The Greatest Artist Never Known
Art lovers, have I got a treat of a tale for you. Do we not all remember the delight and wonder felt at spending time at a museum of art; to be enraptured by the work of masters long gone? My sophomore year in college, I attended Loyola University, Rome Center, a campus in the foothills of the historic Italian capital. This gave me the chance to spend my weekends travelling to the famed museums of Europe, the vaulted halls that house and immortalize the works of noble visionaries such as Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Chagall, Dali, Picasso, and others, preserved for myself and future generations. When I look at a painting, it gives me insight into the artist and what they were trying to convey at the most transpersonal level. How profound it is to play witness with your own eyes, to look intently at an artist’s original work and behold the mystery of their inspiration, seemingly within reach. These formative memories gained in the great art museums have stayed with me more than two decades on. But how does one distinguish between a mere painting and a masterpiece? My own belief is that when mere mortals channel the eternity of the divine in the form of their mastered craft, that is what makes a masterpiece.
Masterpieces or great works of art indeed are a testament to timelessness; the strokes of paint laid down in the distant past tug at the heart strings and imagination of the present. They do more than just stimulate our minds or please our eyes, they challenge us with the question, ‘what is the true value of the labor of a man?’ Sometimes the value is obvious, sometimes much time has to pass to tell. But it is when the work of man approaches the hand of the celestial; when a painting reminds us of our infinite self, then the value is priceless.
To think that a hundred and twenty years ago a meager man named Vincent would spend his days in a meadow, not to till or to plant, but to stand before a blank canvas and paint it with the colors of his imagination. Even though the value of his work may have been overlooked then, we know the value of his work now, for merely one of his paintings is now equal to the day’s wages of a million men. And although not all of us are capable of creating great works of art, we celebrate it because it is the inherent potential of every human being. We celebrate that sometimes one can make a breakthrough that is greater than the self, a miracle come in an instant where the toil of the countless masses is redeemed in a single act of creation. It is written that man cannot live by bread alone, but by the very word of God. This is why they say the pen is mightier than the sword, and in that wisdom, the brush is mightier than the scythe.
And so we are resigned to our fate; that one’s effort is to plow the field, while the other must seed the heart to receive his daily bread, both so crucial to humanity’s prosperity and survival. This is the power of beauty at the core of man.
So when I stood there before the paintings that shaped my teenage self, I wondered what it would have been like to know one of these masters whose passion soared their spirit into the heavens to distill the essence of inspiration. What would it be like to know one of these brilliant souls? Would I have the discerning eye to distinguish their work for what it was without being told what to think? If I knew a Vincent Van Gogh when he lived, could I predict that a hundred years on his creations would be worth more than all the tea in China?
A belief I’ve adopted is that for an artist to create great work, he has to be part sage, part mystic, someone who has reasoned with his Creator for an answer to his existence and by the grace of the Almighty his spirit is set free whilst his mortal coil walks upon the Earth. And so to jump to the near present; it was 2012 and I was employed as a stereographer in Hollywood; a stereographer, for those that don’t know, is the one tasked with creating the illusion of depth on a 3D movie, at once a creative and highly technical vocation that takes many years to perfect . My friend, a video engineer, keen to my interest in art wanted me to meet a certain painter whom he had encountered sometime earlier, that he felt I should know. There was something about this man’s paintings when viewed with special 3D glasses, some transcendental multi-dimensional quality he could not place, and so he said I should take a look, maybe I could articulate on what made his work so special. And so one sunny Los Angeles afternoon we went to meet Dr. Kamran Khavarani, the architect, humanitarian and painter.
Kamran lived in the Hollywood foothills, all the way at the top, overlooking the Sunset Strip and Beverly Hills. He occupied a small wing of a tour de force of a mansion he personally designed for a family who had let him live there as compensation for his architectural services. On the veranda of his house is where he created the prolific collection of paintings that were hanging, leaning, stacked and strewn all about his abode. Kamran welcomed us in, kissing us on both cheeks in the customary greeting of his Persian tradition. His excitement could hardly be contained as he explained to me that he had had a vision months before of someone that would come into his life, someone that had an important role to play in his story, and that it must be me, for I closely resembled the likeness of the man in his dream which he had painted not too long before. He was overjoyed. Myself, I could neither confirm nor deny if this was true. I’ve had many strange and supernatural occurrences happen to me in my life, so here I was then, exactly where I was meant to be.
