Chapter 8. Transformation and transfiguration

In 1920, Warburg’s article Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten (Pagan-Antique Prophecy in Words and Images on the Age of Luther)[1], was first published in a scientific journal. Warburg, who called the article a fragment, introduced the formula künstlerisch-vergeistigende Umformung, or artistic-spiritual transformation. German allows for the combination of two adjectives, the first becoming an attribute to the second, so that Warburg’s idea is that a spiritual transformation can be achieved by artistic means. We may say that in the case of Kozlov’s portrait of Timur Novikov, there is an artistic-spiritual transformation of the person we first saw in a photograph (BD34), but it is, of course, a transformation of the image of Timur Novikov, not of the real person. Starting with an image, the result is also an image – in Kozlov’s words, of the state of being which Novikov eventually attained. In other words, Kozlov, looking back at his painting in 2010, came to the conclusion that he anticipated Novikov’s transformation.

Warburg however, used artistic-spiritual transformation in relation to magical mytho-logic, not to an existing person. The complete phrase is “magische Mythologik als eigentliches Objekt der künstlerisch-vergeistigenden Umformung” – which translates literally as magical mytho-logic as the true object of artistic-spiritual transformation.

In fact, we need to consider separately the two components of this phrase – magical mytho-logic as a true object (of something), on the one hand, and artistic-spiritual transformation (of something), on the other hand.

But we will first have a look at Warburg’s neologism Mythologik, derived from Mythologie – mythology. Turning logos, knowledge, into logic, argumentation, Warburg united two apparently contradictory terms that appeared to him as equally strong in the afterlife of antiquity, namely logic and myth. According to Johnson, Warburg  thus mapped the universal tension between reason and unreason, or acting and being acted upon.[2]

Warburg discussed mytho-logic with Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I from 1514. The following quote is from David Britt’s translation; Britt gives a somewhat different interpretation of Warburg’s interlaced formula “magische Mythologik als eigentliches Objekt der künstlerisch-vergeistigenden Umformung”, separating its components and then loosely connecting them by “and”:

The truly creative act—that which gives Dürer’s Melancholia I its consoling, humanistic message of liberation from the fear of Saturn—can be understood only if we recognize that the artist has taken a magical and mythical logic and made it spiritual and intellectual. The malignant, childdevouring planetary god, whose cosmic contest with another planetary ruler seals the subject’s fate, is humanized and metamorphosed by Dürer into the of thinking, working human being.[3]

Returning to the literal translation magical mytho-logic as the true object of artistic-spiritual transformation, we can state that for Warburg, the true object of Dürer’s engraving is the magical mytho-logic fear of Saturn. The artistic-spiritual transformation of this fear is Dürer’s truly creative – liberating – act: in this way, Warburg states, Dürer humanises the childdevouring planetary god. (Following Britt’s translation, Dürer made magic and myth spiritual and intellectual.)

If we compare my interpretation of Kozlov’s spiritual transformation of an object with Warburg’s interpretation of Dürer`s spiritual transformation of an object, we can say that Kozlov and Dürer pursued opposite aims through art: while Dürer metamorphosed a magical god into a thinking, working human being, Kozlov started with an image of a thinking, working human being and gave it a mysterious, magical charge. Transforming the figure through five stages, he ultimately synchronised the profane and the spiritual realms, as I observed in my article Timur Novikov: Roots – E-E Kozlov: Cosmos

Kozlov’s composition interrelates life and death in a radical way: he treats death not as a memento mori or a vanitas, like Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick, but as something present within our own selves. It is the bones we are growing inside, so that we can live, that will inevitably lead us to death. The shocking effect is produced by the beauty of the bones, but also by their being both a dominating and a natural part of the composition.[4] more >>

Unlike Dürer’s humanistic message of liberation from the fear of Saturn, Kozlov’s message of the presence of death is not consoling, at least not at first sight. Yet a closer look provides some unexpected insights:

The ‘Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms Consisting of Bones’ (1988) is another impressive example of Evgenij Kozlov’s capacity to absorb the masters of religious painting into a work of ‘classic novelty’. If ‘Anna Karenina (2)’ illustrates the significance of Western religious painting, this composition reveals striking parallels with the icon of Christ Pantocrator at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai – seen in the following ways: in Timur Novikov’s eyes (one looking up, the other down), in his posture, in the gesture of the third (red) hand, in which a book is being held (as indicated by the pages of the book in relief), in the vaulted opening of the gazebo and its intersecting bars – corresponding to the halo of the icon and the cross on the Bible – and last, but not least, in the background, with its architecture and landscape. Likewise, the main feature is the intensity of the gaze.[5]

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: Ulyana Tseytlina, Georgy Guryanov, and Timur Novikov. 35mm negative, E-E-pho-BD34. See Chapter 4

Nothing in the image with Tseytlina. Guryanov and Novikov suggests a narrative progression to the icon of Christ Pantocrator. In fact, this somewhat daring comparison with the Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms Consisting of Bones reveals the composition’s deeply humanistic message of liberation from fear, a message inspiring none of the melancholy of Dürer’s work. I now suggest a different interpretation of Kozlov’s metamorphosis of Novikov’s portrait through five stages: instead of transformation, I propose to speak of transfiguration or even transubstantiation. Both terms refer to a transformation of spiritual substance in the sense of a progression, of spiritual growth, but as we are dealing with images, we will use these terms in a figurative sense.

In this way, we can change Warburg’s phrase artistic-spiritual transformation into artistic transfiguration – a general principle of Kozlov’s artistic practise, and, again borrowing Warburg’s words, a truly creative act.

back to Introduction: E-E Kozlov’s photo archive as part of the his Atlas of Ontology.
(Chapter 9 forthcoming)

Introduction: E-E Kozlov’s photo archive as part of the his Atlas of Ontology.

Part 1. The Atlas of Ontology - collages

Chapter 1. Aby Warburg's cosmography and E-E Kozlov's cosmogony

Chapter 2. Changing emotive formulas: Mata Hari as bacchante

Chapter 3. The travelogue of a pair of strawberries

Part 2. The Atlas of Ontology - photographs

Chapter 4. From picture to painting: portraits of Timur Novikov and other New Artists

Chapter 5. An image not based on likeness: Shark

Chapter 6. Seeing colours in a black and white picture (forthcoming)

Chapter 7: Working with pictures: Kozlov, Richter, and Sherman.

Chapter 8. Transformation and transfiguration

Chapter 9: From Abbild to Urbild (forthcoming)

Research / text / layout: Hannelore Fobo, January / February 2021.