Spirituality & Art
Spirituality and mysticism are re-emerging as a transformative, prevailing trend in Western contemporary society, becoming deeply embedded in an increasingly post-religious modern culture. Creativity has served as a transcendental spiritual act throughout the ages. Ancient cave paintings and African masks depict shamanic visions; Egyptian sphinxes and Indian deities reveal mythological polytheistic worship; medieval abbess and composer Hildegard von Bingen was a Christian mystic; 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch depicted surreal visions of ethereal heaven and demonic hellscape; Michelangelo spoke of art as a shadow of divine sublimity. In the realm of philosophy, Carl Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’ portrayed the archetypes and universal truths encompassing the human spirit, while Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant explored the ‘Sublime’ as a form of secular transcendence.
Contemporary spiritual art can be defined as art that transcends the third-dimension physical world and the egoic ‘I’, expressing cosmic planes of existence, polytheistic divinity, mysticism, sublimity, transfiguration, and the evolution of human consciousness. This paper will explore the elements of spiritual art as seen through three cultural milieus: the influence of Buddhism, indigenous art and visionary art. Buddhism, Hinduism and shamanistic practices pollinate modern Western culture through increased media and Internet exposure, creating a hybrid spirituality that transmutes traditional monotheistic religion into boundless universalism. Indigenous art celebrates a reverence for the natural world, teaching the interconnectedness of all living beings and the necessity of honoring and preserving the environment, while visionary and psychedelic art explores the outer reaches of the human psyche.
Spiritual artists are by nature activists and advocates, seeking political, social, and environmental justice, and the healing of our beautiful planet earth. Humanity is confronting the existential crisis of irreparable climate change, resource depletion and the reality of entering the Holocene epoch, the sixth extinction era. Spiritual art confronts these important issues while allowing the human spirit to transmute the anthropological condition beyond ordinary reality. Through many different mediums, art divined with a transcendent purpose speaks a higher truth that is perceived by the cognizant viewer. By expanding into the metaphysical realm of the sublime and evolving viewers into a higher state of soulful awareness, spiritual art can be the catalyst humanity needs to empower us to resurrect our dying world.
WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
Spirituality, the search for meaning, cosmic truth and beauty beyond the material realm, is an asomatous concept deeply intertwined throughout the development of human civilization. Ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mayan and Greek were polytheistic, worshiping various gods and the elements of nature in a search for divine meaning. Though organized religions embrace spirituality, the didactic nature of organized religion is not essential for a transcendent experience. The 21st century has brought increased skepticism of traditional religious institutions and structures; while belief in religion is declining in the West, the search for spiritual meaning and ideals of universal consciousness and personal transformation are on the rise (Masci and Lipka 2016).
Mystics and philosophers throughout the ages have sought the ideals of a universal spiritual truth. 13th century Sufi poet Jalâluudîn Rumi, revered for his ability to forge “a bridge between cultures” (Barks 2004, xvii), merged all faiths under the umbrella of a divine oneness radiating love. Interestingly, Rumi is considered one of the most popular poets of the modern age, as his transcendent words conveying love as the universal truth have proven timeless throughout the ages. In his beautiful interfaith poem “One Breath,” Rumi proclaims:
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.”
English philosopher Aldous Huxley explored concepts of universalism, mysticism, and one unifying ultimate truth in his book The Perennial Philosophy (1945), where he proclaimed, “one Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities (Goodreads, n.d.). 20th century Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti believed that nationalism and religious doctrine led to violence and destruction, while the Dalai Lama XIV, in his eloquent book Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World declared: “It is vital for us to find genuinely sustainable and universal approach to ethics, inner values, and personal integrity–an approach that can transcend religious, cultural, and racial differences and appeal to people at a sustainable, universal approach” (Goodreads, n.d.).
Spirituality seeks to encounter the Sublime, a metaphysical quality of divine greatness that extends beyond the ordinary, material world. The ideal of love as transcendental path towards enlightenment has been declared by prophets throughout the ages, from Jesus and Buddha to Bob Marley. Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl wrote of his experience in the seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning: “I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth–that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire . . . the salvation of man is through love and in love” (Frankl 2006, 37). While dogmatic scriptures divide society, the inclusiveness of contemporary spiritual consciousness strives to unify and elevate mankind and the natural world in multiculturalism, universalism and love, evolving beyond ideological dualistic thinking of good and evil, body and soul, right and wrong. Visionary artist Alex Grey examines the difference between religion and spirituality:
Religion is based on faith in a traditional dogma, whereas spirituality is based on transpersonal experience. Religion offers the external authority and security of a belief system, the guidance of a code of moral conduct, and a community of like-minded believers. Spirituality is a subjective, internal experience of the sacred, an opening to the ultimate reality that positively affects the heart and mind of an individual. The spiritual does not depend on any specific religious setting, yet it obviously may be found in individuals within every religion. (Grey 1998, 64).
Art, as the conscious, communicative creation of the human spirit, has the power to elevate humanity to a spiritual dimension (Fanning 2018, 37), engender a culture of pluralism and diversity (Giordan and Pace 2012, 3), redefine our collective identity, and heal our troubled world.
Composed as part of a graduate academic paper at the University of Denver in June 2019.
