Ivan Agueli - tradition and modernity

It is a little-known irony that one of the early instigators of what has become known as the 'Traditionalist' school of religious philosophy - a school of thought given some exposure on these pages - was also a pioneer of modern art. We refer to John Gustaf Agelii, or Ivan Agueli, who also became known, after his conversion to the Soofi mode of Mahometanism, as Shaykh Abdoo al-Hardy Aqeli. Born in Sweden in 1869, he was instrumental in the creation of 'Traditionalism' by way of introducing the French metaphysician Rene Guenon to Mahometan esotericism. Indeed, he initiated Monsieur Guenon into a particular North African Soofi Brotherhood and at the same time introduced him to the thought of the "Shaykh Al-Akbar" (Greatest Shaykh) Ibn Arabi, the real fountainhead of most 'traditionalist' thought. This was a formative, if not providential, event in Guenon's life. Subsequently, Soofism, especially in the form of Ibn Arabi's metaphysics, shaped the tenor and substance of Guenonian Traditionalism, a school of anti-modernist thought that has been, and continues to be, quietly influential in unexpected intellectual circles.


Yet, this same Swede (who we see in his Mahometan guise in the photograph below - that's him on the hind left) was also a pioneer of impressionist painting, the school of European art that first made a decisive break from the conventions and concerns of so-called Academic painting. The history of modern art more or less starts there. The impressionists - especially in France - led a revolt against the painters of the Academic establishment, and in a succession of rapid revolutions modernism was born. It is an intriguing irony. No one could be more comprehensively anti-modern than Guenon, and yet his teacher, Agueli, was at the forefront of the modernist revolt in that most characteristic of European art forms, oil painting. He is best known for this role in his native Sweden. To Swedes it comes as a surprise to find that he was instrumental in the rise of the traditionalist 'revolt against the modern world' as a recent book characterized it. For our purposes here at OUT OF PHASE both of these interests come under the banner of 'orientalism'. 'Traditionalism' and - surprisingly - modern art, both have roots in the Western encounter with the East. This is plainly the case in the life and work of Ivan Agueli. The conjunction is not nearly as ironic as it might appear.

Regarding his Soofi activities, he was instrumental, it seems, in the creation of a secret society that operated in Paris prior to the first World War. Due to its secretive character not much is known of it, but its members were called the Al Akbariyya (after the Shiekh al-akbar, i.e. Ibn Arabi) - or at least this is so according to a letter Agueli wrote in 1911, posted to an unknown address in Cairo, announcing its foundation. Agueli had been based in Paris and moved among a French bohemian class of artists and intellectuals. People in this class would often journey to the French North African colonies and in this way, through these avenues, Mahometan influences entered French intellectualism. The Al Akbariyya absorbed teachings and practices from the Shadhilli and Malamati Soofi schools. Much more of the Northern African background of this is revealed in the quite fine book, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, written by the English scholar Martin Lings. It is here that 'Traditionalism' had its inception although Agueli's role in this is rarely acknowledged.


Regarding art, the question of what led Agueli to impressionism is an open one, although we can be sure that in his mind it was entirely consistent with his other pursuits. This is to say, that it would seem that he regarded the impressionist mode of art as an expression of the same thought, spirit and metaphysics of Ibn Arabi. The connection is lost on us today. We regard modernism, and the artistic revolt against the canons of the Academy and the traditions of European painting, as essentially decadent and part of the very thing against which Guenon and his 'Traditionalists' have railed. And yet, it would appear - in this and in other cases - that the break with tradition that characterises modernity was often the result of an attempt to return to Tradition with an upper case T. Very often this involved appropriations into Europe of oriental traditions which were deemed more authentic and profound. Consider, for instance, the irony that it was exposure to traditional Japanese art that provided the impetus for much of post-impressionism in resoundingly modern artists such as Van Gogh. The irony is that contact with oriental traditions (felt to be more authentic) led not to a renewal of Tradition (with an upper case T) in Europe but to the disintegration of the European tradition into a corrosive modernism. The dichotomy Tradition/Modernity is not by any means simple and straightforward. In many ways Traditionalism and Modernism share the same roots. Agueli is a case in point. Our interest here, anyway, is in the penetration of oriental modes into European culture and the unexpected results.


Let us remind readers of some of the tenets of impressionism and how they differed from the conventions of Academic formalism. For a start, there is an attempt to capture the impression of a moment. The painter turns to the technique known as impasto. The painting is done quickly, usually out of doors, attempting to realise the effects of natural light. Indeed, light is the quintessence of impressionist painting. The painter is above all concerned with light - the effects of light upon an object, or in a place, is more important than the object or place itself. This brings the artist into a new relationship to shadow and colour. Colours are juxtaposed rather than mixed. The colours mix, rather, in the gaze of the beholder. Usually, black is avoided. Typically, natural light effects - such as blue shadows on snow, the blue of the sky reflecting into shadows - are used without the use of glazes and the other technical devices of traditional oil painting. Moreover, the line is regarded as an imposition, a solidification. The famous dictum is: there are no lines in nature. Typically, impressionist works have soft edges where bodies merge softly into one another. There are no sharp edges, no hard lines. Impressionist paintings are typically 'fuzzy' as opposed to the clarity of academic painting. The impressionists sought a new relation to the world, especially through a new relation to light.

One wonders in a case like Agueli how much of this follows from the metaphysics - or a certain reading of the metaphysics - of Ibn Arabi, especially his metaphysics of light. Above all, in Ibn Arabi there is the doctrine that God creates the entire universe anew at every single moment of existence, and thus God is supremely immanent and the Creation is sublimely fresh. Is there something of this in what the impressionists were doing, or thought they were doing? The present writer has not investigated this much further. Impressionism is a well-researched subject, and perhaps others have probed these issues already? Perhaps, very likely, there are studies in the Swedish tongue since Agueli is a well-loved and well-documented figure in the early history of modern Swedish art?

Agueli, it is well to know, churned through a chaotic quest for authentic identity on his path to becoming Shaykh Abdoo al-Hardy. His 'Traditionalism', if we can call it that, was the culmination of a restless search characterised by rebellion. He was involved with the anarchism of Kropotkin, for example, and then with animal rights. In 1894 he was arrested and tried for "criminal association" with anarchist agitators in the famous Trial of the Thirty. It was after that that he fled to Egypt, later traveling to Ceylon and other regions of the East in self-imposed exile. Arguably, his conversion to Mohometanism was another episode in this career of rebellion. These points in his biography again underline how odd it is that he played such a decisive role in the foundation of the Guenonian 'Traditionalist' school.

Below readers can view several paintings by Monsieur Agueli, most of them landscapes painted in North Africa. The paintings themselves are competent but, frankly, unmemorable. For a time he was a student of the Symbolist painter Emile Bernard, but there is little of Monsieur Bernard's strength and potency and impact here. Agueli's painting are insipid by comparison, just as they are notably serene, quiet, uneventuful, undramatic and lacking in adventure compared to Agueli's biography. To what extent were they, though, exercises in Al Akbaryyi metaphysics?

Yours, Harper McAlpine Black