Transformative and form-shaping power of Genius

Transformative theory – sees the essence of genius in the transformative power and formative will of genius, in its ability to subdue chaos, to give form to raw material, to operate freely and play with symbols, to transform the existing content into a more perfect one.
At the same time, it is the gift and ability to create new symbolic systems, artificial languages, new systems of expressive and visual means and artistic techniques.

Form-shaping

Genius creates its works from the raw material of clay, marble, colours, sounds, images, movements and words, generating perfect, living, organic forms that carry the elusive essence of universality and unique originality of the creator.
The ability to give chaos a definite form, – wrote Otto Weininger, – is the ability of a man who has been given comprehensive apperception and comprehensive memory – these essential features of the male genius.
Symbolic anthropology, which had its origins in Plotinus, Proclus, A. Shaftesbury, and E. Cassirer, which was formalized into an independent direction by W. Turner, L. White, C. Hirtz, allows us to comprehend the origin and essence of genius with the help of a peculiar categorical apparatus, including such concepts as symbol and symbolic form and form-shaping power.
The form-forming power of genius is made up of two forces, two extremely generalized qualities of personality:
1. The ability to organize the available content on the basis of ideal patterns and internal generating forms.
2. The ability to express complex spiritual content, new deep meanings with the help of symbols, and new systems of artistic means and techniques.

In the form-making activity itself, we can distinguish two levels of generating forms, two levels of order: universal, reflecting the deep, hidden and perfect order of the universe, and cultural, relating to symbolic forms and archetypes of culture.
1. Universal forms. The deep order of the universe is expressed in the perfect numerical proportions and geometric harmony of the universe. T. Mann, in the words of his hero Adrian Leverkühn, speaks of “the order of the planets, a cosmic order and legality” underlying modern musical form. In this case, genius intuitively grasps and obeys in his work “universal, unchanging and truly existent” forms, ideas and eidos” (Plato), the ultimate “form of forms” (Aristotle), universal integral structures and archetypes (C. Jung). At the same time, the realization of this type of form is the basis of an independent holistic or universal theory of genius.
2. Cultural forms. They manifest themselves as initial samples for subsequent direct or variant reproduction in the form of cultural objects – artefacts.
Culture itself is understood as a complex, dynamic, human-created, symbolic system, as a multilevel “text”, whose supporting pillar is natural language, which organically interacts with artificial languages: the sign system in science and various “languages” of art in music, painting, theatre, architecture and cinema.
Ernst Cassirer believed that at the origins of human culture lies the ability to create signs, and symbols of the reality around him. Word and other sign symbols give information a certain form, transmit and preserve it, forming the world of human culture.
According to E. Cassirer, the symbol creates being and man, being a “symbolic animal”, and thus an artist, constructing the world in symbolic images with his contemplative, generating and creating power.
Culture is expressed not just in signs, but primarily in symbols, which are doors to the non-object world of meanings living in the unconscious depths of the soul. “At the same time, a true symbol does not simply “denote” meaning, but carries the fullness of its effective power” (A.A. Radugin).
Moreover, culture itself carries form-shaping tendencies and possesses form-shaping power, which is realized through a certain pra-form, a scheme inherent in a given culture, which guides and determines the creativity of geniuses.
O. Spengler believed that the basis of culture is a Ur-symbol, from which we can derive the whole language of its forms and all its manifestations. Moreover, the very Ur-symbol of culture lies in the depths of the human unconscious. Culture expresses itself through the world of symbolic forms, which are transmitted from generation to generation through human creative activity. Cultural and creative activity itself is internally connected with the concept of form.

