In October 1998, Avatar Adi Da Samraj
began to focus on His artistic Work with great intensity.
Having already created a very full written Teaching, He
began to develop pre-verbal — artistic — means to picture
the complex (and ultimately single) nature of Reality. The
result was His Image-Art as we know it today.
That art was the culmination of artistic experiments Adi
Da had been conducting throughout His lifetime:
These image-works are summary in nature — the products
of more than sixty years of work of all kinds, just
so that those images could be made to happen in their
time.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Displayed below are some of Adi Da's early experiments.
Adi Da's expression of art began as
a child. Because His sister enjoyed all things French,
Adi Da drew a painting on her bedroom wall in the manner
of French post-impressionists like Toulouse-Lautrec.
Part of Adi Da's French-style painting
on the walls of His sister's room
(click picture for enlargement)
Part of Adi Da's French-style painting
on the walls of His sister's room
Transcendental
Drawings
(brush and ink on paper, 1967-1982)
Adi Da's first major series of art works
were His "Transcendental Drawings", a series
of brush and ink sketches that He spontaneously created,
primarily in the late 1960's. (He originally referred to these as "Transcendental Cartoons".)
"Body Portrait 2"
Brush and ink on paper
"Woman in Mind" (1967)
brush and ink on paper
(click picture for enlargement)
The only way to solve the current world-situation
is for everyone to "lose face" — instead of everyone
demanding to "save face". All of humankind should,
as a formalized collective, "lose face" together —
by acknowledging that, unless human beings live in
formally established and formally maintained cooperation
and tolerance, they, inevitably, sink into grossly
and universally destructive behavior. Only by everyone
"losing face" together will the collective of human
beings be able to regenerate the moral strength and
authority that is necessary if human beings everywhere
are to require cooperation and tolerance of each other.
"Losing Face"
Brush and ink on paper
(click picture for enlargement)
One of My “Transcendental Cartoons” is called “Losing
Face”. It is Consciousness surrounded by Radiance,
surrounded by objects. It is a picture of Reality.
That is why it is called a Transcendental Cartoon.
The world is a transcendental cartoon on the Face
of Consciousness Itself.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, March 29, 1998
"the Face of Consciousness Itself"
(in image form, as described by Adi Da,
also known as "The Midnight Sun")
"He"
Brush and ink on paper
"She"
Brush and ink on paper
"Quats"
Brush and ink on paper
"My Friends"
Brush and ink on paper
title unknown
Brush and ink on paper
title unknown
Brush and ink on paper
"Fireplace"
Brush and ink on paper (1971)
(click picture for enlargement)
Avatar Adi Da's brushwork displays,
qualities valued in the Zen tradition:
asymmetry, naturalness, tranquility, freedom of attachment,
subtle profundity, and simplicity. Throughout East Asia,
there has existed a tradition which understands calligraphy
— and brush painting altogether — as an expression of the
Spiritual Realization of the painter. Avatar Adi Da has
said about His brushwork:
You may have noticed that My painting
has a calligraphic quality. There is a quality to
My brushstrokes that is similar to the calligraphy
of China, Japan, and Korea. My brushstrokes are not
merely about hand-eye coordination — My principal
movements are a dance-like or calligraphic response
to the apparent subject I am painting. Therefore,
you could describe My Work as calligraphic, which
means "beautiful writing".
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The profound communication of Avatar Adi Da's “beautiful
writing” was acknowledged by Jung-Kwang (nicknamed "the Mad Monk"), an unconventional
Korean Buddhist monk, artist, and calligrapher renowned
for his mastery of brush painting. (For more, see The
Mad Monk: Paintings of Unlimited Action By Jung-Kwang.)
In the early 1980's, one of Avatar Adi Da's devotees, James
Steinberg, visited Jung-Kwang. James explained, through
a Korean interpreter, Who Avatar Adi Da is, describing His
Divine Enlightenment. Jung-Kwang, who is also known as “the
mad monk”, listened politely and agreeably.
