Art As A Spiritual Quest.

[zerostao]

[zerostao]

while i am mono-logging on about bernini,,,he did this one 30 years prior to the ecstasy of st theresea

 

[ralis]

Bernini conveyed a feeling to his work that leaves me speechless!

[suninmyeyes]

“Technically, every work of art comes into being in the same way as the cosmos – by means of catastrophes, which ultimately create out of the cacophony of the various instruments that symphony we call the music of the spheres. The creation of the work of art is the creation of the world.”

Wassily Kandinsky.

 

Edited November 20, 2013 by suninmyeyes

[zerostao]

 

(Six Persimmons is) passion... congealed into a stupendous calm.

— Arthur Waley, ^[2

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Persimmons

[9th]

 

[zerostao]

https://www.google.com/search?q=verity+hirst+ilfracombe&espv=2&biw=1242&bih=606&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Dy4TVNyHHY-ayATz3IHYCg&ved=0CCUQsAQ

 

[suninmyeyes]

 

“The Square” is a metaphysical photographic series developed by Seoul-based Korean photographer Seokmin Ko. The artist portrays an existential approach of being one with you and your surroundings, addressing ideas of normalcy and identity.

http://www.emptykingdom.com/photography/the-square-by-seokmin-ko/

Edited September 12, 2014 by suninmyeyes

[zerostao]

Edited October 25, 2014 by zerostao

[zerostao]

lol on the posting it wouldnt allow me space to post commentary. so excuse the extra post.

raphael's School of Athens

1: Zeno of Citium 2: Epicurus Possibly, the image of two philosophers, who were typically shown in pairs during the Renaissance: Heraclitus, the "weeping" philosopher, andDemocritus, the "laughing" philosopher. 3: unknown (believed to be Raphael)^[14] 4: Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles? 5: Averroes 6: Pythagoras 7: Alcibiades orAlexander the Great? 8: Antisthenes or Xenophon or Timon? 9: Raphael,^[14][15][16]Fornarina as a personification of Love^[17] or Francesco Maria della Rovere? 10: Aeschines orXenophon? 11: Parmenides? (Leonardo da Vinci) 12: Socrates 13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo) 14: Plato (Leonardo da Vinci) 15: Aristotle (Giuliano da Sangallo) 16: Diogenes of Sinope 17: Plotinus (Donatello?) 18: Euclid or Archimedes with students (Bramante?) 19: Strabo or Zoroaster? (Baldassare Castiglione) 20: Ptolemy? R: Apelles (Raphael) 21: Protogenes (Il Sodoma, Perugino, or Timoteo Viti)^[18]

i like 13 it is heracltus/michelangelo sitting apart from the rest

 

[Nungali]

I like the modern trend of presenting them together ... in a good way ( not the 'usual' music/video) that is.

 

like @ 7.55 here

 

[zerostao]

http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm

 

i do hold to the delusional thought that i am a reincarnated dadaist, no clue as to which one.

i resonate with them all.

 

[MooNiNite]

Art is definitely a path of spiritual progression. It is a state of concentration.

[Stosh]

Whats on the leg of the angel type, by Euclid? and how is the wind blowing the hair of the one by Plotinus? And is it suggested that michelangeo is looking at his modified knee , actually considering how the philosophy compares to his reclining wife. ..(other knee)

Edited October 25, 2015 by Stosh

[zerostao]

http://www.albrecht-durer.org/

 

[zerostao]

[RigdzinTrinley]

Interesting thread

 

I must say, there´s a degree of romanticism about art these days. We turn to art when the modern life turns out to be too much of an ordeal.

 

What isn´t always mentioned in aesthetics is the fact that most contemporary art is pretty much a mind game, a reference-indiced competition onto which all artists have a degree of a pissing contest. Even the avant-garde painting movement is so reference-laden, that it´s actually not really about painting at all. Its about discussing painting; the whole thing is very conceptual and top-heavy.

 

Pretty much all conteporary art is a self-referencing tour de force. Its not really that interesting, and if it is it´s always discussing the end of art. 

 

That said, after I defended modernist and post-modernist art in a discussion with my teacher (who pretty much rejected the whole notion of contemporary art as degenerated), I took a trip to the Louvre. There, I came across a fresco of Botticelli.

 

I turned a corner and there it was. Hanging on the wall. Immediately, before I was able to think, I felt tears running down my face. Therer was a sense of energy, a feeling of transmission, that emanated from the image. It took me completely over, and it was an energy of love. It was a transmission. It was startling to sense that this painter had created this image out of love. I felt it from the image itself. 

 

I dont really know what I wanted to say with this post.

 

h

Had the exact same experience with Botticelli in Florence

[dust]

There is so much beautiful art out there nowadays, old and new, I sometimes get a bit teary.

 

With much of it now done with so much more advanced tools than artists used to have (copying from photos, photomanipulation, digital painting, more accurate traditional tools, etc), art now has the potential to be more colourful and realistic than it used to be, and some see this as a great thing. I don't know.. Zorn's paint sketches, Da Vinci's pencil sketches, the drawings at Lascaux... we can keep going back, as far back as the beginning of art, encountering the most primitive tools, and it all has the potential to be hauntingly beautiful. Today's realism and colour can be wonderful, but no more so than any other.

