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spective, tantric imagery is not an arbitrary invention derived<br />
from the chaos of artistic manipulation because, in the last analysis,<br />
behind the symbols are the purest abstractions revealed and<br />
visualized during contemplation.<br />
In a quest for unity, the tantric artist identifies with the universal<br />
forces and is driven to find a truer reality beyond appearances by<br />
which a synthesis can be achieved between the external world and<br />
the interior model: a macrocosmic vision which allows the artist to<br />
come into familiar contact with the space-time continuum. The<br />
world of art and the world of experience, though different in their<br />
very nature, are not separate entities. Art is not wholly divorced<br />
from experience; a thread of continuity binds one world with the<br />
other. The tantric artist is not alienated from nature, but is very<br />
much in unison with the order which constitutes it. His art is a<br />
projection of an intrinsic consciousness permeating the outer and<br />
the inner worlds. In this sense the artist is a link between art and life<br />
stretched to a point between life and cosmos.<br />
The art of tantra expresses this unity amidst the diverse physical<br />
forces which constitute nature, and the many is thus harmonized<br />
into a whole. The appearance of unity is a reality to the artist and is<br />
reflected in the images he creates. To break the dimensional limits<br />
of a work of art in the quest for a psycho-physical unity with the<br />
essential forces of nature is a universal urge, not subject to the<br />
limitations of time. The contemporary artist Lucio Fontana<br />
comments: 'I do not want to make a painting. I want to open up<br />
space, create a new dimension for art, be one with the cosmos as it<br />
endlessly expands beyond the confine of the picture.' 12 The<br />
continuity which effects cohesion and unity illustrates that<br />
synthesis and gives art a universal significance. In the words of<br />
Aurobindo, it reveals:<br />
a fourth dimension of aesthetic sense,<br />
where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all-<br />
Most tantric images tend to stress the analogies between the<br />
individual and the cosmos, and the life forces which govern them,<br />
and in a way mirror Aurobindo's statement. They are reflections of<br />
something taking place in real life and constantly reminding us<br />
through the visions of the yogis what our true nature is.<br />
In this form of representation, tantric images have a meditative<br />
resilience expressed mostly in abstract signs and symbols. Vision<br />
and contemplation serve as a basis for the creation of free abstract<br />
structures surpassing schematic intention. A geometrical<br />
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