Paul Hartal (born 1936) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

painter and poet, born in

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. He has created the term "Lyrical Conceptualism" to characterize his style in both painting and poetry, attempting to unite the scientific with the creative, or intuitive.

Lyco art: Hartal's art theory

''Lyco art'', or ''lyrical conceptualism'', is a term coined by Hartal. In 1975, Hartal published ''A Manifesto on Lyrical Conceptualism'', introducing Lycoism as a new art idea on the "periodic table of art." In this work, Hartal proposes a

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

which runs contrary to what he claims is the traditional belief, that emotion and intellect are at odds with each other. Hartal proposes the idea that artists should be allowed to contribute to the emotional and intellectual development of society as scientists do. In 1975 the Lyrical Conceptualism Society was established in Canada, directed by Hartal. In ''Mazes for the Mind'', Clifford Pickover draws attention to Hartal's view that we need the imagination, the

insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...

, and the lateral reasoning faculty, as well as human

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...

, which are excluded from the rigid

methodology of science The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...

but are intrinsic to art: "The present human condition calls for the rise of a new, inclusive form of

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

in which art should play a most prominent role." However, in introducing the notion of Lycoism, Hartal did not intend to form a new post-conceptualist splinter-trend; instead, his intention was the creation of a new

philosophy of art Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

in which the tearing down of the boundaries between art and science, the interlacement of the intuitive and the exact, and incorporation of the lyrical and the geometrical play a central role.

Concepts and ideals of Lyco art

Arguably, Lyco art identifies the meaning of art with its life-serving purpose. Concerning itself with cultural transformation and the

human condition The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed f ...

, it seeks to expand the boundaries of

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

. Lyco art proposes to create a conscious bridge between the impulsive, intuitional, and planned elements of the creative process, thereby moving along the whole continuum of formative energies. This creative process represents the interaction of emotion and intellect, wherein the passion of logic and the logic of passion are inexorably interwoven through the voyage of aesthetic

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

. Hartal's poetry was described as balancing "...dreamy emotion and discerning intellect..." Lycoism combines "geometric elements representing logic, shapeless forms symbolizing the creative process, and warm and cold colors indicating feelings." In addition, since

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

impact so much of modern lifestyle during the electronic age, Lycoism views the relationship of art, science, and technology as a pivotal concern. Lycoism refuses to polarize science and art; instead, it seeks to unify

and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

in works which involve the use of science and technology by the artist in the creation of beauty. In accordance with these premises, Hartal formed The Centre for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal during the 1980s. The Centre has implemented a variety of interdisciplinary projects exploring the connections between several branches of arts and sciences, including

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, mathematics,

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...

, and space exploration.

Early life

Hartal relays that as a student in Szeged he participated in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and that a few months later he burned all his poems and papers and escaped to freedom.The Writers' Union of Canada. Member Profile.
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Gallery

File:Château; 1976.jpg, Chateau – Oil on canvas, 76 cm x 92 cm, 1976 Collection: Musee du Chateau Ramezay Museum, Montreal File:Tree of Life with Six Fingers; 2003 hi-res.jpg, Tree of Life with Six Fingers – Acrylic on canvas, 18" x 24", 2003 Collection of Hanseo University Art Museum, Seoul

References

External links

*
Interview: "Portals of the Mind and the Soul"

The Discovery of an Esoteric Message in Pascal’s Triangle, by Paul Hartal.

A poem by Hartal, quoted in Special Relativity and How it Works by Moses Fayngold

Is mathematics a form of ‘religion’?, by Paul Hartal.

Collection poems in Hungarian and English.

A short film adaptation of Hartal's poem 'Subway'.

Homage to a Blue Planet: Aeronautical and Astronomical Artworks (''Leonardo'', Vol. 25, No. 2 (1992), pp. 211-215).

Poem 'The Chestnut Tree (For Anne Frank)', by Hartal.

A list of publications.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartal, Paul 1936 births Living people 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 21st-century Canadian painters 20th-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets Expressionist painters Hungarian painters 20th-century Hungarian poets Israeli painters Israeli poets Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Concordia University alumni Columbia Pacific University alumni Jewish Canadian writers Hungarian male poets 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists