Testimonial

“MIRO International Gallery” presents, based on careful consideration and selection of the members of its Art Council, Mongolian artist Sanchir’s works which deserve a special attention to the Czech public. We can state that during the period of his studying in the Art & Industrial School of Uherské Hradiště (in years of 1963-1968) and in the Imperial Academy of Art of Saint Petersburg (in years of 1972-1977), he undoubtedly has possession of an art craft. At the same time Sanchir hasn’t been identifying himself neither with any Czech movements nor with Mongolian traditional painting, and confidently directing himself to his own original esthetic expression, where the artist has a set of graphic nuances and options. 

This artist does not belong to the followers of rational judgement. He is attracted by intuitive symbolism, where mostly dream symbolics sound and sense of musical tones of colours, where paint sounds as a tone. When we look at his work, either as viewers or as critics, we can see how the artist deeply understood Hegel’s thesis about painting, “it is exempted from real three-dimensional space, instead it gets an ideal scope, light – “visible spirit”, which does not resist and has no weight”… For instance, we can see this in his paintings, which are inspired by steppe motives, in particular, by motives of herbs. Non-materiality of local colour and thin value of shapes corresponds with what we would call “air dream”. Sanchir has understood a thought of Diderot, who said that “Nature never does anything wrong”.

From the point of view of art esthetics, we see that the most exact definition of these art works would be a theory of feelings. Adherents of this theory believe in revival of non-animate objects, they put a human soul to lifeless and alive objects, wishing about reunion with space. French thinker Victor Basch called it “symbolical sympathy”. Naturally, that in creativity of the author we find also works, which are inherited from traditional motives inspired by a steppe life.

However the painter’s style is far from history of Mongolian art. When the author selects some detail let’s say a form of Mongolian horse stamp, then it is figured in his paintings as a symbol rather than as an ethnographic element. In other words, the painter is not reflecting the actual horse stamp on a canvas as the ethnical tool but he is performing art. Here we can talk about subconscious perception in psychoanalytic value: knowledge – ignorance. Where ignorance plays decisive role, Sanchir’s deepest feeling of the nature is intuitive. Probably, painter’s creed can be expressed with Émile Zola’s thought, when he said “Oh, beneficent earth, take me unto thee, thou who art our common mother, our only source of life! Thou the eternal, the immortal one, in whom circulates the soul of the world, the sap that spreads even into the stones, and makes the trees themselves our big, motionless brothers!”

If the emotional state of the painter is the psychological base of his creative world, then we must state that Sanchir’s creative world is the process of perception of his own mind and body. He has a high sense of esthetic self-reflex, that is based on esthetic memory, and it isn’t a situational memory but it is selective. It is about evident concepts, and about selective concepts. It isn’t wise to reject internal conflict of the painter: first of all the conflict between art realism concept and the concept of the object as a symbol. At the same time the internal world of the painter exists above the reality resisting the dogmatic knowledge. It is about the internal conflict.

Naturally, in his paintings there are evident elements of knowledge inspired by ancient archetypes, pro forma, mankind prototypes, particularly inspired by Buddhism. Let’s remember here, for instance, function of light, which plays important role in the works of Sanchir. We mean two aspects: firstly, light and fire, two the most important elements, which give the chance to human-race to survive in cold steppes; secondly – light on the altar of Buddhism (the altar, where fire and food are being sacrificed).

Undoubtedly, we should remember deep religious elements in art thoughts of Sanchir, in other words sense of some magic (tantric secret science). Also, let’s not forget about cult objects of Buddhism, as “khonkh” – “the bell”, “damar” – “the drum”, “ochir” – “the vajra”. Understanding of himself, gazing to his internal nature, sweeping from everything which interferes with intuitive concept of the world together with the symbols of frail world belong to our Mongolian artist Sanchir. Without it we will not understand specificity of his art. Sanchir’s arts are not about decorative space, it isn’t about reasonable geometry of western civilization and it isn’t about modernism. His art projects reflects the spiritual value in semantic flatness that symbolizes a human situation, spiritual value that exhilarates energy, notation of nature, and wandering of soul. Simply put, the colours on his canvas are reflecting the images of the spiritual mediation state of soul. Perhaps we could explain this by the words of the American theorist of art Nelson Goodman, “symbols in symbolic systems” and further about “reference” (lat.word: good information) and about “denotation” (lat.word: decoding of music notes). For instance, the motives representing “abstractly structured” Mongolian mountains and rivers full of spirits, and their wanderings, destinies of deities and demons. This is not classical European scenery, as we know so-called “naturalism”. Undoubtedly, it is clear that Sanchir knows history of the European modernist style and he is trained, for example, to methods of fauvism, he is able to represent in the spirit of his meditative style, synthesis this is by the way “Cubo-Fauvism”. The artist has adopted a historical modernism with criticism, and in this sense, his work reflects his own understanding of the world around him inspired by spiritual light of magical mystery.

In Sanchir’s portraits we can see his unusual esthetics; for example, co-infiltration of beings, and human psychology. The artist is able to present not only a tender look, but also a horror, sympathy, and an infinite empathy, just as Buddhists designate Avalokiteśvara. In his drawings something original traces: it isn’t as a drawing of Renaissance – a precise correspondence of anatomy, but a great amount of respect of nature of the highest beings, and the desire to clear a soul and a body from evil.

The artist is able to open and close space, to continue forms of architecture and to insert knowledge and feelings into modern style.

Therefore, in works of the artist we get acquainted with art of the wise person-thinker, and we recall the words which are familiar to us from history:

“He is clarity. 
Hearing the truth, 
He is like a lake, 
Pure and tranquil and deep” – Dhammapada

Doctor, Professor Miroslav Klivar (1932 – 2014)
World Distributed University (WDU), Brussels