Music
and art have a very profound influence on the human soul, and are two forms of
art that are very spiritual and sacred, as they are deeply rooted in our
primordial past as humans. Mati Klarwein was a modern visionary artist, who passed away only ten years ago, and his influence is still strongly evident in the creations of contemporary visionaries.
Mati
Klarwein (1932-2002) was a German-born artist of Jewish-Polish descent, who
spent his childhood in Palestine (to escape Nazi Germany), and who began his
formal art studies in Paris in 1948. In Paris, Mati befriended the surrealist
Salvador Dali and became a student of the fantasic realist Ernst Fuchs. Fuchs
taught Klarwein to paint in a way that had a huge impact on his painting style,
and Klarwen credited this as the reason that he sold all of his paintings after
he learned these techniques. Ernst Fuchs has also inspired contemporary
visionary artists such as A. Andrew Gonzales and Alex Grey.
Klarwein is
best known for his album art that he created for such visionary musicians as
Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. Klarwein’s work on Santana’s
Abraxas album and Davis’ Bitches’ Brew and Live Evil albums were painted with a
very psychedelic and surrealist style, which became Mati’s trademark. Klarwein,
in my opinion, is the only artist who could have created such perfectly
tailored album art for Bitches’ Brew, which was an album (not unlike Klarwein’s
art) that provoked a lot of controversy and harsh criticism. Bitches’ Brew is a
masterpiece of Davis’ which captures the musical genius’ evolution on both
personal and musical levels, during a tumultuous and transformative time in
American history. The album reflects Davis’ enigmatic personality, and in
Carlos Santana’s words, he was “the musical shaman”. Davis’ friendship with
Jimi Hendrix and his listening to the music of Sly Stone and James Brown were
also some outside influences that inspired Davis’ musical approach on the
album. Klarwein was also friends with Santana and Hendrix, and their
friendships equally influenced his artwork, for personal endeavors and for
album commissions.
During the
same time, the Klarwein completed his large-scale project to create and
construct a cubic temple of all the world’s religions, which he called The
Aleph Sanctuary. In side the temple, were 68 layered paintings of oil and
tempera on primed canvas. The artist was eventually forced to demolish the
temple. However, according to Klarwein’s homepage, The Aleph Sanctuary was
reconstructed “in 1992 using aluminum structures to hold Plexiglas
reproductions lit by rows of fluorescent tubes”, and was featured in 2007 touring exhibition that was organized by the Tate
Modern, called "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era”.
The
influence of Klarwein’s Sanctuary inspired other visionaries to create their
own temples and meditation halls filled with their painstakingly beautiful and psychedelic art. In
1978, a spiritual leader by the name of Oberto Airaudi had a vision to build
sacred temples inside of a mountain 30-miles outside of Turin, Italy, where he
built The Damanhur Temples of Humankind. The Temples feature stained glass, highly detailed mosaics and enormous murals which
celebrate all sacred traditions and universal world spirituality.The
architecture of the Temples is also influenced by the architecture of Antonio
Gaudi. Another set of meditation rooms was created by contemporary visionary artist Alex Grey, whose work is
quite obviously inspired by Klarwein’s artwork. Grey's temple is equally as mesmerizing and
mind-blowingly beautiful, and is called the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. On Grey’s homepage, he describes
it as a “sanctuary for seeing ourselves, the world, and our cosmos as
reflections of the Divine”.
If you would like to view and hear more of the art work of the visionaries mentioned please visit
the following pages:
Mati Klarwein:
Ernst Fuchs:
Miles Davis’ Bitches’ Brew:
Jimi Hendrix, “Pali Gap”,
from Rainbow Bridge Concert 1970:
Santana, from Abraxas:
Temples of Damanhur:
http://www.thetemples.org/tour/
Antonio Gaudi:
http://www.gaudi2002.bcn.es/english/en_imgs/index.htm
Antonio Gaudi:
http://www.gaudi2002.bcn.es/english/en_imgs/index.htm
Alex Grey’s Chapel of Sacred
Mirrors:
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