uskonnollinen toimitus. Ei
kukaan voi ottaa siihen osaa hylkäämällä paariat; hän rikkoisi siten
raskaasti. Täten Gandhin onnistui sovittaa uskonto, isänmaa ja
ihmisyys.

»Poljettujen» luokkien konferenssi (Suppressed Classes

Conference), jota Gandhi johti Ahmedabadissa huhtikuun 13 ja 14
p:nä 1921, vihki juhlallisesti nämä ensimmäiset ryhmitysyritykset.
Hän piti siellä yhden valtavimmista puheistaan. Hän ei tyydy
julistamaan yhteiskunnallisen erilaisuuden lakkauttamista; hän
odottaa paarioilta suuria asioita uudestisyntyneen Intian
yhteiskunnallisessa elämässä; hän antaa heille takaisin
luottamuksen itseensä; hän puhaltaa heihin polttavan toivon, joka
häntä itseään elähdyttää. Hän on heissä huomannut, hän sanoo,
suunnattomia salaisia mahdollisuuksia. Hän laskee »halveksittujen»
viidessä kuukaudessa osaavan arvollaan saavuttaa oikean
paikkansa intialaisessa suuressa perheessä.
 Gandhia ilahdutti nähdä Intian heltyvän, kun vedottiin sen
sydämeen, ja paariain vapauttaminen toteutui lukuisissa paikoissa.
[62] Vangitsemisensa aattona Gandhi huolehti vielä tästä asiasta ja
kertoili sen edistyksestä. Bramaanit uhrautuivat. Etuoikeutetut luokat
antoivat liikuttavia esimerkkejä katumuksesta ja veljellisestä
rakkaudesta. Gandhi mainitsee tapauksen nuoresta
kahdeksantoistavuotisesta bramaanista, joka ryhtyi lakeijaksi
elääkseen paariain kanssa.

Yhtä ylevämielisen innokkaasti Gandhi ajoi toista suurta asiaa —

naisasiaa.

Sukupuolikysymys on erikoisen vakava Intiassa, jonka aistillisuus

on ylitsevuotavan rikas, rasittava ja huonosti säännöstelty.
Lapsiavioliitot ennen aikojaan tyhjentävät kansan ruumiilliset ja
siveelliset voimat. Ajatusta painaa lihallinen kiusaus; vaimon arvoa
se alentaa. Gandhi julkaisee hindunaisten valitukset siitä alentavasta
tavasta, jolla kansallismieliset hindut heitä kohtelevat Hän pitää
heidän valituksiansa oikeutettuina. Tässä on, hän sanoo, Intian
haava, yhtä kipeä kuin »halveksiminen». Mutta hän lisää: koko
maailma kärsii siitä. Kysymys on yleismaailmallinen.

Kuten paariakysymyksessäkin, hän odottaa tässä asiassa

raskautettujen edistyvän paljon enemmän kuin rasittajien. Hän
kääntyy naisten puoleen neuvoen heitä ensin herättämään
kunnioitusta lakkaamalla pitämästä itseään miehen halujen
esineenä. Ottakoot he päättävästi osaa julkiseen elämään,
uskaltautukoot sen vaivoihin ja vaaroihin. Älkööt he ainoastaan
kieltäytykö ylellisyydestään pois heittämällä ja polttamalla ulkolaiset
kankaat, vaan jakakoot he kaikki miehen vaivat. Kalkutassa on jo
vangittu korkea-arvoisia naisia. Se on hyvä. Kaukana siitä, että
vaatisivat lievitystä kohteluun, kilpailkoot he päinvastoin miesten
kanssa kestämisessä ja kieltäymyksessä! Tällä alalla nainen voi aina
mennä miehen edelle. Älkööt he epäilkö mitään! Heikoinkin voi
varjella kunniaansa. Riittää, että osaa kuolla.

Hän ei unohtanut langenneita sisariammekaan.[63] Hän kertoo

keskusteluista, joita hänellä oli usean sadan heikäläisen kanssa
Andrhan maakunnassa ja Barisalissa. Miten yksinkertaisen ylevästi
hän puhuu heille ja he hänelle; he uskovat itsensä hänelle, kysyvät
häneltä neuvoa! Hän etsii heille kunniallista ammattia, ehdottaa
heille rukkia, he lupaavat ruveta sitä käyttämään jo seuraavana
päivänä, jos heitä autetaan. — Ja kääntyen Intian miesten puoleen
Gandhi muistuttaa heille naisen kunnioituksesta:

»Meidän vallankumouksessamme ei ole paikallaan tällainen

synnillä leikkiminen. Swarâj merkitsee sitä, että pidämme kaikkia
Intian asukkaita veljinä ja sisarina… Kunnioitus kaikkia kohtaan!
Naissukupuoli ei ole heikko sukupuoli, se on jalompi näistä
kahdesta, koska sillä on kyky uhrautua, hiljaa kärsiä, olla nöyrä,
koska sillä on usko ja tunto. Naisen intuitio on usein voittanut miehen
julkeasti itselleen omistavan ylemmän ymmärryksen…»

Hän löysi Intian naisissa — alkaen omasta vaimostaan — järkeviä

apulaisia ja parhaita oppilaitaan.
III

Vuosi 1921 merkitsee Gandhin vaikutuksen korkeinta huippua.

