Painter Vladimir Fomin

Vladimir Fomin's Mandalas

"Geniuses are God's fingers; using them He sculpts the One Thing."
Vladimir Fomin
Patterns of primitive ornament, circular mechanism of time, The Dance of Matisse and The Ferris Wheel of Vladimir Fomin speak to each other in one language. They contain universal ideas of correlation between man's consciousness and the energy of the cosmos.
The original ancient art penetrates the psychology and spiritual world of modern man. Regardless of the point in its development, mankind is always interested in topics related to man's worldview and his attempts to find his place in the world.
Almost all surviving works of ancient art are to a certain degree connected to the astral, cosmological, and mythological ideas. They contain symbols reflecting the idea of myth, endless motion, spinning, and the cyclical nature of things ….
The ancient artists used compositions shaped like a circle. Called mandalas, they are easily viewed by human eye because they correspond to primary visual impression and to the structure of the visual organ. The eye itself is a mandala. It perceives light and projects images to the brain through the retina. This idea found its expression earlier in two of Fomin's works entitled Eyes -- from the Lubok series and from the Kizhi series.
The circle has been Fomin's favorite compositional device. It is the foundation of such works as The Ferris Wheel from the Lubok series, The Shaman's Dream from the Vepsa series, The Birth of Sampo, Sampo - the Miraculous Mill, and Otso, the Apple of the Forest from the Kalevala series, The Scream from the Gift series, Russian Symmetry, The Lake, and The Windmill of Joy from the Kizhi series, and many others.
Revealing the harmony of his inner world to the outside world, Fomin, like the ancient artists, used the mandala as the law of harmony. The principles of mandala were the basis of all creative processes in the primitive society - people created round stone foundations and labyrinths, while their ornaments were dominated by circles, spirals, and rosettes… The early man probably subconsciously sensed the existence of energy fields in such compositions and drawings. They connected people to their surroundings. That's why the process of creating ornaments on the surface of pottery was accompanied by singing, dancing, and gestures - ritual actions necessary for the creation of universal harmony.
At one time The Dance by Matisse inspired Fomin to create thirteen works depicting the Ferris wheel. The Dance is endless. The circle is simultaneously the beginning and the end. If it breaks, the Dance will stop. Is that possible? Can one imagine the saints without their halos? Can anything happen to the ball under the feet of Picasso's girl? The Ferris Wheel of Fomin cannot stop turning. Life, transformed by the artist's brush into a circular display, into an attraction, embodies the past, the present, and the future. It is a mechanism linking three hypostases in time. To express them man invented the clock - a symbol of the modern view of the world.
Invariably, deciphering of mandalas leads to a dead-end. As the meaning of life is life itself, so the meaning of mandalas is their healing energy, the process of learning about energies and reserve powers of the organism, the preservation of harmony in space and society. The artist created the Mandalas series to contribute to the understanding of the essence of this universal law.
The first work in the series was the Mandala. of a Car. From the blue and pink ornament of geometric shapes the artist wove a fantastic surreal image of the object usually associated with the blessings of the world civilization. The visual effect of the picture corresponds to Fomin's belief that to mandala is a kind of ionic construction. This can be seen as a reaffirmation of ideas of the academician Vladimir Vernadsky and his followers about the earth's subconscious, a matrix, in which everything is fixed and in which there is a scenario for everything. The picture presents the idea of the car as an integral part of the earth's noosphere. And this idea is rendered in an amazing way by understandable and artistically attractive means. God created the car before He created man. The car's construction (mandala) always existed in space. It was entered in the cosmic bank of information long before its appearance on earth. Since mandala is the information itself, the very image of the car is extremely informative.
Fomin employs symmetrical details (the wheels are huge expressive snowflakes) and asymmetrical elements, to fill the outlines of the car and the road. The latter is an ornamental ribbon, in which it is easy to distinguish architectural structures, natural objects, and Masonic symbols. This can be interpreted by the viewer as something quintessentially natural, dynamic, and full of energy, for instance as snowfall or snowstorm…
Fomin's Mandala of a Car resembles the mandalas laid out by Buddhist monks of multicolored sand or rice. It contains the same meaning as the singing of the Tuvinians, pleasing the listeners' ears with their monotonous tantric harmonics - spiritual songs of Tibetan monks, which they use to immerse themselves in meditation. The rhythmic runes of the Kalevala epic or the blank verse of the book for everybody and for nobody -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, are supposed to create the same kind of harmony, only expressed by words. Not by chance Fomin devoted his painterly series to various motifs from these works, created according to the laws of mandala. Man not only sees but also hears through the pattern. In his ear, like little soldiers, sound-catching threads (needles) are lined up. The sound falls on them. It carries the mandala, which influences the arrangement of the pattern.