"Zen Crane"
Jung-Kwang
(click picture for enlargement)
However, moments later, when James presented Jung-Kwang
with a portfolio of Avatar Adi Da's ink paintings, His “beautiful
writings”, the mad monk became ecstatic. Jung-Kwang laughed
and ran around the room. He jubilantly placed the ink paintings
on his head and on his heart, exclaiming with joy, “Now
I know that what you are saying is true. The One Who made
these drawings is clearly Enlightened! I could not tell
by your words, but now I can. I have looked at the art of
all the great Masters. This Man is Enlightened!”
"Self Portrait"
Brush and ink on paper
(click picture for enlargement)
"Self Portrait"
Brush and ink on paper
From "The
Paradox of Entanglement", January 11, 1996:
ADI DA (describing the subjects
of His paintings): I don't tell people
to fix themselves in a position or in an attitude
or an expression, any of that. I want them to be completely
self-revealing, natural, spontaneous. And so, perhaps
sometimes somebody might lie down, even though they
even move there. But, generally, I just tell them
to move about and do so obliviously. You don't have
to constantly do object-directed specific kind of
things. Just let the body exist in space freely. Have
the attitude of it being that way, instead of moving
the body into conventional mudras, functional adaptations.
So in other words, I like for the subject to be as
free as the process itself, or at least participate
in that. So I don't study them in My regard, such
that they have to be in a fixed position, all the
while. No, they move in every kind of way. My regard
is just at that moment, and now this moment. It accounts
for this entire, free display in a summary moment
of Recognizing it in its totality.
So I generally do these paintings rather
quickly. At least any major aspect of it is done quickly.
. . .
In fact I guess that's maybe why they
were called "Transcendental Cartoons", images I would
make with people who happened to be around Me at the
moment. I did them in a way that was amusing because
when you look back, you do see a lot of the likenesses
of body parts and some of the generalized likeness
of something you can recognize somehow as related
to the individual. But these things would be apparently
very chaotically associated with one another, and
produce amusing conjunctions. They look a little nutty,
or mad, and so forth. But generally this kind of work
that I've been describing to you is done differently,
such that there is not much recognizable about it,
at least often there isnt much ability on the part
of you looking at it later, or picking out the body
parts in silly conjunctions. It doesn't resemble them
that way. And it's not intended to be funny.
DEVOTEE: Were some of them funny,
though?
ADI DA: Well, yes, as I was just
describing. I didn't add funniness to it, but that
way of doing it inevitably produced something that
was amusing because the likeness was shifted around
in odd conjunctions. Just approaching it that way
makes something that is typically funny, or oddly
plastic.
Adi Da revisited this form of His art in 2007, creating
new brush and ink drawings:
Brush and ink on paper
(click picture for enlargement)
and, in particular, the series of brush and ink works He
called "Linead" paintings.
"Lot 16": Linead Painting (2007)
Adi Da creating one of
His Linead brush and ink paintings (2007)
This style would also work its way into His
Image-Art as elements of larger composites, as in the works
below.
The Spiritual Descent of The Bicycle
Becomes the Second-Birth of Flight:
Part Twelve - II, 4
2007, 2010
Childish Conrad and The Evil Thumb-Tailor, or, The Boogeyman Always Bobs Both
(It Is Your Fear What Takes The Life Out Of You,
Because The Mind Always Deceives The Body), 12,
from The Struwwelpeter Suite (The ego-"I" and
The Straightener):
Contemplating The Mind/Body Problem
and The Bodily Illusion Of Being a Separate "self",
Part Six, 2008
Childish Conrad and The Evil Thumb-Tailor, or, The Boogeyman Always Bobs Both
(It Is Your Fear What Takes The Life Out Of You,
Because The Mind Always Deceives The Body)
(click picture for enlargement)
"She"
Paintings
(liquid acrylic paint and oil bar on paper, 1994)
"She" Painting, 1994.
Liquid acrylic paint and oilbar on paper.
(click picture for enlargement)
"She" Painting, 1994.
Liquid acrylic paint and oilbar on paper.
"She" Painting, 1994.
Liquid acrylic paint and oilbar on paper.
(click picture for enlargement)
Adi Da Samraj Signing One of His "She"
Paintings, 1998.
Signed "She" Painting on wall of devotee home.
(click picture for enlargement)
Adi Da Samraj Signing One of His "She"
Paintings, 1998.
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Early Art