His paintings at once grabbed me at the deepest core of my being; that feeling I had as a teenager in the museums of Europe of staring greatness in the face came rushing back. Here I was in the presence of a modern Da Vinci or Van Gogh, men who had proverbially wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and like Jacob in the book of Genesis were blessed straight from on High. In the world of art, they had created something that had never been seen in history, enrapturing us with paintings that today stand as the highest artistic achievements of mankind. And here I was sipping mint tea and enjoying pistachios and sweet meats with the master surrounded by his work. Overwhelmingly I was filled with a sense of peace and spiritual wonder that fully grounded me in the present moment. This was a very welcome change to my hectic Hollywood life, always running to and fro, trying to get ahead, looking for my next job. As we talked and got to know one another we discovered that our lives had some interesting parallels. We had both immigrated to the United States in 1979 as Jewish refugees, myself as a 7 year old boy with my parents from the Soviet Union, and Kamran, 40, as a refugee escaping the revolution in Iran. Kamran told me parts of his life story. He explained that since coming to the USA he was blessed with many miracles. In Tehran he was a prominent architect with a PhD in Urban Planning and Design, he had wealth, status and was surrounded by family. But when he fled Iran, he came alone and with nothing. As he waited at the airport before his departure, not knowing what the future would bring, he felt exuberance, a sense of liberty at the new life that lay ahead. On a napkin he sketched an abstract representation of a bird, which to him was the bird of freedom, a small drawing that symbolized an enormous faith. Within a year of his arriving penniless and without speaking English, he had somehow found work as an architect and that little napkin with the drawing of the bird of freedom, through a series of serendipitous events, was received into a permanent collection at the Library of Congress. A few years later he was honored with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, given to immigrants who exemplify outstanding humanitarian qualities in their new American life while continuing to preserve the richness of their heritage. By the late 80’s he had managed to move his whole family out of Iran and was the head of his own architectural firm in Los Angeles.
But in 2000 he had decided that his destiny was to return to his first love, painting, which he had not enjoyed since his prodigal youth.
And so one fateful day, he gave it all up, walked away from his practice, trading in his drafting pencil for canvas and paint. He explained to me that he only paints when he is in a state of pure joy. In this state painting for him is not a conscious process; he takes himself out of the equation, allowing the light of the divine to guide his hand. In painting his only agenda was to be a vessel of pure creativity, and in so doing he could gain a greater insight into the meaning of his own life. In 2004, Albert Boime, a UCLA professor of art history, considered by his peers to be the foremost social art historian of his time, was introduced to Kamran’s work. To Boime his work was a revelation. He recognized that Kamran had created an entirely new genre of painting which he christened ‘Abstract Romanticism’. At first this seems like a paradox because how can abstract art be romantic; because by its very definition it is not representational? But in fact, it was the perfect name for this new genre. His abstract work is representational after all, just not of the physical. His paintings instantly confront you with a choice, one you may have not known you had; to choose between experiencing your known self or accept the moment as a reflection of your complete identity, the experiencer experiencing the experience of All There Is.
Albert Boime boldly suggested that Khavarani’s work could uplift the very consciousness of man! In its most romantic ideal, that is the purpose of art, to be the perpetual muse to the act of creation, to inspire humanity forward. Boime, who had written over 140 books and articles on art history set out to devote what would become the rest of his life to his first book about a living artist. The book, ‘The Birth of Abstract Romanticism, Art for a New Humanity’ was completed before he passed away. In it he wrote: “Rarely, in the vast and varied arena of modern art, does an individual emerge who single-handedly shifts the future of artistic expression. He resurrects the romantic possibility that art can change the world by reaching out unstintingly to the heart and imagination of the individual spectator, Kamran Khavarani is a one-person movement.” Kamran was extremely moved by Boime’s gesture of validation. In memoriam, as a gift to his legacy, he drew a portrait of Albert, a six hundred hour labor of love, and what can be considered one of the finest examples of photorealism drawn by pencil ever seen. But back to the original reason I was invited to meet Dr. Khavarani, that his paintings had a 3D quality he could not put into words. And so I asked, what is it about these paintings, incredible as they are, that has anything to do with being multidimensional? “Oh yes, that,” Kamran exclaimed, “now you are ready for the real treat.”