Characteristically, the sources of the semantic meaning of the words "mandala," "tantra," and "mantra" should be sought in Sanskrit -- the ceremonial variant of Old-Hindi language. In translation from the Sanskrit, "mandala" can mean not only center or circle, but also a symbolic form of the cosmos. "Tantra" can be translated as plot, development, or extension, which in conjunction with "mantras" (verbal formulas) turns into endlessness, into eternal return. One should remember the Buddhist notion of the body as a temple, as an endless cosmos, which senses the flow of energy. The sacred meaning of Fomin's Mandalas is inaccessible without the understanding of some fundamental concepts, for instance, without understanding of Zen Buddhism, which proclaims the superiority of intuition in the world of ideas, where man feels lost and requires explanations, or without the knowledge of the principle of Japanese Shintoism about the initial unity of nature and man's body, and without some familiarity with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
For that reason, the Mandalas series was initially planned as the Thing among the same Things. The paintings, which affect the viewers' eyes, like music, which affects the listeners' ears, can be considered standards of man's understanding of the world, help solve problems connected to conflicts and stresses, and carry ideas of peace and concord.
The magical charms of the ancients that chased away the nightmares and illnesses, in modern interpretation they turn into a black square and a blue snowflake in the painting Black Square in the Snow from the Mandalas series.
To a great extent the work reveals the artist's research. In June 1995, as a specialist on ancient and modern ornament, Fomin participated in an international symposium devoted to the ancient archeology of Eastern Europe and the Urals. During the symposium's scientific forum, the artist had a chance to become acquainted with unique copper age geological, archeological, and architectural objects. The cult sites Fomin saw during the symposium and the exchange of information with the scholars from many countries had a major impact on the artist's decision to start the Mandalas series and, in particular, to create the Black Square in the Snow.
Fomin's presentations and exhibited works attracted one of the organizers of the symposium and inspired him to write a scholarly and popular work (A.P. Zhuravlev, The Ancient Art and Modernity, Petrozavodsk: Pegrema, 1999). In the book, Zhuravlev tried to reconstruct the development of civilization, conditionally named Pegrema, which existed many centuries ago on the territory of today's Karelia. He concluded that mandalas were used by the people of Pegrema as symbols of conscience and standards of truth. According to the scholar, such visual constructions are universal for all epochs and for all nations. They are universal for the future generations because they carry the truth, planted in man and in the Universe long before. To support his thesis, Zhuravlev identifies several ideas which fascinated scholars from the time of Euclid and Pythagoras. The latter, for instance, insisted that the entire world was made of geometric shapes, and that the Creator was a great geometry scholar.
Zhuravlev also pointed out those characteristics of the early man that were expressed in various creative processes (painting, embroidery, sculpture, and architecture). "The expression of the Mandala law can be found everywhere. For instance, the artist Vladimir Fomin created his paintings The Scream, The Tornado and many others, in accordance with this law. The copper age artists of Pegrema civilization, more than five thousand years ago, created compositions fully corresponding to the law of Mandala. They have a lot in common with the works of Fomin. Masters of Karelian embroidery from the 17th to the 21st century also created Mandala images very similar to copper age designs and to Fomin's drawings. Looking at examples of 17th-20th century architecture of Zaonezhye, one will also notice its complete adherence to the law of Mandala: spirals, circles, rosettes, and many other compositions similar to the ornamental designs of the copper age, drawings of Vladimir Fomin, and embroidered linens from Karelia, Vepsa, and Saami" (Ancient Art and Modernity, 18).
The abovementioned not only relates directly to the painting Black Square in the Snow, but it is also the painting's history. The work contains and expresses in colors the thought that in nature everything consists of geometric forms. These forms strive to become perfection - a circle -- which expresses absolute truth. The universe, the planets, the earth with its core radiating rays of energy - all have round forms. Everything in nature, from large to small, assumes the ideal form of the circle or is semantically related to it. And even the smallest grain of sand or snowflake has its unique pattern, its history.
In contrast, all actions of man tend to be angular and contain the square form inside. Therefore, Kasimir Malevich's Black Quadrilateral can be interpreted as the imperfection of man.
There are two main objects in Fomin's painting - the snowflake as symbol of divine invention and the black square, whose inventor considered the depiction of geometric forms the highest form of art. The juxtaposition is clear - the objects occupy the main viewing space and are positioned to face each other - the snowflake at the top, the square - at the bottom. The background for one object is the cosmos, filled with structurally illegible and countless smaller spots -- snowflakes. The other object (a collage without its characteristic features) is literally placed on the symbolic snowy road and firmly embedded in the architectural ribbon of windows, doors, roofs, and fences. The contrast is achieved by the use of black and white colors, but their blending with various shades of blue makes the picture even more expressive.