Hänellä on ääretön siveellinen voima; ja hänen itsensä sitä
tavoittelematta pannaan hänen käsiinsä melkein rajaton valtiollinen
mahti. Kansa uskoo häntä pyhimykseksi; hänestä tehdään
maalauksia Šri-Krišnana.[64] Ja joulukuussa 1921 koko Intian
Kongressi asettaa hänet täyteen arvovaltaan; hänellä on oikeus
valita seuraajansa. Hän on Intian kansan kieltämätön johtaja.
Hänestä riippuu, päästääkö vai ei valloilleen valtiollinen
vallankumous ja luodako vaikkapa uskonnollinen uudistus.

Hän ei sitä tehnyt. Hän ei halunnut sitä. Siveellistä suuruuttako?

Siveellistä arkuuttako? Ehkä molempaakin. Jokaiselle on vaikeata
(etenkin toisenlaista sivistystä edustavalle ihmiselle) tunkeutua
syvälle johonkin omaantuntoon, etenkin kun se on niin syvä ja
herkkä kuin Gandhin. On vaikeata arvata tekojen pyörteessä, jotka
tänä melskeisenä vuonna kuohuttivat Intiaa kaikin tavoin, onko
perämiehen käsi aina ollut varma ja ohjannut jättiläislaivaa
hairahtumatta, vapisematta. Mutta minä koetan sanoa sen, minkä
luulen saaneeni ilmi tästä elävästä arvoituksesta, tätä nuorta miestä
kohtaan tuntemallani suurella kunnioituksella ja vilpittömyydellä,
minkä olen velkaa hänen vilpittömyydelleen.
 *****

Vaikka Gandhin valta olikin suuri, eivät sen käyttämisen vaarat

olleet pienemmät. Sitä mukaa kuin julkinen toiminta laajeni ja
värähdytti satoja miljoonia ihmisiä, tuli vaikeammaksi sitä ohjata ja
säilyttää oma tasapaino tällä meuruavalla merellä. Oli yli-inhimillinen
tehtävä säilyttää hengen hillintä ja samalla laajakatseisuus näiden
irtipäässeiden, hillittömien joukkojen keskessä. Perämies, lempeä ja
hurskas, rukoilee ja turvautuu Jumalaan. Mutta hänen kuulemaansa
ääntä hämmentää myrsky. Kuulevatko muut sitä?

Seikka, mitä hänen vähimmin tarvitsee pelätä, on ylpeyden vaara.

Ei mikään ihailu voi panna hänen päätään pyörälle. Se haavoittaa
hänen nöyrää mieltään yhtä paljon kuin älyään. Ainutlaatuinen
tapaus profeettain ja suurten mystikkojen historiassa on seikka, ettei
hän ollenkaan näe näkyjä eikä ilmestyksiä eikä pyri sellaisia itselleen
enempää kuin muillekaan uskottelemaan. Tahratonta vilpittömyyttä!
Hänen järkensä ei lankea hurmioon eikä sydämensä
turhamaisuuteen. Hän on ja pysyy samanlaisena kuin kaikki muut
ihmiset… Ei, älköön häntä kutsuttako pyhimykseksi! Hän ei sitä
halua. (Ja siksi hän juuri on pyhimys.)

»Hän kirjoittaa: sana Pyhä on pyyhittävä pois nykyisestä

elämästä… Rukoilen kuten jokainen kunnon hindu, uskon meidän
kaikkien voivan olla Jumalan lähettejä, mutta minulla ei ole ollut
mitään erikoista Jumalan ilmestystä. Oma vahva uskoni on, että hän
ilmestyy jokaiselle ihmisolennolle, mutta me suljemme korvamme
sisäiseltä ääneltä… Minä pyrin olemaan vaatimaton työmies,
vaatimaton Intian ja ihmisyyden palvelija (a humble servant of India
and humanity…) Minulla ei ole mitään halua perustaa lahkoa. Olen
todella siinä suhteessa liian kunnianhimoinen. En esitä uusia
totuuksia. Koetan esittää ja seurata totuutta sellaisena kuin sen
tunnen. Kylvän uutta valoa moniin vanhoihin totuuksiin.»

Itsensä suhteen hän on siis aina vaatimaton, kaikissa asioissa

mitä tunnollisin, omasta kohdastaan mahdoton kaikkeen
poikkeukselliseen niin hyvin intialaisena isänmaanystävänä kuin
»pois yhteistoiminta» -aatteen pappina. Hän ei hyväksy mitään
tyranniutta edes hyvän asian puolesta. »Ei pidä koskaan korvata
hallituksen orjuutusta »pois yhteistoiminta» -aatteen miesten orjana
olemisella. Hän kieltäytyy niinikään vertaamasta isänmaataan muihin
isänmaihin, eikä hänen isänmaallisuutensa sulkeudu Intian rajojen
sisälle. »Minun patriotismini sulaa ihmisyyteen. Olen patriootti, koska
olen ihminen ja inhimillinen. En ole ahdasmielinen. En tekisi pahaa
enempää Englannille kuin Saksallekaan palvellakseni Intiaa.
Imperialismilla ei ole paikkaa elämänsuunnitelmassani… Patriootti
on isänmaansa ystävä sitä vähemmin, mitä huonompi humanisti hän
on.