A New Dimension
It was sometime in 2011 that one of Kamran’s friend’s Parisa Amirmostofian, an art therapist that had been using Kamran’s paintings with great success in treating people’s psychological problems bought a book for her 10 year old daughter. This book came with special glasses that when viewed through them rendered the pictures in the book as 3D. A technical explanation of this is that the glasses were designed in such a way as to assign a different depth to every color, red to the front, blue to the back, and all shades resting in a plane of depth in between. This creates the illusion of 3D. And so, it was one evening that Parisa’s daughter looked up from her book in her 3D glasses and stared at a painting of Kamran’s on their living room wall. And a whole new dimension opened up. This was the discovery that ultimately led our paths to cross. Because Kamran painted without the use of white or black, his paintings worked perfectly for this affect.
Art and Personart
And now I was to experience this myself for the first time. Kamran said, “before you put on these glasses, I want to first ask you a philosophical question?” “Sure, why not,” I countered. So here was his question. “How do we know the meaning of something?” I pondered for a quick answer, but none came. He continued, “will you agree with me that to know the meaning of something you at least have to know its opposite?” “Sure,” I figured, “seems reasonable.” Indeed, to understand light, one must experience dark, to fully know the meaning of love, one must have endured hate, what goes up must come down, and so forth. So he asked me then “What is the meaning of art?” I could not give him an answer. To know the meaning of art one must know its opposite, but he reasoned that because art has no antonym, it therefore must be meaningless. But we all know that is not true, so to define the meaning of art Kamran defines its opposite, a word that he himself coined, ‘personart.’ He proclaims that the meaning of art is pure transcendental creation, while personart is the expression of the ego. This is perhaps why in a world of millions of painters only a handful are actually remembered and celebrated for their contribution. This agrees with the proverb of the German poet Bertold Brecht who said that ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.’ And Kamran Khavarani wields that hammer with impeccable skill. Kamran admitted that when he learned how to channel his abstract romantic style he never dreamed of this plot twist that would take place. He handed over the cheap plastic 3D glasses and said that I should be prepared for when I put them on the two dimensional paintings will take on a life of their own. This was an understatement. I put on the glasses and an entirely new world opened up. This was beyond any experience I had ever had in viewing a painting, a labyrinth rich tapestry of volumetric color expanded into abstract oceans and valleys, nebulae of limitless awareness floating my perception between my subconscious and conscious self. The paintings, already profound in 2D started to pulse with life, not one color out of place, they were music to the mind, bringing forth the harmony of the spheres.
Within the layers of depth the disjointed inner dialogue of my brain was replaced with the melody of creation. As my mind’s eye sailed in the unfathomable beauty a wave of bliss began to overtake my senses. Seeing these paintings in 3D touched the deepest parts of my soul immediately. It was a syntax without words communicating the thoughts of a higher non-temporal and supreme intelligence. Experientially, I at once understood the unity within the duality of man. Talk about a painting’s power to awaken the dormant beatitude of the ecstatic self, this was it! It is no wonder that many a viewer has broken down weeping when looking at his paintings in this way. When you see these paintings in 3D it becomes very personal, you are taken on a journey back to your very own source. These paintings are a modern philosopher’s stone, an alchemical catalyst for awakening the higher self within oneself.
