Marlow Moss and the Resonance of Spinoza: Towards a Pure Plastic Consciousness
By Rafael Montilla
The spiritual convictions of abstract artist Marlow Moss are often a subject of nuanced interpretation. This analysis proposes that Moss, rather than being an atheist, identified more accurately as anti-clerical. This vital distinction highlights her rejection of established religious institutions while affirming a belief in a pervasive, universal truth immanent in the universe. Such a worldview finds a remarkable parallel in the pantheistic philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, particularly his ideas of an all-encompassing divine nature, suggesting that reason and understanding, not faith, illuminate our connection to this underlying reality. This resonance sets the stage for a deeper understanding of Moss’s artistic aims, particularly her quest for a “pure plastic consciousness.”
The passage you quote from Marlow Moss resonates strikingly with Spinozist metaphysics, particularly his ideas on substance, attributes, and modes, and the relationship between the visible (finite, mutable forms) and the invisible (infinite, immutable substance).
Here’s how it aligns:
- Spinoza’s concept of substance is that there is only one substance—God or Nature (Deus sive Natura)—which is infinite, eternal, and the cause of all things. Everything else is a mode, or a finite expression of that substance.
- Moss’s reflection that natural forms contain both a changeable visible element and an unchanging universal truth echoes Spinoza’s view that finite things are expressions of an infinite substance—their essence tied to the eternal.
“Their true value is therefore not found in their visible form but in the relation that exists between this form and the universe…”
This mirrors Spinoza’s belief that true understanding comes from seeing things sub specie aeternitatis—“under the aspect of eternity.”
Moss’s aim “to construct pure plastic art that will be able to express in totality the artist’s consciousness of the universe” also mirrors Spinoza’s ethical project: the development of adequate ideas that lead us to a more complete understanding of the universe—and thus, of ourselves.
Conclusion:
Marlow Moss and the Resonance of Spinoza: Towards a Pure Plastic Consciousness
In 1932, Marlow Moss wrote:
“Natural forms contain, in effect, an element of an unchanging and universal truth… Their true value is therefore not found in their visible form but in the relation that exists between this form and the universe… [I aim] to construct pure plastic art that will be able to express in totality the artist’s consciousness of the universe.”
This declaration points beyond aesthetic formalism and into the realm of philosophical inquiry, echoing the metaphysical architecture of Baruch Spinoza. In Ethics, Spinoza proposes that all things are expressions (modes) of one infinite substance: God or Nature. The visible and mutable, then, are not ends in themselves, but traces of an underlying, immutable truth.
Moss’s distinction between “changeable” and “unchangeable” elements mirrors this worldview. Her move toward pure plastic art is not just a break from figuration—it’s a quest to express the artist’s conscious relationship to the universe. This is less about form as object, and more about form as philosophical relation.
While her visual language often recalls Constructivism—its precision, discipline, and structural clarity—Moss departs from purely material or utilitarian concerns. Instead, her abstraction becomes a metaphysical investigation, a pursuit of harmony between the seen and the unseen, the finite and the infinite.