Mutta ovatko hänen oppilaansa aina olleet yhtä pidättyväisiä? Mitä

tulee hänen opistaan joidenkuiden muiden ohjatessa? Ja miten
paljon kansa siitä hyötyy heidän välityksellään?

*****

Kun Rabindranath Tagore monien vuosien matkustelun jälkeen

palaa Euroopasta Intiaan elokuussa 1921, on hän hämmästynyt
mielten muutoksesta. Hänen tuskansa ei näyttäytynyt vasta hänen
palatessaan, se ilmeni jo monissa hänen Euroopasta intialaisille
ystävilleen lähettämissään kirjeissä, joista useat julaistiin Modern
Review'ssa.[65] On välttämätöntä pysähtyä tähän kahden suuren
hengen erimielisyyteen, henkien, jotka kunnioittavat ja ihailevat
toisiaan, mutta jotka ovat samalla niin kohtalokkaasti erotetut kuin on
kreikkalainen viisas apostolista, Platon pyhästä Paavalista. Toisella
puolen uskon ja laupeuden nero, joka haluaa olla uuden ihmisyyden
hiiva. Toisella puolen taas älyn nero, vapaa, laajakatseinen ja selkeä,
joka käsittää kaiken olemassaolevan kokonaisuuden.

Tagore on aina tunnustanut Gandhin pyhyyden; ja olen hänen

kuullut siitä puhuvan kunnioituksella. Kun minä esitin Tolstoin
olemusta Mahatmana, osoitti Tagore, kuinka paljon Gandhi oli tätä
olemusta lähempänä ja hänen mielestään kirkkaamman valon
ympäröimä — (ja minä myönnän tämän nyt, kun tunnen hänet
paremmin) — sillä Gandhissa on kaikki luontoa, yksinkertaista,
vaatimatonta ja puhdasta; ja hänen taistelujansa ympäröi tyyneys.
Sensijaan Tolstoilla kaikki on ylpeätä kapinaa ylpeyttä vastaan, vihaa
vihaa vastaan, intohimoa intohimoja vastaan, kaikki on väkivaltaa,
itse väkivallan vierominenkin… Tagore kirjoitti Lontoosta huhtikuun
10 p:nä 1921: »Olemme kiitolliset Gandhille siitä, että hän antaa
Intialle tilaisuuden todistaa uskon jumalaiseen henkeen ihmisessä
vielä elävän.» Ja vaikkakin hän jo suhtautui varovaisesti Gandhin
liikkeeseen lähtiessään Ranskasta paluumatkalle kotimaahan, oli
hän halukas antamaan sille apuansa. Vieläpä muuan huomiota
herättävä manifesti lokakuulta 1921, Totuuden vaatimus, jonka
myöhemmin tähän lainaan ja joka vahvistaa välien katkeamisen,
alkaa suurimmalla ylistyksellä, mitä koskaan Gandhista on kirjoitettu.

Omasta puolestaan Gandhi osoittaa Tagorelle syvää kunnioitusta

ja koettaa eri mieltäkin ollessaan pysyttää sen. Tuntuu, että hänestä
on työlästä ruveta väittelyihin Tagoren kanssa. Kun hyvät ystävät
koettavat kiihoittaa taistelua kantelemalla eräitä yksityislaatuisia
puheita, käskee Gandhi heitä vaikenemaan osoittaen, miten paljosta
hänen on Tagorea kiittäminen.[66]
 Mutta on kohtalokasta, että heidän henkinen eroavaisuutensa
vahvistui. Kesästä 1920 alkaen Tagore oli valittanut sitä, että
Gandhissa asuva ylitsevuotava rakkauden ja uskon voima
suuntautui Tilakin kuoleman jälkeen politiikan palvelukseen. Varmasti
Gandhi itse ei ollut siihen ryhtynyt sydämen ilolla; mutta Tilakin
kuoltua Intia oli vailla poliittista johtajaa. Täytyi astua hänen tilalleen.

»Jos minun havaitaan ottavan osaa politiikkaan, sanoo hän

nimenomaan hetkenä, jolloin hän siinä suhteessa ryhtyy
ratkaisevaan päätökseen, teen sen ainoastaan sikäli, että nykyinen
politiikka sieppaa meidät kuin käärme kiemuroihinsa… Koetan saada
uskonnon leimaa politiikkaan.»

Mutta Tagore valitti tämän seikan tarpeellisuutta. Hän kirjoitti

syyskuun 7 p:nä 1920:

»Koko se siveellinen into, jota Mahatma Gandhin elämä osoittaa ja

jota maailman kaikkien ihmisten joukossa vain hän voi edustaa, on
meille tarpeellinen. On raskas onnettomuus meidän maallemme, että
niin kallisarvoinen aarre on asetettu politiikkamme hauraaseen
laivaan ja heitetty kiihtyneiden vastasyytösten loppumattomaan
aallokkoon, maallemme, jonka tehtävä on sielun tulella antaa
uudelleen elämä kuolleille….