The temporal structure of the dialogue of genius with the world

Any integral act of interaction, dialogue of genius with the world is an unfolding temporal structure, consisting of perception (vision) – transformation (form formation) – expression (embodiment) and form-creation with the help of its unique expressive means.
Johann W. Goethe in a letter to F. Jacobi noted: “The Beginning and end of all literary activity is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me by means of the world that is in me, all things being grasped, related, recreated, moulded, and reconstructed in a personal form and original manner. This will remain an eternal mystery.”
Irving A. Taylor wrote that genius is characterized by emergence and transactional creativity. An emergently original idea derives most fully from the transactions of personal perception as the higher form of creativity. Transaction involves perception, a period of assimilation, a transformation, insight and reformulation of the environmental inputs, and expression, actualization of the transformation in the form or product.
A transactional personality would be one that has clearly organized personal perceptions and is capable of changing the environment accordingly. They create an entirely new way of perceiving a significantly large portion of the environment.

Vision

According to C. Bell, it is important for art not to recognize the depicted object, but to reveal its “meaningful form” or hidden inner nature. Structuralists believe that “real” art can only express the essence of an object, or its ontological and metaphysical nature.
They identified the concept of form with structure and aimed at revealing the hidden meaning encrypted under the outer shell and conveying it with the help of new pictorial means.
External, visible outlines of objects, both socio-cultural and natural world, were understood as symbols of internal, or spiritual, reality and therefore, the main task, ability and existence of genius is the spiritual vision, reading and grasping the higher ideas, universal structures and truths hidden by the external form.
At the same time, it is necessary to take into account that complex symbolic systems created by man can stand between man and nature, and serve as an obstacle to pure direct perception of the world.
Genius is distinguished by the creation of “transparent” symbolic systems that do not distort the direct, pure perception of the world, seeing it as it really is. It can even be argued that genius is able to create “symbols-lenses”, magic crystals that sharpen perception, increase insight, and allow penetrating into the deepest essence of things.
Everything created by a genius, starting from his works and ending with visual and expressive means has a holographic structure and reflects universal structures of culture and the universe, and therefore remains transparent for the inter-directional movement of meanings.
Even the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Proclus argued that language, myth and art are not indifferent intermediaries, and they play not the role of a mirror but of a source of light and represent the condition of vision and the beginning of all formation.

