What grabbed my attention this morning was a quote in an article I read last night by Joseph Chilton Pearce about a Californian surgeon named Leonard Shlain. This man has written a book, Art and Physics, in which he says “the most advanced visual artists have prophetically foreshadowed in their work all the key scientific discoveries later made by physicists,” according to a Los Angeles review of the book by John Wilkes in 1991.

The synopsis on Shlain’s website says:

 Leonard Shlain proposes that the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way. Then, nearly simultaneously, a revolutionary physicist discovers a new way to think about the world. Escorting the reader through the classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern eras, Shlain shows how the artists' images when superimposed on the physicists' concepts create a compelling fit. (from http://www.artandphysics.com/synopsis.html.)

Shlain uses Picasso and Duchamp’s Cubist works as precursors to Einstein’s theory of relativity. I would add Kandinsky and his abstract paintings to some element of this—of course! However, this guy is really on top of something through his idea about “the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way.” From a depth psychological perspective, there is a lot of beautiful ground to cover with that statement.

I like the idea of looking at art in a psychological way, although I probably don’t do it enough. I haven’t even really written about it. What’s the connection for me, then? What draws me to art? I love it and I enjoy writing about the artists—well, Kandinsky, for sure. I think it is the shaman quality about him and other artists that I like: artists like Klee, Pollock, Duchamp, Mondrian, Arp, and my favorite 21st century artist, Alex Grey!

So much of what is given to us in the visions transferred onto the canvas by artists is the link to the Absolute, the Divine. It may come in different forms and textures, colors and lines, but it is still a connection with that Mystery. The abstract forms and amazing colors shared by Kandinsky don’t resemble the human anatomy shining in its blissful form and painted by Grey—but they are both doorways to the Absolute. Both convey the Truth on different canvases.

Shlain proposes that these men and women bring to society a peek into the future, to an extent—a movement that will later be joined by a scientist, a physicist. Where are the artists today such as Grey leading us in a way that will be later matched by science? How are the artists creating new universes and new intricate orders of color and lines showing us a new culture, a new way of life? What is it in the visionary artists of today that are leading us to a completely new way of viewing our neighbors on this planet, and the planet itself? Could it be they are taking us so far “out there” that the further offerings by physicists will be so mind-boggling that, well, our minds will almost blow?

Perhaps. Just like at where we’ve come in the last 100 years. But, then, the future might also be a return to the past, in a way. The idea of mental telepathy or “wordless communication” that is possible in Grey’s artwork might become such a reality for us in another 100 years that our current addiction to cell phones just might make for a good laugh, at least in that future. Then, the physicists will only be confirming what is already possible in the now. And we’ll have already known it—of course!