Henkisten voimiemme tuhlaus seikkailuihin, jotka siveellisen

totuuden kannalta katsoen ovat kehnoja, on kovin surullista. On
rikollista muuttaa siveellinen voima sokeaksi voimaksi.»[67]

»Pois yhteistoiminta»-sotaretken raikuvat alkutoitotukset, Khilafat-

nimen sekä Punjabin rikosten Intiassa nostattama levottomuus olivat
sanelleet Tagorelle nämä rivit. Hän pelkäsi niiden vaikutuksia
heikkoon ja hysteerisen raivon puuskiin alttiiseen kansaan. Hän olisi
tahtonut sen vieroittaa kostoajatuksista ja teoista, joita olisi
mahdoton korjata, saada sen unohtamaan, mikä ei ollut autettavissa,
haaveilemaan vain mitä suurimman isänmaan sielun rakentamista.
Yhtä paljon kuin hän Gandhin ajatuksessa ja toiminnassa ihaili
uhrautuvan hengen palavaa säteilyä (ja sen hän sanoo kirjeessään
maaliskuun 2 p:ltä 1921, jonka myöhemmin esitän), yhtä paljon oli
hänestä vastenmielinen se kielteinen aines, jonka uusi uskonto
sisälsi, — »pois yhteistoiminta». Häntä kauhisti kaikki kielteinen! Ja
tässä on hänellä tilaisuus verrata brahmalaisuuden positiivista
ihannetta, elämänilojensa puhdistamista, täydelliseen luopumiseen,
jota taas buddhalaisuuden kielteinen ihanne vaatii. Tähän tulee
Gandhi vastaamaan, ettei hylkäämisen teho ole vähemmän
tarpeellinen kuin hyväksymisen. Ihmisponnistuksessa on kumpaakin.
Upanišadien viimeinen sana on kielteinen. Ja Brahman määrittelevät
Upanišadien tekijät seuraavasti: Neti (Ei tätä). Intia oli liiaksi
unohtanut taidon sanoa: »Ei!» Gandhi on sen sille uudelleen
opettanut.

»Ennen kylvämistä on kitkettävä… temmattava pois paha.»

Mutta eikö Tagore halua mitään kitkeä? Hänen runollinen

mietiskelynsä sopeutuu kaikkeen olevaan ja nauttii sen
sopusoinnusta. Hän tuo sen ilmi lauseissa, jotka ovat nerokkaan
kauniit, mutta äärimmäisen vapaat toiminnasta. Tämä on mielikuvilla
leikkivän Natarajan tanssia:

»Koetan kaikin voimin sovittaa ajatustapani isänmaani yli

kulkevaan kiihkoisan innostuksen tunnemyrskyn säveleen. Mutta
miksi on olemuksessani tämä vastustuksen henki, vastoin
voimakasta haluani välttää sitä? En löydä selvää vastausta, mutta
alakuloisuuteni sumuun pilkistää hymy ja ääni sanoo: »Teidän
paikkanne on lasten parissa, maailmojen rannikolla: siellä on
rauhanne; ja siellä olen minä kanssanne.» Ja siksi olen äsken
leikilläni keksinyt uusia rytmejä. Ne ovat vain tyhjiä, mutta iloisia siitä,
että hetken virta on tuonut ne mukanaan; ne tanssivat auringossa ja
nauravat kadotessaan. Mutta sillaikaa kuin huvittelen, koko luomus
huvittelee: sillä eivätkö lehdet ja kukat ole loppumattomia kokeiluja
rytmeillä? Eikö Jumalani ole aikojen ikuinen tuhlaaja? Hän heittää
tähdet ja planeetat muutosten pyörteeseen; näkyväisyyden virralle
hän heittää aikakausien mielikuvitustäydet paperiveneet. Kun minä
häntä ahdistan ja häntä rukoilen sallimaan minun jäädä hänen
pieneksi oppilaakseen ja hyväksymään muutamia tekemiäni pikku
näperryksiä hänen ilolaivansa lastuiksi, hän hymyilee ja minä astelen
hänen takanaan hänen takkinsa liepeeseen tarttuen… Mutta missä
olen kansanjoukon keskellä, takaa työnnettynä, joka puolelta
puserrettuna? Ja mikä on melu, joka minua ympäröi? Jos se on
laulu, silloin voi sitarini siepata sen melodian, ja minä yhdyn kuoroon,
sillä olenhan laulaja. Mutta jos se on valitusta, on ääneni tukahtunut
ja olen itsekin turta. Olen koettanut kaikkina näinä päivinä korvaani
heristäen keksiä siinä melodiaa: mutta »pois yhteistoiminta» -ajatus
hirvittävine, helisevine vyöryineen, kasattuine uhkineen,
kieltäymyksen-huutoineen ei minulle laula mistään. Ja minä
ajattelen: »Jos ette voi kulkea yhtä jalkaa kansalaistenne kanssa
heidän historiansa suuressa vaiheessa, varokaa sanomasta, että he
ovat väärässä ja te itse oikeassa; jättäkää sotilaan osanne, palatkaa
runoilijanurkkaanne ja olkaa valmiit ottamaan vastaan kansan iva ja
epäsuosio!»[68]

Täten puhuisi joku Goethe — intialainen Goethe Bacchus. Ja

näyttää siltä kuin tämä olisi hänen lopullinen mielipiteensä: runoilija
jättäisi hyvästit kielteiselle toiminnalle ja kutoisi ympärilleen
luomisilon lumokehän. — Mutta Tagore ei tee sittenkään näin, sillä
hän kirjoittaa tästä: »kohtalo oli hänet valinnut ohjaamaan venettään
juuri vasten virtaa!» Hän ei ollut ainoastaan runoilija; hän oli tällä
hetkellä Aasian henkinen lähettiläs Euroopassa; ja hän palasi juuri
pyytämästä tätä maanosaa liittoon perustaessaan yleismaailmallisen
yliopiston Santiniketaniin.

