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Yves Klein's Monopinks:
An Account of My Impregnation by Colour - Sarah Kyle

   Yves Klein first began the exploration of alternate monochromes around 1959 with a series of Monogolds and Monopinks. Up until this time, Klein's focus was undeniably the International Klein Blue that marks majority of his work. This branching out of the new monochromes beyond the blue, or as he would argue, further into the blue, establishes a pattern of trinity within Klein's art; arguably, this trinity, of ëcrimson/rose', gold, and blue, continues Mondrian's commentary on the triad of primary colours as the material representation of the "cosmic philosophy about harmony and order"  (Stich 194). While Klein denied Mondrian's influence, and, in effect created a message of a cosmic order of faith, Mondrian's work acts as a complement to, and perhaps foundation for, Klein's monochromes (Stich 194). Another potential influence of Klein's exploration of colour-field is Rauschenberg's ëGold Painting' of 1953, which sought to comment on the physicality of the earth's element gold. Conversely, Klein's work represents the symbolic opposite: for Klein, gold, in combination with the blue and pink, marks a conduit between the temporal, material world and the immaterial world (Stich 194). Klein's monopinks come to represent, then, alongside the transcendent blue and the infinite, immaterial gold, the third aspect of a trinity that reaches beyond Mondrian's triad of primary colours. The pinks symbolize the virtue of caritas. This virtue encompasses charity expressed through love, and is known in the Christian vocabulary as the Holy Spirit. This paper will explore the Klein's monopinks as the material representation of divine Love in a trinity of colour, whereby blue and gold represent, respectively, the ineffable infinite (God as Faith), and the eternal hope and harmony (God as Hope).

   The noble pursuit of the Rosicrucian Order contextualizes Klein's fascination with a Trinity, or a union of Many as One. Klein began his formal initiation into the Order of the Rose and Cross in 1947, a year after he read the ëCosmogony of the Rose Cross', the essential manual of Rosicrucianism (McEvilley 239). Until 1958 Klein remained an active member of the Oceanside, California school of Rosicrucianism via correspondence. By 1958 his membership and ëhomework' lapsed, however, the traditions of union, transcendence, and the betterment of humanity, that the Order espoused, continued to dominated Klein's philosophy and manifest itself in his art (McEvilley 239). The central goal of the Rosicrucian tradition is the "ultimate synthesis of life and form" (McEvilley 240).  ëLife' is defined as "pure spirit", and 'form' as physical matter.  According to this ideology, the two have been completely divorced from one anther (McEvilley 240).  Thus, for Klein, as for the Rosicrucians, the purpose of existence on earth was to strive for the reunion of Life and Form, or, to aspire to godliness despite the constraints of the humanity. This philosophy is deeply Neo-Platonic, and a close relation to the Tree of Life of the Christian Kabbalah. 

   Klein's Ex Voto box left at Saint Rita's shrine, in Cascia, Italy, is a testament to this Rosicrucian vision that encompasses both the Christian Trinity and, what the Rosicrucians term, the Trinity of Fire. The Trinity of Fire is ostensibly the three theological virtues of Christianity (Faith, Hope, and Charity), which are both implied and inherent in the three parts of the Christian Godhead. Blue, Gold, and Pink, then, come to symbolically represent Faith, Hope, and Charity, which together form the ineffable union for which Klein's work aims. The Monopinks epitomize the third virtue of godliness: Love. What better colour to choose to express the benevolence of godly charity than crimson, or rose? Its brilliance refuses to be denied and, as intended, invades and permeates the viewers' space without the violence associated with red. The viewer is enveloped in the colour-manifestation of divine grace. Now, granted, Klein's self-proclaimed prophet-status, carrying the grace of the divine to his viewer, is clearly a presumptuous one. Despite Klein's rampant megalomania, the wonder he infused in his life, and actualized in his art, transcends his ego. He desired to communicate a joyous vision, one that he believed, as a dutiful Rosicrucian, would better humankind. This is evident in his prayer to Saint Rita enclosed in the votive box: he states "grant me thy aid still and always in my art and always protect all I have created so that even in spite of myself it may always be of Great Beauty"  (Klein 257). Despite the clearly elf-important bent of his prayer, Klein requests divine aid in conveying beauty, as a manifestation of God's grace, to a jaded public.  In an age of fragmentation and post-war pessimism marked by the nihilism of the existential philosophers, Klein's reinstatement of the Trinitarian virtues, and the unity that they represent, endeavours to dispel the negativity and stasis of post-World War II Europe. For Klein the Immaterial, that he sought to represent via his Monochromes and the exhibition of the Void, provides a synthesis of our material reality with the divine (Restany 14). In this light, Klein's monochromes mark his attempt to ratify Life and Form. As Pierre Restany states in his article "Who is Yves Klein?", 