When Albert Boime was alive he never had the fortune to see Kamran’s paintings in this multidimensional way, but when he called the work ‘Art for a New Consciousness’, it’s as if his visceral sense already knew that this was the most significant authentication of his career. I think in the future everyone will owe Albert Boime a great deal for putting the spotlight on Kamran’s work and planting that first seed of discovery. John Harris, a notable British art historian upon witnessing the work himself said ‘What Rumi does with words, Khavarani does with paint.’ This is no surprise, for Kamran is a devoted student of the great Persian poet and sage. As Kamran sat sipping his tea he related to me how people call him doctor, paying him respect because of some academic title he spent five thousand hours to obtain, but what of of the forty thousand hours spent studying Rumi, there is no title for that, “so who and what am I really?” I asked Kamran why more people do not know of him? Why is his work not hanging in the great museums of the world; why is he not celebrated the world over? And he answered, “many have not heard of me or seen my work, but look, here I have a thousand letters, people spilling their hearts out thanking me for changing their lives with these paintings; look at these letters, how can this be possible, for I have done nothing. I am just one little man, what could I do?” And he began to cry.
I too felt changed as I left his house that day, the cathartic experience was personal and profound. Later he called to thank me for taking the time to come and see him, as he put it, ‘for being a precious flower in the garden of his life.’ And I thanked him for being who he was, a Trojan horse of consciousness, to have brought a work so prolific and so sacred and healing into the world. It is truly incredible how a piece of art hanging on the wall, painted only with his hands and mango seed could have such an intense effect. And so I offered to help him any way I could.
The Research Begins
In the following year a friend and collector of Kamran’s donated the use of a magnificent ten thousand square foot building right in the heart of Westwood, near UCLA, that had been sitting empty waiting to be sold. Kamran transformed the space into a dazzling gallery where he could invite people privately to view the work. The lofty forty foot ceilings and ample natural light created a wonderful atmosphere for this showcase. There, I witnessed firsthand the power the paintings had on others. It was at this time that Parisa, the art therapist, and I set out in collaboration to scientifically prove the effect of the paintings on the human psyche, both in 2D and with the 3D glasses. For one month in the fall of 2013 we opened the gallery to the public to coincide with a month long arts walk sponsored by UCLA. In the basement of the gallery Kamran created a labyrinth where visitors could walk through the installation wearing 3D glasses, taking in one painting at a time, experiencing their multidimensional quality. This experiment would take the viewer through an unseen world of limitless depth and meaning. It would engage them on a journey to the beauty of the soul, thus creating a different personal dynamic within the heart of each viewer. Parisa built a database based on a questionnaire we gave visitors, and the positive response was overwhelming. I also tested a number of subjects, including myself, with a special wearable device that calculated Heart Rate Variability, a measure of the resonant coherence of the heart. Heart resonant coherence is expressed as the onset of conscious self-awareness by virtue of the apparent geometry of heart harmonics being geometrically linked by progressions based on powers of Phi, also known as the Golden Mean, the mathematical constant that animates all of nature. I postulated that viewing one or more paintings in 3D would catalyze an irregular heart rhythm into a Phi recursive pulse, i.e., heart resonance and coherence, or what we feel as harmony and bliss. And in fact this is what I observed. Since the effect was multiplied when the paintings were viewed in 3D I now realized how my expertise in this field could be applied to furthering the cause of bringing the therapeutic benefits of these paintings to light. What if a clinical protocol could be established to treat psychological illnesses by merely staring at a painting? Millions of people take billions of dollars worth of drugs for depression and anxiety every day. What if a non-invasive therapeutic protocol could be developed using Khavarani’s paintings? I resolved that my genuine value in this friendship was to create a way to convert these paintings into a format by which they could be viewed in 3D without the glasses, to remove the prop out of the equation.
I accomplished this by recruiting some of the very people that I had worked with over the years in 3D filmmaking. As part of the experiment we digitized a painting and created an algorithm for extrapolated a point cloud depth map from the color values of each individual pixel, so a hologram could be created of the painting mimicking the effect one sees with the 3D glasses. Since holograms are very expensive to make, I settled on creating a lenticular print which would give the same 3D illusion on a flat surface without the glasses. The result was remarkable! For those that have seen these lenticulars, it is a visual indulgence of the highest order. And that is where we are today, faced with the herculean task of converting Khavarani’s entire collection into this multidimensional format so that present and future generations can experience the work, nearly a thousand paintings that herald humanities birth into a new and higher consciousness.
In the words of Professor Albert Boime, “it remains to be seen how the fallout from Khavarani’s painting will influence the history of art.” And so, it is only time that will tell Khavarani’s place in the history of humanity.