»Mikä kohtalon iva, että juuri olen saarnannut merten tällä puolen
Idän ja Lännen kulttuurien yhteistoimintaa samanaikaisesti kuin
»pois yhteistoiminta» -aatetta saarnataan toisella puolen.»

»Pois yhteistoiminta» -aate loukkasi juuri hänen toimintaansa ja

henkevää uskoaan: »Uskon todelliseen Idän ja Lännen liittoon.»

Se loukkasi hänen rikasta, maailman kaikkien kulttuurien

ravitsemaa älyään.

»Kaikki ihmiskunnan kunnia on minun… Ihmisen ääretön

personallisuus (kuten sanovat Upanišadit) voi toteutua vain kaikkien
ihmissukukuntien suurenmoisessa sopusoinnussa… Rukoilen aina,
että Intia edustaisi maailman kaikkien kansain yhteistoimintaa. Sille
on yhteys totuus ja jakautuminen Mâyâ. Yhteys on jotain, mikä
käsittää kaiken eikä siis ole saavutettavissa kieltämisen tietä…
Nykyinen pyrkimys viedä meidän henkemme eroon Lännen
hengestä on henkisen itsemurhan koe… Nykyaikaa on mahtavasti
hallinnut Länsi. Se on ollut mahdollista vain siten, että Lännelle on
tullut osaksi joku suuri ihmiselle tarkoitettu tehtävä. Meidän, Idän
ihmisten, tulee siitä oppia… On epäilemättä epäkohta, ettemme
pitkään aikaan ole olleet kosketuksessa oman kulttuurimme kanssa
ja että Lännen kulttuuri on siksi vallannut meidän kulttuurimme
oikean paikan… Mutta jos väitetään olevan pahasta jäädä
kosketukseen sen kanssa, merkitsee se huonoimman lajisen
nurkkakuntaisuuden rohkaisemista, nurkkakuntaisuuden, josta
seuraa vain henkistä vajavaisuutta… Päivän kysymys on
yleismaailmallinen. Ei yksikään kansa voi menestyä irtautumalla
toisista. On joko pelastauduttava tai hävittävä yhdessä.»[69]

Kuten Goethe vuonna 1813 kieltäytyi vihaamasta ranskalaista

sivistystä, ei Tagorekaan voi hyväksyä Lännen sivistyksen
hylkäämistä. Ja vaikka tämä ei olisi ollutkaan Gandhin ajatus, tietää
Tagore intialaisen natsionalismin nostettujen intohimojen antavan
tämän sävyn sille. Hän pelkää tämän hengen barbarian tuloa:

»Ylioppilaat tuovat uhriantimensa — mille? Ei täydellisemmälle

kasvatukselle, vaan »pois kasvatus» -aatteelle… Muistan, että
Swadeši-liikkeen[70] ensi aikoina parvi nuoria ylioppilaita tuli minua
tervehtimään; he sanoivat minulle siinä tapauksessa, että käskisin
heitä jättämään koulunsa ja kolleegionsa, tottelevansa minua heti.
Minä kielsin jyrkästi, ja he poistuivat vihaisina, epäillen äiti-isänmaani
rakkauden vilpittömyyttä.»

Juuri näinä kevätpäivinä 1921, jolloin Tagore sai mielipahakseen

kuulla, että Intiassa oli alettu vieroa englantilaisia tieteellisiä
harrastuksia, hän sai itse Lontoossa kouraantuntuvan esimerkin
tästä henkisestä natsionalismista; erään englantilaisen professorin,
hänen ystävänsä Pearsonin luennolla intialaiset ylioppilaat ryhtyivät
sopimattomiin mielenosoituksiin. Tagore pahastui. Eräässä kirjeessä
Santiniketanin johtajalle hän suomii tätä huonoa
suvaitsemattomuutta. Hän panee »pois yhteistoiminta» -liikkeen siitä
vastuunalaiseksi. — Gandhi vastaa näihin soimauksiin.[71] Tehden
huomautuksiaan Euroopan kirjallisen kasvatuksen siveellistä tasoa
vastaan, jolla ei ole mitään yhteistä luonteen kasvatuksen kanssa ja
jota voi syyttää siitä, että se on vienyt Intian nuorisolta sen
miehuuden, hän tuomitsee tehdyt törkeydet ja panee
vapaahenkisenä vastalauseen:

»En pidä siitä, että taloni olisi joka puolelta saarrettu ja ikkunani
tukitut. Pidän siitä, että kaikkien maiden kulttuurien henki virtaa
vapaasti asuntoni halki, mutta kieltäydyn sallimasta sen itseäni
valloittaa. Uskontoni ei ole vankilauskontoa. Siinä on paikka
pienimmällekin Jumalan luodulle. Sille on vain vierasta eri heimojen,
uskontojen ja värien omahyväinen ylpeys.»