Transformation

Many works of genius were not distinguished by the novelty of plots, did not lead to an increase in information, but represented a qualitatively new explanation of existing facts and restructuring of existing knowledge.
Thus, H. Joly wrote that genius much more often uses its forces to organize existing elements and to give them hitherto unknown strength, expressiveness and power, than to find and create these elements themselves.
Genius is able to catch, grasp, comprehend, awaken in itself the original cultural form and express it in its own way, in a new semantic context determined by the epoch. Genius – can say what has already been said, but already passed through itself, in a new context and in a new form, it captures ideas and discoveries and expresses them brightly, vividly and powerfully.
Inner structure. At the same time, the shaping and creative transformation of the already existing content, the transformation of socio-cultural and natural forms, is realized through the spontaneous activity of the “inner structure”, some creative functional organ, and creative symbolic intelligence.
This inner structure is understood simultaneously as a perfect prism, a magic crystal and at the same time as a generating, energizing and structuring matrix, as a creative method of interaction with the world.
This internal structure can be understood as the symbolic self, as a mediated functional organ, of the creative symbolic intelligence that interacts with the symbolic world.
Even I. Kant argued that such forms of contemplation as space and time are not external objective conditions of being, but internal conditions of experience, lying in the human mind itself. In turn, G. Flaubert wrote that “Poetry is only a way of perceiving external objects, a special organ which filters matter and, without changing it, trans figures it”.
Karen Swassjan noted that the essence of the Cambridge school, the leading representatives of which were R. Cudworth and E. Shaftesbury consisted in the assertion that the external design of sense-data is based on certain internal numbers, and the form itself is generated not by the substance, but by the creator, who gives it an ideal unity.
The genuine artist or genius is likened to nature itself and becomes the second creator. It is to him that the “inner form” is revealed, which is inherent not only in natural bodies but also in human consciousness. He depicts in his work not the accidental existence of empirical substances, but his inner and spiritual measures which give this substance wholeness and image.
E. Shaftesbury believed that each person can directly comprehend in his own self the individual principle of form, which turns out to be his own “genius”. At the same time, individual manifestations of this genius, for all their differences, remain identical to each other in terms of manifestation of some form-shaping power, which can be called the “genius of the universe”.
For his part, Zellig Harris introduced the notion of transformation into linguistic theory and put forward the idea of a grammar centred on universal principles identical for all languages, proclaiming the primacy of pure intelligible forms over sensuous forms.
Creative intelligence is symbolic intelligence manifested in the ability to form and transform the opening content.
In the most general sense, intelligence can be understood as an extremely general mental ability, a universal intrapersonal structure that ensures optimal interaction with the world around us and effective solutions of various levels, including fundamentally new and unexpectedly arising tasks.
According to V.N. Druzhinin, on the basis of primary behavioural intelligence, verbal, spatial and its highest form of sign-symbolic intelligence are formed, which is based on artificial, symbolic languages. Symbols as models allow one to neutralize the subjective emotional colouring of perception, to distance oneself from the object, and at the same time open the possibility of free, creative manipulation with it, revealing its new properties. Only at the level of operating with artificial symbolic structures, fully super situational thinking, delayed imitation, fantasy, abstract flight of thought and play possible.
Symbolic intelligence allows the transition from one meaningful task to another on the basis of comparison with some universal structure, and not just by “transfer”, transfer of operations from one task to another, by the method of analogies.
Language. Such a categorical structure as language acts as a universal-depth internal creative matrix. It appears here in two guises, firstly, as a categorical structure that defines the vision of genius, and secondly, as a system of expressive means, a set of techniques, tropes in literature, palette, lines in painting, sound structure in music, which brings this vision to life.
Vs. Ivanov wrote about poetry as a source of intuitive cognition and about symbols as a means of realizing this cognition. In this case, the genius poet acts not only as an artist but also as a person, the bearer of the inner word, the organ of the world soul, the herald of the intimate connection of things, the secret visionary and the mysterious creator of life.
Language forms secondary systems and this makes the verbal arts the richest in their artistic possibilities. The word is not a designation or naming, not a spiritual symbol of being, but is itself a real part of it.
Y. Lotman argued that language is the material of literature and, in relation to it, acts as a material substance, like paint in painting, stone in sculpture, and sound in music.