 

This is not to say, though, that there are not great artists out there right now. Ignore 'modern art' for a moment, forget that artists in centuries past had more primitive technology and perhaps less technical knowledge, and look at what is being done now on its own merit. One only need browse deviantArt for a few minutes to discover a plethora of wonderful stuff in all kinds of mediums.

 

That's not to mention the new kinds of art we now have. Really, 'modern art' in my mind is cinema, television, comicbooks, modern music (jazz, rock, hip-hop), even video games. The kind of thing that only exists in modernity. Some of the greatest artistic minds of our time are (often unheard of) directors, screenwriters, cinematographers. When it all comes together in a stunning and emotive moving picture, who can say that it's not great art, and potentially an enormous spiritual journey for many involved? And the likes of Frank Frazetta, Jean Giraud (Moebius), Frank Miller, Jim Lee (well, he had a major influence on me as a kid)... they've created some of the most impressive visual narratives of all time, and their influence has again been enormous. Though perhaps less 'spiritual' than some.

 

I created a thread a while back for Victorian era painting. I think this is my favourite era of painting, the Victorian Academic painters especially (though I also love some Impressionism). Most people have no clue quite how much we owe to these guys, as so much cinema, painting, comicbook art, has taken cues from their style and content. An accessible blog on the subject here, with an excellent post about modern art vs Victorian art here.

 

 

The disillusionment with the European political structure brought on by the madness of WWI created a sense among intellectuals that all aspects of the 19th century world had been invalidated at a stroke.  Modernism in the arts arose as a response to this, attended by great glamor and energy.  It was primarily reactionary — the new forms it embraced rarely had value in themselves . . . their juice derived from the simple fact that they were not Victorian, were anti-Victorian.

 

Most of what had made art valuable as a cultural force — as an example of virtuosity, of discipline, of social community, of faith — was simply jettisoned.  In their place was substituted “attitude”, the attitude of rebellion.  The fine arts of the 20th Century instantly became irrelevant to the popular mind, finding a home in the esteem of an increasingly hermetic elite, dependent on institutional support for their survival.

The irony of this was little appreciated.  The academic art of the 19th Century, against which the modernists rebelled, had depended on official endorsement, but also on the approval of a wide and diverse public.  The “anti-academic” art of the new, permanent “avant-garde” had no life at all apart from the patronage of museums, institutes of “higher learning” and a gallery establishment catering to the very wealthy.

 

The old functions of art continued to be performed in areas outside the control of these elites, in the arts of film and popular music, for example — which is why film and popular music became the most exciting and dynamic art forms of the 20th century, even as what were formerly seen as “the fine arts” went on enacting their increasingly tiresome rituals of negation, carried to absurd extremes. Painting, we would eventually be told, was about nothing but paint.

 

The establishment which once endorsed Victorian academic art, and by extension all traditional art, had become repulsive in the 20th Century. Those who sought to replace this art with “modern forms” became romantic. These labels acted as blinders, almost as blindfolds, until it became impossible to see that the reactionary gestures of the modernists had little content beyond the gestural, while those who toiled away in discredited or unsanctioned forms (like Louis Armstrong) were creating the truly great, valuable and enduring art of their time.

 

Yes, Louis Armstrong, figurehead of a wildly misunderstood and under-appreciated (by most, now) form of music...

Edited February 7, 2016 by dustybeijing

[dust]

As someone who likes to think of himself as an artist, too, all this fascinates me and seems quite obviously intensely spiritual. With all the talent in the world, there is no way to get to these levels of skill without insane amounts of hard work and a lot of soul-searching.

 

My favourite discovery of recent months is Istvan Sandorfi. He merged art and spirit wonderfully. I'd love to see one of his paintings up close.

 

 

 

 

[steve]

Several months ago I participated in an online workshop called Awakening the Sacred Arts.

It was a wonderful experience that utilized dzogchen meditation methods to unlock creative potential.

Each participant was encouraged to work on a project in any artistic discipline.

It was wonderful to see, read, and hear some of the projects and even more surprising to see what came out of me!

The same workshop will be offered again this summer if anyone is interested.

[dust]

From deviantArt

 

digital painting by Wangjie Li

 

 

 

 

digital painting by Cynthia Sheppard

 

 

 

 

 

calligraphy by shoair

 

 

 

 

acrylic by amytea

(they have loads of wonderful abstract paintings)

 

 

 

oil by Ruo Li

[dust]

one of many stunning mandala by OrgeSTC

 

 

 

 

oil by Robert Hagan

 

 

 

 

pyrography by Katrin Gareis

 

 

 

 

digital painting by RHADS

[zerostao]

http://www.earthables.com/picasso-self-portraits-1605746241.html

[dust]

http://www.earthables.com/picasso-self-portraits-1605746241.html

 

Interesting. Not seen a Picasso timeline before.

 

http://mesosyn.com/pp-early.html

He was painting with incredible skill, understanding of form, light, colour, etc, when he was only 14-15 years old.

 

This is me the art snob talking, so take with a pinch of salt: At this early stage, with this level of talent, he had every right to experiment and go anywhere he chose with his art. The same cannot be said of many 'modern' artists. Some people should actually learn how to draw/paint before they come out with some visual gibberish and people start exalting them as the next Picasso.

[zerostao]

pardon that i post this in triplicate 

but i like it