Nämä ovat jaloja sanoja. Mutta ne eivät tee tyhjäksi Tagoren

huolestumista. Hän ei epäile Gandhia. Mutta hän pelkää
gandhilaisia. Ja heti laivasta Intian mantereelle astuttuaan elokuussa
1921 häntä tukahduttaa heidän sokean uskonsa johtajan
todistuksiin. Hän näkee henkisen despotismin uhkaavan, ja Modern
Review'ssaan hän julkaisee lokakuun 1 p:nä todellisen manifestin:
Totuuden vaatimuksen, joka nousee tätä orjahenkisyyttä vastaan.
Vastalause on sitä vaikuttavampi, koska sen edellä on loistava
kunnioituksenosoitus Mahatman olemukselle. Tagore, muistellen
Intian vapausliikkeen alkua v. 1907—1908, sanoo, että Intian
poliittisten johtajain yleiskuva oli pysynyt myöntyväisenä; se haltioitui
Burken, Gladstonen, Mazzinin, Garibaldin varjoista ja osoittautui
kykenemättömäksi syrjäyttämään englantia puhuvaa ylhäisöä.

»Silloin tuli Mahatma Gandhi. Hän on pysytellyt tuhansien

osattomain olkikattomökin kynnyksellä, puettuna kuten he. Hän on
puhunut heille heidän omalla kielellään. Siinä vihdoinkin kuultiin
totuus, eikä mitään kirjoista opittua. Niinikään hänelle annettu
nimitys, Mahatma, on hänen oikea nimensä. Kuka muu on tuntenut
kaikki Intian ihmiset omaksi lihakseen ja verekseen? Kosketuksesta
totuuden kanssa sielun sorretut voimat elpyivät. Heti kun todellinen
Rakkaus oli Intian ovella, ovi aukeni selälleen. Kaikki epäily haihtui.
Totuus herätti totuuden… Kunnia Mahatmalle, joka on tehnyt
näkyväksi totuuden voiman!… Samaten kuin Buddhan kuuluttaessa
kaikkiin ihmisiin kohdistuvaa säälin totuutta, jonka hän oli
saavuttanut itsekasvatuksensa hedelmänä, Intia heräsi miehuutensa
kukkaan; sen voima levisi tieteisiin, taiteisiin ja rikkauksiin; se on
tulvinut tuolle puolen valtamerien ja erämaiden… Ei yksikään
kaupallinen tai sotilaallinen toimenpide ole koskaan päässyt
samoihin tuloksiin… Rakkaus yksin on tosi. Kun se antaa vapauden,
se asettaa sen sisimpäämme.»

Mutta tämä jumaloiminen keskeytyy äkkiä. Sitä seuraa pettymys.

»Muutamia nuotteja tästä Intian ihmeellisen heräämisen musiikista

on liitänyt luokseni merten halki… Odotellen saavani hengittää
uuden vapauden virvoittavaa ilmaa palasin iloa täynnä. Mutta se,
minkä palattuani löysin, masensi minut. Painostava ilmakehä
vaappui maan yllä. En tiedä, mikä ulkonainen puristus näytti
pakottavan jokaista ja kaikkia puhumaan samaan äänilajiin ja
heittäytymään saman muulin vedettäväksi. Kaikkialla kuului, että äly
ja kulttuuri oli pantava lukon taa, oli tarpeen enää vain tarttua kiinni
sokeaan tottelevaisuuteen. On niin helppoa kahlita ulkonaisen
vapauden nimessä ihmisen sisäinen vapaus!»

Tunnemmehan tämän tuskan ja tämän vastaanpanon. Ne ovat

kaikkien aikojen tuttuja. Katoavan antiikkisen maailman viimeiset
vapaat henget ovat samoin vastaanottaneet tulevan kristityn
maailman. Me tunnemme itsessämme nousevan tämän vastarinnan
inhimillisiä luoteita ja vuoksia vastaan, joita nostattaa tähän aikaan
yhteiskunnallisen ja kansallisen uskon sokea virta. Se on vapaan
sielun ikuista kapinaa uskonaikakausia vastaan, jotka se itse on esiin
manannut: sillä usko — kouralliselle valituita ääretön vapaus — on
sitä ihastuksella tervehtiville kansoille yksi orjuutus lisää.

Mutta Tagoren soimaus kantaa kansanjoukkojen kiihkoilun tuolle

puolen. Tottelevaisuuden humaltamien ihmisjoukkojen yläpuolella
hän saavuttaa Mahatman. Miten suuri Gandhi lieneekään, eikö
hänen auktoriteettinsa mene yli yhden miehen voimien? — Sellaista
kuin Intian asiaa ei voida antaa yhden johtajan käsiin. Mahatma on
totuuden ja rakkauden Mestari. Ja tosiaankin: »kultainen
johtosauva», joka voi herättää maamme totuuteen ja rakkauteen, ei
ole niitä esineitä, joita voitaisiin teetättää lähimmällä kultasepällä…
Mutta Swarâjin (Home Rule) rakentamisen tieto ja taito ei ole pieni
asia. Sen polut ovat vaikeat ja aikaa vaativat. Sellaiseen työhön ovat
into ja hartaus välttämättömät, mutta vielä enemmän tutkiminen ja
tuumiskelu. Sitä varten tulee taloustieteilijän miettiä, työmiehen
työskennellä, opettajan opettaa, valtiomiehen harkita. Sanalla
sanoen maan siveellisen voiman tulee harjaantua kaikkiin suuntiin.
On säilytettävä kaikkialla tutkimuksen henki koskemattomana ja
esteettömänä. Ei saa antaa tietoisen tai tiedottoman puristuksen
tehdä älyä araksi.»

