Catherine Schuon, wife of Frithjof Schuon, explains two important elements he used in his paintings

Catherine Schuon (1924–2021) was the wife of Frithjof Schuon. She, too, was a gifted painter, and she compiled and edited an illustrated volume of Frithjof Schuon’s writings on traditional art, “Art from the Sacred to the Profane: East and West” (World Wisdom, 2007). In this short video, she points out two of the fundamental principles that Schuon followed in all of his paintings, which resulted in images that are intentionally two-dimensional and that avoid momentary motion. One never sees a momentary “snapshot” of an action in progress in the paintings of Frithjof Schuon. Even the horses in some of his paintings of Plains Indians are stepping slowly and carefully, as if they are in a ceremony. These two principles, among others, are found in works of traditional and sacred art over millennia. The late Michael Pollack, the editor of a book of paintings by Schuon, wrote this passage, which may provide some further explanation: “It is essential to understand that Schuon is never interested in originality and innovation; he is fascinated by the subject matter alone, its origin being what he observed among the Indians or an inner vision of spiritual realities. As for style, Schuon applies the general rules of traditional pictorial art, the first principle being that a painting must take into account the flatness and immobility of the surface; it should not represent three-dimensional space nor a too accidental and hence fragmentary movement. Schuon likes to repeat his subjects, a tendency that derives from his interest or fascination with them; it would be missing the point to reproach the painter for this kind of “monotony,” since it is a characteristic of all traditional art to repeat certain central motifs—it does this in order to unfold their full potentialities.” The rest of Pollack’s piece can be read at frithjofschuon.net.