Form- creation

The creativity of genius manifests itself as a self-sufficient process of form-creation, as the search and discovery of new forms of depiction and expression of truth. Genius creates new symbolic systems, artificial languages, and new systems of pictorial and expressive means.
Genius creates its own language, its own unique inimitable style, new forms of expression, and its own artistic techniques. “Only by expressing itself in a certain individual form,” wrote G. Hegel, “can genius create a truly artistic creation.
Characterizing the creative style of N. Gogol, V. V. Rozanov writes: “Pages like pages… Only somehow buzzwords are put especially. How they are put, – only Gogol knows the secret”.
A genius possesses the ability, or rather a gift, to express his historical epoch, in his individual vocabularies and with the help of special expressive means, in symbols, metaphors, parables, and aphorisms with maximum simplicity and depth accessible to man. D. Diderot spoke about the individual language form, claiming that the creation of a true poet will forever remain untranslatable. E. Cassirer, in this regard, cites the words of Lessing, who emphasizing the incomparable uniqueness of poetic genius, said that rather Hercules can be taken away from his club than take away from the poetry of Homer or Shakespeare one single line.
M.K. Mamardashvili and A.M. Piatigorsky believe that the power of genius lies in the ability to create a symbolic apparatus capable of revealing and communicating the author’s ideas.
Thus, G.H. Andersen, – according to the authors, – conveys the idea of “detachment” of individual human existence from the universal integrity of the cosmos through the images of his heroes – tiny human beings who symbolize not only the “fragmentation” of individual existence but also its “soullessness” and “toyness”.
F. Nietzsche created his own special symbolic apparatus, successfully conveying his ideas through metaphors, symbols and complex tropes, or to fill with new content the statements of Zarathustra and the opposition “Apollonian and Dionysian beginning” borrowed from Schelling.
In turn, R. Rorty believed that great personalities: writers, philosophers, scientists, and politicians, whom he called “strong poets”, possess the ability to create their new languages, which allow them to open new pictures of being and reproduce their own worlds of new words and metaphors that influence the next generations. The “strong poet” appears as a creator of culture and history, ultimately shaping the vocabulary and consciousness of the masses. R. Rorty outlines the images of such brilliant thinkers as Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who dared to redescribe the past and create their own dictionaries.
Evelyn Underhill wrote that Dante was able to make human language express one of the most sublime visions of the Absolute that has ever been cast into words. She believed that such famous mystics as Plotinus, Proclus, St. Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, Nicholas of Cusa, Jakob Boehme, and Meister Eckhardt possessed a sublime symbolic vision that expressed spiritual perceptions that were not psychosensory hallucinations but works of art. Their work was distinguished by a harmonious combination of mystical intuition and the deepest philosophical generalizations. E. Underhill emphasizes the genius of the poet, artist, visionary and prophet William Blake, who possessed a mystical gift that subordinated to the vision of truth not only rhythm and word but also colour and form.
One of the most generalized types of expressive means is a symbol, understood as a trope, which can unfold in the form of a comparison, or metaphor, containing a share of conventionality and symbolism.
К. Balmont believed that the symbolists are detached from the real reality of thinkers who see in it only their dreams. He made an attempt to single out the most outstanding geniuses of the symbolists: “In England: William Blake, Shelley, De Quincey, Dante Rossetti, Tennyson, Swinburne, Oscar Wilde; in America: the greatest of the symbolists, Edgar Poe and a brilliant singer of personality Walt Whitman; in Scandinavia: Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun and August Strindberg; in Germany: Friedrich Nietzsche and Hauptmann; in Italy: D’Annunzio; in Russia: Tyutchev, Fet, Sluchevsky; in Belgium: Maeterlinck, Verhaeren; in France: Baudelaire, Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Huysmans, Rimbaud”.
Conscious emphasis on form-creation was characterized by geniuses, representatives of such modernist movements as Cubism, Cubo-Futurism, Dadaism, Lettrism, Abstract art, “Suprematism”, “Pop Art” and “Op Art”, “anti-theatre” and “theatre of the absurd”.
In the world of the simplest forms K. Malevich, P. Picasso, J. Braque, V. Kandinsky, and P. Klee found their means of expression. In turn, the understanding of art as a set of techniques, a system of expressive and pictorial means was proclaimed and realized in the independent school of Russian formalists, whose manifestos were V. Shklovsky’s works “The Resurrection of the Word” (1914) and “Art as a Method” (1917).
Within the transformative theory, it is possible to distinguish it as an independent game theory, emphasizing spontaneous manipulation, random kaleidoscopic transformation and free play with symbols and forms.

Game Theory of Genius

The game theory of genius represents the work of genius as a free from the bonds of everyday life, a bold, instinctive and enjoyable game with forms, symbols and meanings.
Symbolic representation of reality breaks the rigid ties with the material world, generates the space of freedom and opens the possibility of realizing a special, fundamentally creative, playful interaction with the world.
F. Schiller, one of the first had the courage to say that “… man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays”.

А. Astvatsaturov wrote that J.W. Goethe and W.A. Mozart were characterized by a special creative, playful attitude to life. So, Goethe said about himself: All that I can, I want to do, playing as I have to, and as long as I experience pleasure from it. This is how I unconsciously played in my youth, this is how I want to consciously act all my life. Also, Mozart unconsciously perceived music as play and created freely, obeying the immanent laws of music and play. He easily absorbed the diversity of musical forms and just as easily and spontaneously, as if playing changed and transformed them.