Tagore vetoaa siis Intian kaikkien vapaiden voimien

yhteistoimintaan.

»Meidän vanhoissa metsissämme asuvat gurut (viisaat) lähettivät

moninaisten näkemystensä viisastuttamina vetoomuksen kaikille
totuuden etsijöille… Miksei meidän gurumme, joka haluaa meitä
opastaa toiminnan teillä, tee samanlaista vetoomusta?»

Mutta guru Gandhi on tehnyt tämän ainoan vetoomisen jokaiselle

erikseen ja kaikille yhteisesti: »Kehrätkää ja kutokaa!»
 »Onko tämä uuden aikakauden vetoomusta uuteen luomiseen?
Jos suuret koneet ovat vaara Lännen hengelle, eivätkö pienet koneet
ole meille vielä pahempi vaara?»

Ei riitä edes se, että kansan kaikki voimat toimivat yhdessä

keskenään, niiden tulee olla yhteistoiminnassa maailmankaikkeuden
kanssa. »Intian herääminen on sidottu maailman heräämiseen».
»Jokainen kansa, joka sulkeutuu itseensä, kulkee uuden aikakauden
hengenvirtaa vastaan.» Ja Tagore, joka juuri on viettänyt useampia
vuosia Euroopassa, haltioituu niiden miesten muistosta, joita hän oli
siellä tavannut, niiden kunnon eurooppalaisten, jotka ovat
vapauttaneet sydämensä natsionalismin kahleista uhratakseen sen
koko ihmiskunnan palvelukseen, — maailmankaikkeuden
kansalaisten vainottu vähemmistö, — cives totius orbis, — jotka hän
laskee Sannyasinein joukkoon,»[72] niiden, jotka sielussaan ovat
toteuttaneet ihmisten yhteyden…»

»Ja me, me tyytyisimme yksin lueskelemaan Kieltäymyksen

rukousnauhaa, palaamaan lakkaamatta muiden vikoihin, valvomaan
Swarâjin rakentamista vihan perusteille!… Kun aamurusko kutsuu
lintua uuteen päivään, ei ruuan haku ole valtavin vaisto hänen
herätessään. Hänen siipensä vastaavat väsymättä taivaiden
kutsuun. Hänen kurkkunsa purkaa ilolauluja uudelle valolle. Uusi
ihmisyys on meille lähettänyt kutsunsa. Vastatkoon henkemme
omalla kielellään!… Ensimmäinen velvollisuutemme aamuruskossa
on muistaa Sitä, joka on Yksi, jolla ei ole luokka- eikä värieroa ja joka
erilaisten voimiensa avulla pitää sikäli kuin välttämättömyys vaatii
huolia joka luokan tarpeista ja joka luokasta. Rukoilkaamme Sitä,
joka antaa meille kaikille viisauden omaksua oikea
ymmärtämystä.»[73]
 Tämä kuninkaallinen puhe, korkeimpia, mitä mikään kansa on
kuullut, tämä aurinkoinen runoelma on yläpuolella kaikkien
ihmiskiistojen. Ja ainut arvostelu, minkä siitä voisi tehdä, on se, että
se liikkuu ehkä liiankin korkealla. Se lienee totta vuosisatojen taustaa
vastaan. Runoilijalintu, kotkan kokoinen pääsky (kuten Heine sanoi
eräästä musiikkimme jättiläisestä), laulaa Ajan raunioilla. Hän elää
ikuisuudessa. Mutta nykyhetki on kiireinen. Kiitävä hetki haluaa
välitöntä vajanaistakin helpotusta katkeriin kärsimyksiinsä, — maksoi
mitä maksoi! Ja tähän seikkaan Gandhin, jolta puuttuu Tagoren
lentoa (tai joka ehkä Säälin Bôdhisattvana on siitä kieltäytynyt,
elääkseen osattomien kanssa), on helppo vastata.

Hän tekee sen tällä kertaa intohimoisemmin kuin koskaan ennen

tässä jalossa kiistassa. Hänen vastauksensa ei viivy; se ilmestyy
lokakuun 13 p:nä Young Indiassa ja on pateettinen. Gandhi kiittää
suurta vahtimiestä[74] siitä, että tämä varoittaa Intiaa erinäisistä
vaaroista. Hän on samaa mieltä hänen kanssaan vapaan
päättelemisen välttämättömyydestä:

»Ei tule antaa järkeänsä kenenkään säilytettäväksi. Sokea

leväperäisyys on usein vahingollisempi kuin pakollinen alistuminen
tyrannin piiskaan. Raakuuden orjasta on vielä toivoa; rakkauden
orjasta ei ole.»

