"Cloister of Clay - the International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary"

Janos Probstner
Founder and Director of the International Ceramics Studio

It was not very long ago, in the last decades of the 20th century that our “cloister” was built. It has been functioning ever since, and exists to this day, in the middle of Europe. At the meeting point of the Western and the Eastern culture, on the road of the great migrations and the conquests disguised with various ideologies.

The artists’ desire for freedom was the driving force in its coming in to being – based on the centuries-old experiences of a nation in preserving their spiritual richness, and in their struggle to safeguard their independence. This is why it has always been ready to accept and adopt any value coming from anywhere.

The secret and essence of the cloister’s spirit is the experience of freedom: freely selecting a period of time, tearing oneself voluntarily away from one’s everyday life, living within a community of a humanly acceptable scale forged by mutual respect and intellectual identity, experiencing the secrets of the individual creative processes and united by art  in order to achieve a higher quality of common knowledge, a higher level of relations and a specific teaching method.

As a consequence of living together in a closed community in the course of creative activities, those capable of teaching and those yearning to learn – perhaps even unconsciously – will set and will receive good examples in all areas of human existence.

Why is it important, particularly nowadays, under the circumstances of the relentless globalisation that such international artists’ colonies – cloisters – should exist?

Though somewhat simplified in order to make my point, it can be said that the European man, also having populated North-America with the largest number of people now living there, a type of man always striving for individual accomplishment, – generally referred to as the Western man – is most decisively characterised by the fact that his relationship, his attitude to matters around him, his thoughts and his responses to a “thesis” always starts with a “no”.

This is what constitutes the foundation of the view of life, the philosophy created by this type of man – a philosophy which, as a consequence of the synthesis born through the conflict of thesis-antithesis, is aimed at permanent change. The driving force in this view is mainly the rationalism of this man, his capability and his compulsion to be continuously renewed.
This is also what characterises the process and the nature of how he produces his works of art,  –based first of all on “individualism”, creating a diverse, incredibly rich culture leaving its mark on the entire world.

To me, as a European, the Eastern, Asian man – who can be called the man of public-spiritedness – is most decisively characterised by the fact that his view of the world, his general attitude, the level of comparison related to things around him always starts with a “yes”. This approach is based on thinking in terms of the community, for the benefit of the community. Meditation, as well as the preservation of traditional values, and what is more, respect for their mystical and esoteric relations play an important role in it. It was on this basis that this man lived and developed the immensely varied forms of his art, bearing magical relations, too. This is, by no means, less valuable, but is an unavoidably, inescapably essential element of the culture of mankind.

Why am I talking about these well-known differences of views now, at this present forum on art?

It is because some highly qualified representatives of a new branch of science, the scholars of ethology (which is also the science of human behaviour) – or “behavior biology”, as the Americans call it – are ringing the storm-bell as an alarm, on grounds of the contradiction between mankind, only capable of very slow spiritual-moral changes, on the one hand, and science, developing at a continuously increased rate, on the other hand – a contradiction that seems to be insoluble and casts a shadow of menacing visions.

In their opinion, and I agree with them, it was only under circumstances limited both in terms of space and quantity, and within a humanly acceptable period of time that meaningful ideas, bringing about – even if painfully – the progress of mankind, were able to develop and function in a harmonious and organic way. And, what is more, to make sensible progress: although isolated in space, or perhaps just because of that, to create the richness of specific spiritual, cultural and artistic values, for the benefit of all mankind.

The preservation of the values of the two major culture complexes, selected arbitrarily by me and outlined above, as well as the preservation of the values of all the other existing cultures – just to mention, for example, the powerful culture of the South, the African culture with its independent development and specific character – is an imperative necessity. These values are needed in order that we are able to maintain the richness of the quality of human life.

By now, however, all of them are in danger of becoming empty, of being depleted and reduced, and what is more, even of being totally swept away. Only to be replaced by a world that is at present unacceptable and unsuitable for consideration, organised along the lines of superficial and shallow outward appearances, heading towards an increasingly grey and dull uniformity. 

In terms of the scale of history, these pervasive changes happened almost overnight - during the last few decades  - an immeasurably short period of time. It is the outcome of the process whereby in the 18th and 20th centuries technology as such was invented, and in the fields of rationally resolvable problems – from penicillin to space research – incredible development has been achieved.

Unfortunately, however, mankind entered the age of globalisation brought about by the one-sided scientific achievements without having undergone a corresponding adequate social, moral and cultural development.

The ill-considered, exponential growth of the population drags the world towards an economic catastrophe. The unexpected and incredible development of the visual devices of communication made it possible to communicate any information in a visible way immediately, right when the thing happens. However, in spite of all the advantages and usefulness of this type of communication, in most cases the organic scientific and cultural values and happenings of the various societies are presented in passages torn from their contexts, only imitating the entirety of the truth, or so-called virtual reality.

Furthermore, the seemingly all-comprehensive and accessible mass of information even suggests that it is pointless to acquire real knowledge that would make someone further consider, or turn things over in his mind. Mankind – induced  to sit and gaze, as if drugged, at the ubiquitous digital screens – is becoming more and more atomised, people are defenceless against manipulation, and this could lead to unpredictably disastrous intellectual and cultural triviality and shallowness.

The brilliant, nevertheless fragile spiral of globalisation also entails the shocking danger that the various artistic tendencies unwillingly and inevitably become more and more uniform. By the fact that art has been suppressed in the category called entertainment industry, art itself, as well as the so far widely accepted view on the essence and role of art, has been attacked. But the truth is “entertainment does not require psychic work; art does.”

Yet, what constitutes the most important point, the true significance of human existence, is the spiritual/mental development and the capability of accepting works of art, all this achieved by exploring and interpreting the interrelations between things.

Art, as opposed to science, or beside it, is able to explore and highlight the essence of things without providing rational evidence.  What is more, through catharsis art is even capable of transmitting it to the recipient. Thus, art is complementary to science by offering a domain that can only be visited through the faith of idealists and the intuition and imagination of artists.

However, in spite of these characteristics of art, nowadays art must defend itself against the disastrous impacts of the unavoidable globalisation, in order to maintain the diversity of cultures.

The egoist man of our days – who is unwilling to draw adequate conclusions unless there are irreversible catastrophes – definitely needs new cloisters in the foreseeable future. Cloisters of art are needed, cloisters focusing their attention on the deeper contents and essence of things, thereby providing also the opportunity to pursue absorbed creative activities in all fields of the creative art forms. These cloisters can be the strongholds in preserving diversity not just in the form of objects, but also in terms of mental abilities.

Continuing to refer to the comparison with a cloister, let me say that in our institution already these days – perhaps because they feel the lack of something very important – laymen and brethren, seminary students and academic professors as committed monks of the art of clay, live and produce their works of art together. Preserving their cultural identity, yet directly, and even if not intentionally, still in full harmony with the community spirit of a cloister, they discuss, transfer and exchange their far-reaching experiences concerning the why and the wherefore of the true essence of human existence and artistic creation.

It is our hope that they will do it until the time comes when the spirit of the world – now seeming to be dangerously troubled – will again shine bright.    

Janos Probstner

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