Mandala of the Snowflake shows the pattern of divine geometry. It is an echo of the Universal mind, a fragment animated by higher, inexplicable mathematics. The fact that all Things in the world are made of patterns - atoms or molecules - bears witness that God stands behind these things. Snowflakes are animated beings, very little and sometimes unnoticeable to the human eye, living without light and melting from warmth. Each of them has its own mandala, affected by the smallest movement of the air. Under the influence of sounds snowflakes can form an endless number of patterns. This proves that life itself has a mandala that absorbs everything man does. If one looks at a square from the point of view of the rhythmic interrelation between nature, man, and the cosmos, it proves to be just a pattern drawn on the Creator's canvass. The key to the deciphering of humanity is hidden in the mandala of the world. The mandala absorbs the square of man. And in this sense Black Square in the Snow is an integral part of Perfection, exactly like Malevich's Black Quadrilateral and like human beings and their creations represented by both artists as a square.
The thought about the working of the Mandala law in universal dimensions and inside every man became the basis for another painting from the Mandalas series -Mandala of a White Square. This time, the objects on the canvass do not seem to oppose each other. Through artistic means the painter underscores the exceptional comfort of their coexistence and the possibility of harmony. In the white square we can recognize man striving to reach the Creator, to blend with the divine. Three snowflakes instead of one symbolize the Holy Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The theme of relationship between man and God through religion can be seen also in the works Mandala of Jesus Christ, The Trinity, God's Mandala, and The Last Supper.
We can also draw parallels to the theories of "fourth dimension" championed by the philosopher Petr Uspensky and to "higher reality" as understood by Kasimir Malevich. The road of "higher intuition," discussed by the great Suprematist, leads also through Fomin's Mandalas series.
In two paintings, entitled Malevich's Mandala and Salvador Dali Was Here, Fomin makes art the means of learning about the spiritual world of people. According to the painter, artistic endeavors always reflect the level of the intellectual development of each individual. These works can be interpreted as the means of communication for those who are on different sides of being.
Fomin put a special metaphysical meaning, which dominates the material embodiment of ideas, into creation of compositions devoted to themes present in the works of practically all geniuses of visual arts and music. Among them are Mandala of the Revolution, Mandala of Love, Mandala of Thought, Mandala of the Scream, and Mandala of Eternal Return.
In an attempt to depict through the prism of of Mandala'a law the universal construction of those phenomena, without which the human existence is impossible, the artist came closer to the understanding of Mandalas' regularity. At the same time, the pictures themselves give an impression of psychologically optimal visual substances that force one to ponder the meaning of eternity.
One of the manifestations of the Mandala's law should be considered the rebirth of the traditions and customs beneficial to the condition of world civilizations.
The artist paid a tribute to those traditions and customs in such works as Mandala of the Church of Transfiguration, The Church of Lazarus, Mandala of Kalevala, Mandala of a Duck, and Two Deer. The paintings are amazing because of the delicacy of their combined supplementary colors and Fomin's ability to invent a simple formula to validate the truthfulness of his concepts. They win us over by the primordial nature of their -painterly sensations, their tendency to show allegorical subtext, their effective patterning, and the decorative musicality of their compositions.
Thanks to their symbolic nature, their modernity, primitive power, and positive emotions they evoke, the subjects of such works as The Head of a Tiger, The Kiss, Mandala of a Rose, and Mandala of Fear best fit the common outlines of visual constructions in the Mandalas series. Fear, in the painter's opinion, is the greatest sin. Like a magnetic storm in the cosmos, which violates the law of Mandala, fear promotes imbalance in societies and nations, obstructs equilibrium, unification, and harmonious allocation of human and cosmic energies. Mandala of man's fate is much more than just lines on his palm. Man is a picture that contains ornamentation, decoration, symmetry, and rhythm. Taken together, these elements create an incomparable mandala - the history of man. When man dies, his ionic mandala becomes an attribute of the earth, but his soul, which possesses its own mandala, is able to depart to mysterious cosmic expanses, where the "intuitive mind" of the artist dwells.
Fomin's Mandalas are visions, immersions in the depths of universal creation, the keys to new discoveries, and assertions of the supremacy of the spiritual over the material. They are the One Thing in God's hands. The need to create a series devoted to the purity of artistic life allowed Fomin to imbue the works with mysterious appeal and with the life-giving energy of man's search for the truth.

Svetlana Gromova
Translated by Alexander Boguslawski



	Vladimir Fomin: fomin@onego.ru