[The monochromes] were never intended . . . to be decorative ëpictures'. Their function was entirely different: they were meant to gather the diffused energy that acts on our sense and to fix it, by means of colour, in a certain space.  (15)
What Restany proposes is that Klein's monochromes sought to focus the viewer's attention through their intensity and completeness, upon the ineffable and the transcendent unity beyond our material existence.  Klein's philosophy expressed through the Monochromes is the antithesis (and perhaps response) to the completely secular focus of the existentialists. 

   Notably, Klein's ideology of synthesis did spiral into naïve irrationality, for which he was labelled both a charlatan and a fraud (Rosenthal 129): Klein hoped that in the future people would be able to complete the transcendence of body while still alive.  He hoped that people could eventually escape the materiality of the world, and its inherent limitations, via levitation, out-of-body experiences, and telepathy. Klein thought that this subversion of the physical was the key to a new Eden, and that it heralded the "union of science, art and religion"  (McEvilley 241).  Restany states, "Klein acted as a prophet, but in the service of the Order of God" (15). Klein certainly fashioned himself as a prophet. In reality, he was more of a naïve visionary. However, in an age bent upon Line, divisions, and the negative anxiety that accompanies them, Klein's work carries a message of Hope for unity beyond the pessimism, death, and destruction that the world had so recently witnessed. Klein's philosophy on art revolved around eliminating lines and the boundaries that contain and segregate humanity. He believed that "line divides and obstructs the pure space of cosmic sensibility, while colour asserts the freedom and fullness of space"  (McEvilley 239). In this light, Klein's monopinks symbolize the cosmic embrace, the love inherent in hope and faith, and the freedom that this hopefulness enables. 
Klein, of course, chose his distinctive ultra-marine blue as the pinnacle of the transcendence and harmony to which he aspired. He describes the blue in terms of revelation, infinity, and union beyond all worlds (Restany 15). However, this does not discount the importance of the other monochromes. For, when joined with the Monogolds and Monopinks Klein's trinity of colour represents a reflection on the divine union, the three in one of the godhead. This impulse towards unification in his art ultimately provided the impetus for Klein to incorporate the elements of nature and the human body into his work (Restany 15).
 
 

Part II: Interplay
   As far as my interaction with Klein's work in the re-creation of the Monopinks and the pink sponges, I have a small anecdote to relate. My background in art is one deeply entrenched in the structure and ideal aestheticism surrounding the Italian Renaissance. Thus, I approached Klein's work with a heavy dose of scepticism and resistance. Quite naturally, I was wary of the process of re-creating Klein's visions on canvas. However, in pondering Klein's goal, of actualizing a representation of the ineffable in order to infuse humanity with hope again, I thought I would put aside my reservations and give Klein the benefit of the doubt. 

