Staying alive: Transcendence and immanence in contemporary painting

This article is initiated by the writer’s response to a criticism from an editor that they ‘cleave to the transcendent in art’, and also inspired by the discovery of James McMullan’s 1970s illustrations for a New York magazine, which formed the aesthetic and narrative basis for the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ movie. These two, seemingly unconnected factors, come together to conjure and weave a discussion of the relative qualities and values of immanence and transcendence. It uses examples drawn from art and with particular reference to a range of painters with greatly differing styles, and from different eras, but compared and consoidered here as con-temporary (sharing the time of the article and its writing).