By "muck" are you talking about personal baggage, etc? I would say that certainly has to play an integral role, and it doesn't have to be the stereotype of a super introspective, personal, almost private expression. It's easier said than done, but personal issues are reflected universally as well; so reflecting them in the work can be a universal expression. If that's not what you meant, then let me know. — Noble Dust
obscuring theory dialogue I've accumulated — csalisbury
I think I just mean whatever seems to be in the way of a pure aesthetic experience. — csalisbury
I think I just mean whatever seems to be in the way of a pure aesthetic experience.
— csalisbury
So more like theory over direct experience/creativity?
- Noble Dust
These were the vision and creation of God, about God’s world on earth. All art reflected God’s vision. Morality existed in beauty, beauty was a set of aesthetics, morality was aesthetics, God set down morals for man to live by. Art had to be created in that sense because it could be nothing else, it could have no purpose.
But without the supportive structure, what will fill that void, the arts institutions? Without it the arts will fragment and vernacularise.It was a totally free act and it was all man’s. Now he could create whatever he could imagine. This is a primitive act, driven by primitive impulses.
Yes it's not mysticism, as that is a precise discipline in the communion between the self and god/s. But "a higher purpose" whether there is actually a higher purpose, or not, is something which must be allowed within art. As Noble Dust says, if spirituality in art is not respected, it implies that where an artist allows some kind of spirituality in art, they are wrong, mistaken, or harking back to a rejected paradigm.Mysticism is part of it in the fact that it’s a primitive action. But I would not call it mysticism. I think that confuses things, as if art has a higher purpose
If you know where you're going, though, you can just punch it into the gps, and get the route sketched out. — csalisbury
I think my wording was a bit clumsy there. I think my analogy of the science fiction writer illustrates it,
I don’t understand this.
If one is of the opinion or conviction there there is a divine art up there, then the artist is attempting to depict this through some kind of artistic vision.And what does this make the artist?
Alternatively if one is of the opinion or conviction that there is no divine art up there, then the artist is simply including some spiritual, or divine content in their art, which they have been inspired to do from something they have seen in the human world, in which religious motifs can be found. — Punshhh
Well I think it boils down to the idea that humanity's purpose in life is to become a follower in the divine plan via the Christ. A situation where there is a divine art, of which human art is a pale derivative. — Punshhh
No, I'm saying that the artist is free to choose a spiritual motif, as with any motif. And if an artist chooses a spiritual motif, that is not necessarily evidence that they are religious, or of the opinion that there is a divine art up there. They might just like the religious imagery.Your post seems to suggest that artists are trying to include some sort of spiritual aspect to their work, regardless of what they believe. That all work contains the divine.
I am the same, although I reserve judgement on whether the history of art implicitly demonstrates this.To be clear, this isn't what I'm saying by "higher purpose". I don't have any answers as to what the higher purpose is, I just am of the conviction that there is one, and that the history of art, as it coincides with history at large, demonstrates this.
I feel as an artist that I am reaching, an artist reaches for that next work which takes him/her further along the road to improvement. I am reaching now for my next work, to decide what subject will act as a good subject for me to achieve this step forward, for three weeks I have been struggling. If I didn't want to reach like this, there would be a myriad of subjects I could start right now. But that would not be the progress I want. I am ruminating, there is a subject I keep hovering around, but it will require a lot of dedication to pull it off and it might not work. It's a bit like spinning plates on poles.Usually my stamina is lower, so I can't work as long, but it's the same creative urge. So, that process of the creative emanation exists in and of itself, but it's best served when you are disciplined in the work
I think what seems like a period of incubation, in terms of art movements, is perhaps an art movement of individualization, as opposed to a group of artists purposely exploring someone else's ideas.
Perhaps artists are sick of being controlled by those who are not artists but have the money to say what is currently art.
(4). It's probably the case that art has always been torn between these two impulses, commercial and aesthetic. Maybe not always commodification, per se - but certainly producing art for social purposes has been there for a long time, probably since the beginning.
The problem, and why it's so easily dismissed, is there's not really a formal or logical argument to make in favor of the connection between spirituality and art. It's experiential, and not theoretical. And maybe that means the concept really doesn't have a place on the forum, but then the question arises of the whole meta-concept of a "philosophy of art". Can it only be done theoretically? If so, does that meta-concept preclude the very possibility of art having a higher purpose? If so, who's wrong: the theoretical philosopher of art, or the artist making the assertion of art's higher purpose? Again, the problem is that, when you begin theoretically, there's not even a question of the artist being wrong; he is. But that doesn't mean he's in fact wrong. If we're going to do philosophy about art, we have to use art's tools: the intuition, the imagination, the connection to the spiritual. Otherwise it's meaningless, or at best, severely handicapped.
I think what he means is that, for example, if you are a philosopher, or a writer of theory, you end up with a whole lot of internal dialogues going round in your head, or positions, opinions, arguments. So when you want to get creative you have to muscle your way past them to find a quiet place in which to explore a creative process.
For a painter, for example, this not usually an issue, as your mind might be quite clear. But it comes from different places in the subconscious instead. For me it is easy to become immersed in a creative process with a pallet knife and some paint, but somewhere along the process, something happens subconsciously which distracts me, leads me down a creative dead end, I get hung up on a technical difficulty in something I wanted to follow, I find myself trying to copy something I saw another artist doing. So I have to stop, contemplate all these things, identify them, use them in a constructive way, or throw them out. Sometimes they are persistent like ear worms.
You might find that in order to simply be creative you have to resolve to just go with it whatever happens, ignore anything which comes into your head. Decide not to want anyone to see it, who might have a critical eye. — Punshhh
So more like theory over direct experience/creativity? Are you talking about the creative process as an artist, or as the experience as an audience member? — Noble Dust
For me (drawing/poetry/short stories) I'm wildly blocked up creatively, and I'm lucky if I can go a minute without getting distracted, and trapped in thought. Sometimes, it's theory/philosophy stuff which pulls me out of it; more often, I imagine this person or that person and I either criticize myself through their eyes, or, in this weird mechanical way, I start to try to mold whatever I'm doing to something I think they (or my mental construct of who they are) would approve of. It's pretty hard to shake.
There's probably a neat conceptual paradox that's something like : the universal experience is always the failure to reach the universal. — csalisbury
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