Alan Watts / merely a philosophical entertainer?

from Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version

Currently I am reading the autobiography of Alan Watts (1915-1973), the British-born philosopher (whom some have dismissed as a “philosophical entertainer”), who popularized Zen Buddhism and other aspects of Asian philosophy. To my dismay, I am not enjoying it.

That said, I remain indebted to his introduction to The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity (NY: Braziller, 1963), which I first read secretly (since books were banned as “contraband”) while undergoing US Marine Corps infantry training. Back then, I was enamored by the resemblance between Watts’ essay and my own understanding of Gestalt theory (which had influenced him as well), which I had discovered as an undergraduate art student.

I wish his autobiography had been as precisely and sparingly phrased. But I would like to share the following passage, in which he bemoans his own education, and provides a list of components that he regards as more essential. Do not try this at home.

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Alan Watts, In My Own Way: An Autobiography, 1915-1965. NY: Pantheon Books, 1972, pp. 92-93–

[In an ideal education] I would have arranged for myself to be taught survival techniques for both natural and urban wildernesses. I would want to have been instructed in self hypnosis, in azkido (the esoteric and purely self-defensive style of judo), in elementary medicine, in sexual hygiene, in vegetable gardening, in astronomy, navigation, and sailing; in cookery and clothesmaking, in metalwork and carpentry, in drawing and painting, in printing and typography, in botany and biology, in optics and acoustics, in semantics and psychology, in mysticism and yoga, in electronics and mathematical fantasy, in drama and dancing, in singing and in playing an instrument by ear; in wandering, in advanced daydreaming, in prestidigitation, in techniques of escape from bondage, in disguise, in conversation with birds and beasts, in ventriloquism, and in classical Chinese.

tao te ching / the space within defines the pot

Above One of a series of posters (2023) intended to commemorate the Index of American Design, a Depression-era US government program, which commissioned unemployed graphic designers / illustrators to make detailed renderings of historic craft and folk art. The original paintings, now in public domain, can be accessed on the website of the National Gallery of Art.

I was first introduced to Lao-Tse’s famous sayings from the Tao Te Ching in the summer of 1964 when, at age seventeen, I studied for the summer in California at Pond Farm with Marguerite Wildenhain. In 1919, she had been among the first students at the Weimar Bauhaus, where Itten was one of her teachers. A few days ago, I found the passage noted below.

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Jack Pritchard, “Gropius, the Bauhaus and the Future” in Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. Vol 117 No 5150 (January 1969), pp. 75-94—

When discussing problems of space, Johannes Itten [head of the Bauhaus foundations course] was fond of quoting from Lao-Tse, who in the sixth century BC wrote [in revised wording]:

Thirty spokes converge at the hub,
But it is the space between the spokes that forms the essence of the wheel.

The walls of a vessel are made of clay, but its essence is determined by the space within the pot.…

• This saying is also referred to in a recent video on ART, DESIGN AND GESTALT THEORY: The Film Version.

Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: Video Version

Recently completed: Our most popular video talk, titled Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version (40 mins). It traces the emergence of Gestalt psychology (c1910), as well as its connections to holism, Taoism, yin and yang, displacements of attention, contrast illusions, color, camouflage, graphic design, and architecture. Ideal for classroom screenings, and library discussion events. Non-monetized, free full online access for anyone at YouTube.

Taoism, Frank Lloyd Wright and Space Within

Frank Lloyd Wright photomontage (2016) •

Laozi [formerly Lao-Tze or Lao-Tse], Tao Te Ching (c. 4th century BC)—

Thirty spokes meet in the hub, but the empty space between them is the essence of the wheel. Pots are formed from clay, but the empty space within it is the essence of the pot. Walls with windows and doors form the house, but the empty space within it is the essence of the home.

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Jonathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), pp. 176-177—

[Frank Lloyd] Wright played with such [surface] decoration, but he abandoned it around 1900. Wright's continuity meant that each element and aspect—shape, color, texture—participates, not as one thing on another but as one thing with another. This is why Wright came to understand that materials required expression for what they were. The purpose was not to be morally honest, but to let each element be seen and experienced individually. In the unity of a Wright building, every component is active.

The essence of each material stands out. Wood is not painted, because paint would conceal its "woodness"—its color, grain, odor. Paint would muddy the experience of continity, which accords value to everything. So the wood is unpainted. The blocky rectangularity of brick is revealed so that each brick reads as a clear element. Wright would never paint brick…because the idea is to emphasize "brickness." The Wright building does not use brick, it is brick. But geometry comes ahead of material in a Wright building…But even the pattern is not dominant. Wright uses pattern to bring out space. Space, the nothing, is dominant.

• Montage by Roy R. Behrens (© 2016). Public domain image sources: Carol M. Highsmith photograph of V.C. Morris building, and Al Ravenna, photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York World-Telegram and the Sun Collection), both from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).