Tagore on hyvä vahti, joka ilmoittaa vihollisten, toisin sanoen

ulkokultaisuuden, horroksen, suvaitsemattomuuden,
tietämättömyyden, velttouden lähestymisestä. Mutta Gandhi ei
myönnä Tagoren soimauksia oikeutetuiksi. Mahatma vetoaa aina
järkeen. Ei ole, hän sanoo, ollenkaan totta, että Intiassa olisi sokeaa
tottelevaisuutta. Jos maa on päättänyt ruveta käyttämään rukkia, on
se tapahtunut pitkän ja uutteran ajattelun jälkeen. Tagore puhuu
kärsivällisyydestä ja tyytyy kauniisiin lauluihin. Nyt on sota!
Laskekoon runoilija lyyransa! Hän laulakoon perästäpäin. — »Talon
liekehtiessä tulessa jokainen ottaa saavin sammuttaakseen
tulipalon…»

»Kun ihmiset ympärilläni kuolevat ruoan puutteesta, niin on ainoa

luvallinen toimeni ravita nälkiintyneitä… Intia on kuin talo tulessa.
Intia kuolee nälkään, koska sillä ei ole työtä, joka sille tuottaisi
ravintoa. Khulna kuolee nälkään… Ceded Districteissä on neljäs
nälkäkausi. Orissa kärsii kestävää nälkää… Intia uupuu päivä
päivältä yhä enemmän. Sen jäsenissä ei veri juuri ollenkaan enää
kulje. Jollemme tätä käsitä, se kukistuu… Nälkiintyneelle ja
toimettomalle kansalle uskaltaa Jumala ilmestyä ainoastaan työssä
luvaten palkintona ruokaa. Jumala on luonut ihmisen ansaitsemaan
työllään ravintonsa, ja hän on sanonut varkaiksi niitä, jotka työtä
tekemättä syövät… Ajatelkaamme miljoonia ihmisolentoja, jotka
nykyään ovat eläimiä alempana, ihmisiä, jotka ovat melkein kuolleita.
Rukki on miljoonille kuoleville elämä. Nälkä se vie Intian rukin
ääreen… Runoilija elää huomista varten ja tahtoisi meidän tekevän
samoin. Hän esittää haltioituneille katseillemme kauniin maalauksen
linnuista, jotka varhain aamulla laulavat ylistyslauluja tai lehahtavat
lentoon. Nämä linnut ovat ravitut. Niillä on jokapäiväinen leipänsä ja
ne lehahtavat lentoon levännein siivin, joiden veri yöllä on
uudistunut. Mutta olen surukseni seurannut lintuja, joilla voimain
puutteessa ei ollut edes halua heikosti liikuttaa siipiään. Ihmislintu
Intian taivaan alla nousee heikompana kuin silloin, kun se on ollut
lepäävinään. Miljoonille olennoille elämä on ikuista valvomista tai
ikuista halvausta… Minusta on mahdotonta keventää nälkiintyneiden
kärsimystä Kabirin laululla… Antakaa heille työtä, että voisivat
syödä!… Mutta miksi, kysytään, kehräisin minä, jolla ei ole tarve
tehdä työtä syödäkseni? Koska syön sitä, mikä ei kuulu minulle. Elän
imemällä kansalaisiani. Seuratkaa kaikkien niiden rahojen jälkiä,
jotka joutuvat taskuumme, ja huomaatte todeksi sen, mitä sanon…
On kehrättävä! Kehrätköön jokainen! Kehrätköön Tagore, kuten
muutkin! Polttakoon hän ulkolaiset vaatteensa!… Se on tämän
päivän velvollisuus. Jumala pitää huolen huomisesta. Kuinka
sanookaan Gitâ: Tehkää niinkuin oikein on!»

Synkkiä ja surullisia sanoja! Maailman kurjuus kohoaa taiteen

unelman eteen ja huutaa sille: »Uskallapa kieltää minut!» Kuka ei
ymmärtäisi Gandhin intohimoista liikutusta ja ottaisi siihen osaa!

Ja kuitenkin tässä niin ylpeässä ja pistävässä vastauksessa on

jotain, mikä todistaa eräät Tagoren epäilyt oikeiksi: Sileat Poeta,
jokin käskevä vetoaminen taistelun kuriin. Tottele ehdottomasti
Swadeši -lakia, jonka ensimmäinen jokapäiväinen velvollisuus
kaikille on rukin käyttö.

Inhimillisessä taistelussa epäilemättä kuri on velvollisuus. Mutta

onnettomuudeksi ne, joille on annettu tehtäväksi sen
käytäntöönpano — mestarin apulaiset — ovat useimmiten
ahdasmielisiä: he muodostavat itselleen ja muille ihanteen siitä,
minkä pitäisi olla vain keino ihanteen saavuttamiseen; sääntö lumoo
heitä juuri ahtaudellaan, sillä he viihtyvät vain ahtaalla tiellä. Heille
Swadeši on imperatiivi. Se saa pyhän luonteen. Yksi Gandhin
pääoppilaita, professori hänen sydämelleen rakkaimmassa koulussa,
Sabarmatin Satyâgrah Ašramissa, Ahmedabadissa, D.B. Kalelkar,
julkaisee Swadešin evankeliumin,[75] jonka alkuun Gandhi asettaa
hyväksymisensä. Tämä kirjanen kääntyy syvien rivien puoleen. Kas
tässä credo, jonka eräs puhtaan opin lähteellä olevista, on kansalle
opettanut: