ABSTRACT
Jock Macdonald: The Search for the Universal Truth
in Nature
Allison J. Colborne
1992
This paper is a study of the artistic philosophy of J.W.G.
(Jock) Macdonald (1897-1960). It examines the implications of his initial break with
representational art and his development of an abstract imagery between 1934 and 1941 in
the context of the ideological tradition from which he emerged and the immediate cultural
situation in which he worked. His personal writings are discussed and the iconographic
content of his work is analyzed in relation to the evolution of his abstract style.
The roots of Macdonald's vision are located in the
Romantic tradition, which assumes that the laws of nature and of art are the same and
which inspired his use of the organic analogy. Macdonald's concept of nature is discussed
in relation to the influence of significant scientific discoveries. A close study of his
oeuvre reveals that his pictorial vocabulary of archetypal forms corresponds to a
tradition of morphological research in biology and that his treatment of pictorial space
was informed by scientific theories and by speculation about the "fourth
dimension." Macdonald found in Theosophy and Anthroposophy a means to reconcile his
fascination with science with his innately mystical apprehension of nature. Contradictory
as they may appear, science and occultism formed the matrix of his semi-abstract and
abstract art by suggesting ways to visualize nature's hidden energies.
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