Ideas for the "Human and Scholarship" Mural

This mural will showcase the diverse academic programs hosted in this unique academic building. To create a mural dedicated to the humanities and social sciences/the disciplines studied in the SWARTS building is a complex and responsible task. It is difficult to find an overall idea to connect their diversity, organize it and give meaning to it.

There is, however, such a collective image – that of man, who is at the same time the creator and consumer, i.e. the generating center and the absorbing periphery, the cause and effect of all human activities, which give significance to the existence of our human society on Earth.The following images are some of the initial ideas related to content, composition and color studies of this ongoing mural project.

Human beings have been the object of drawing since the dawn of mankind – what is it that can turn a concrete human figure into a symbol of humanity, the essence of being human? Or to put it in other words, what is the formula of “the human”?

It consists of man’s two major functions – to think and to create.

Thus I arrived at the “formula”: Thinks + Creates = Human (Being) (T + C = H)

Or saying in Latin: “Cogito ergo genero ergo sum” (I think, therefore I create, therefore I am).

I decide to approach this backwards - from the idea, the message.


The first idea that occurred to me was to place the student at the center of the mural – now a learner, but later a future scientist, researcher, creator or artist.

The ideal image and symbol of this idea is the famous statue of Kai, the Seated Scribe, in the Louvre. His ancient figure, frozen in a posture of eternal submissiveness, expectation and obedience, does not at all relate to my idea of the human being as creator today.

Another series of images, which occurred to me were the numerous statues and murals depicting Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. I like their extreme immersion into and concentration on their pursuit of oneness with the whole diversity of the Universe – the so-called state of “moksha”. However, this otherwise wonderful image too does not correspond to my perception of the contemporary active human being and creator.

I had to go back to the beginning in order to be able to go forward. And this always is the formal, compositional decision.

I remembered the famous Vitruvian Man by Leonardo and how he created, based on Vitruvius, the formula of the difference between the static and moving body, inscribing it into a square (= static position) and then into a circle (= movement).

This was the source of my key idea – to create a geometric formula of the thinking and creating human being.

The equilateral triangle is the geometric equivalent of the break-through, undoing (literally “piercing through”) the status quo, because it is in fact a heavily stylized schematic image of the point of an arrow or a pointer, i.e. – the symbol of thought which aims at the achievement of a certain goal.

The square (the cube) is the emanation of creation, the origin, and the foundation stone laid first in the construction of, for example, temples, churches, and buildings in general, not accidentally referred to as “basic” and “fundamental.” Imagine the building blocks of the Egyptian pyramids, symbols of endurance and eternity.

They, of course, are inscribed into a circle, which seals off the world of man’s creation from the rest of the material world of nature and the environment. The circle is a symbol of the oneness of human existence which is nothing but “thinking (inventing), i.e. the setting, the choice, of a goal – to create, i.e. the achievement, the realization of that goal.”

Deciding on the postures of the man thinker and the man creator, inscribed into the geometric figures was not difficult at all. Everything came down to the interrelation: human hands versus head and their relative position in either one or the other state. There is, of course, a slight transformation in the legs.

But why a female figure you would ask?

On the surface, the idea seeks to achieve a certain rehabilitation of the woman in order to compensate for her status over the millennia, and to place her on the pedestal of the human being as thinker and creator, something unprecedented (at least in the field of mural painting).

In depth, however, the idea of this approach is to express how thinking and creation involve not only the mind, but feelings, a powerful emotion that runs deep, the emotion of the making, the creation, the generation of something out of nothing. Woman is the symbol of this incredible capacity – with her infinite love, patience and hard work she creates out of her own body not only physically self-sufficient human beings, but also personalities who feel, react and possess the ability to perceive and create.

The geometric figures intersect, the result of which will be numerous segments surrounding the man thinker and creator like a background, and which will contain the images symbolizing the content of all the disciplines/subjects studied in the building, and which you, the students, are going to seek out – this will be your contribution to this collective project.

So far, this has been the presentation of the Mini- Mural Project – a conceptual scheme for a classical, static, and single-faced mural.

However, there is a Maxi- Mural Project (a standard and innovative version of the project, respectively).

I am talking about the creation of a mural installation consisting of 16 square modules (the number of people in our group, including myself) based on the “puzzle” principle, the difference being that each of them will be mobile and spinning around its axis, but will also have an obverse and reverse side as with coins, and will be reversible, i.e. it will be visually active on both sides.

Thus the task is doubled but also incomparably more interesting.

The same geometric compositional structure will also be at the back, but with a male figure and the reverse color scheme for the face.

The entire composition may be kept as it is initially created – by swapping the “faces” only, but the modules could also be disassembled and reassembled into new compositions with a great number of new visual decisions.

Everyone can join in this act of co-authorship and play – students, faculty and guests of the University.

The main characteristic of our dynamic time includes change, diversity, and the participation of everyone in the challenges and exceptional pleasure of the act of creation. Man is, in addition to everything else, a “homo ludens” (playing man).