   As I was dutifully painting sponges, and becoming more and more frustrated with the colourless gaps in their centres, John (Klein's messenger, to be sure) said to me ëengage with it, Sarah. Pick it up in your hands and work with the paint'. Whether John was just tired of watching my fumbled attempts, or whether he truly sought to enlighten me, I was struck with an epiphany. For the first time since my childhood, I became joyfully messy, and I let paint get under my fingernails. Ostensibly, my interaction with Klein's message and media realized the joyous hope and associated with Klein's philosophy. It occurred to me that by physically interacting with the medium within the context of representing transcendent Love, an intriguing dialectic between the secular and the sacred is established. This interplay between the physicality of Klein's art, and the invasion of the senses by brilliant colour, becomes the part of the ascent to participating in the divine.  The physical experience of re-visioning Klein's work converted me to his utopian ideology (at least temporarily); in his art I see an euphoric, though naively simplistic, prayer for unity through hope and love, of which our world is in dire need. 



Bibliography

Arman. "Selected quotes." In  Arman: 1955-1991 A Retrospective.  (Alison 
de Lima Greene, Pierre Restany.) Exh. Cat. Houston, Brooklyn, 
Detroit. Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1992. 88.

Bozo, Dominique. "Yves Klein: Arrogance and Angelism." In Yves Klein: 
1928-1962 A Retrospective. Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, 
Paris. Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 11.

Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. "Into the Blue: Klein and Poses," Artforum. Vol. 33, 
Summer 1995. 92-97, 130, 136.

De Duve, Thierry.  "Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer," October. No. 49, 
Summer 1989. 77-90.

Klein, Yves. "Prayer to Saint Rita."  In Yves Klein: 1928-1962 A Retrospective.
Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, Paris. Houston: Institute for 
the Arts, 1982. 257.

_________.  "Selections from The Monochrome Adventure." In Yves Klein: 
1928-1962 A Retrospective.  Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, 
Paris. Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 220-224.

_________.  "Selections from The War: A Little Personal Mythology of the 
Monochrome." In Yves Klein: 1928-1962 A Retrospective.  Exh. Cat. 
Houston, Chicago, New York, Paris. Houston: Institute for the Arts, 
1982. 218-220.

McEvilley, Thomas.  "Yves Klein and Rosicrucianism." In Yves Klein: 1928-
1962 A Retrospective.  Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, Paris. 
Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 238-255.

Mock, Jean-Yves.  "Yves Klein: An Appreciation."  In Yves Klein: 1928-1962 
A Retrospective.  Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, Paris. 
Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 12.

Restany, Pierre.  "Yves Klein: The Ex-Voto for Saint Rita of Cascia." In Yves 
Klein: 1928-1962 A Retrospective.  Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New 
York, Paris. Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 255-257.

Rosenthal, Nan.  "Assisted Levitation: The Art of Yves Klein." In Yves Klein: 
1928-1962 A Retrospective. Exh. Cat. Houston, Chicago, New York, 
Paris. Houston: Institute for the Arts, 1982. 89-135.

_________.  "Into the Blue: Comic Relief," Artforum.  Vol. 33, Summer 
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http://www.crcsite.org

  Conversely, Thierry De Duve argues that Klein's philosophy and art were wholly self-absorbed. He states that Klein's art does not promote hope, and, is instead enslaved to consumerism and the maintenance of capitalism's reign. The virtually zero-profit of Klein's work, however, attests to a value beyond the all-mighty franc.
  Incidentally, Arman's philosophy and art of destruction, segregation, deconstruction, and isolation of objects represents the opposite of Klein's holism: these two artists juxtapose of The Full, as representative of the emptiness of society, with the Void, as representative of the full, infinite potential of the divine both in and beyond humanity. Arman and Klein had "divided the world . . . [Klein] had said to [Arman] ëI will concern myself with what is organic, and you will take what is manufactured'" (Arman 88).  The art of Arman and Klein, respectively, explores Form, as the objective reality that separates humanity from God, and Life, which eliminates the object and unifies humanity with God. 
  The entire canon of Neo-Platonic thought hinges upon the impossibility of this occurrence: for if one could transcend the body while still inhabiting it, one would transcend humanity and, thus, be a god. The nature of the Neo-Platonic faith necessitates the struggle toward proximity to godliness. For it is by way of this struggle that the practitioner learns the nature of virtuous humanity and can, thus, better emulate and appreciate god. 



 
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