Art and Spirituality

History shows us, time and time again that there have been endless areas of conscious growth through out humanity, Science, Religion, Philosophy and Art have created dialogues on subjects that society took time to comprehend. By creating these kinds of conversations we begin to build new roads of understanding. I believe that it is through these kinds of processes that mankind evolves. So I am using this blog as a way to create a contemporary dialogue about Art and Spirituality.

Plus there is also a slightly self motivated reason behind it. I am looking for  inspirational books on the subject and only found a couple that are relevant to now. So hopefully this debate will help me gather a decent book list :-)

Recently I found an article on the web at www.santansociety.com about a fascinating spiritual Indian man called, Harish Johan where he talks about Artistic inspiration.

"Since artistic inspiration is the base of every work of art, the ideal form of art is the direct transmission of the artists enlightenment into the mind of the spectator. Two fields of art & spirituality merge to enable the artist to function as both (artist/practitioner) and a philosopher, with spirituality infusing the artistic creation. For an artist to achieve these goals during the creation of his work, (some viewers) of the piece should experience some of the passion, inspiration and spirituality felt by the artist during the creation of the piece."


Where I have placed brackets around the quote is where I tweaked it slightly.

"The whole concept of spirituality is a gift from the artists of the world to the world. If writers had not written there would be no scriptures. If sculptors had not sculpted their would be no Gods found in the temples. If painters had not painted their would be no visuals to meditate on.

The reality is that saints were real artists. From their awareness they contemplated, concentrated, meditated and came out with symbols which were immediately accepted  and adopted."


" Now in modern times, the artist gives an expression of how society has gone away from the wholeness. Artists are true representatives of their time. They keep the pulse of their time in their hands. By feeling the pulse the artist knows what is happening in the world, with this special faculty which is intuition and imagination he projects ideas and thoughts into the future and new symbols come out. The artist tries to show the people where they are at. Society is directly related to the artist."


I rate his concepts, especially his view on modern art. Could this be the reason, why we hear so many of of the general public say that they feel cheated or disenfranchised from the art they see around them? Does our Art act as a subconscious mirror? Which makes some people feel uncomfortable when they see what is reflected back at them. If you do not understand a piece of art work its dose not necessarily mean thats its crap, it just may mean that its not your perspective on life. In some ways it feels like we have reclaimed some tribal aspects and each tribe uses a different way of expressing themselves. Personally I do not mind this as I am a fan of self expression and remain optimistic. I feel even within our fractured modern day society we have evolved and learnt to respect the views of others and through this we remain perhaps spiritually connected. I would love to hear your views!

If you are interested in viewing my work visit:  www.artistscabin.co.uk