Theos-Talk Archives (January 1998 Message tl00135)

>Keith wrote
>
>I appreciate Mark K's comments on art, maybe because he IS an artist, which
>I am not. I feel that art is definitely a way to access emotional,
>psychological, and spiritual realms in the way the spoken word can never
>do. Exalted (or debased) states of consciousness can be evoked in the
>viewer. The art of the ancients was practically ALL art of a spiritual
>nature starting with the cave painting and sculptures of our most distant
>ancestors.
Thanks Keith. I agree with you that visual art can tap into things that
words can't touch, at least not in the same way. As far as ancient art
goes, depending on what art you are refering to, I would agree that a
lot of it was indeed intended to serve fetishistic, totemistic,
ritualistic or magical aims. I don't know if I'd go as far in
characterizing the majority of it as "spiritual" in the way you seem
willing to do, but a lot of it certainly was. Art historians don't
really know the intentions of the cave painters. Their scholarship is
empirical, but their conclusions about the use and intent of the cave
art is admittedly speculative. They confess that they will probably
never know for certain the painter's attitude towards the work from
physical evidence alone, but offer their theories in relation to
assumptions about other documented historical and currently existing
hunting cultures. It is a fascinating study. The work has great power
and beauty. It stirs deep wells within us that no art created for
contemporary museums .

Keith:

Dear Mark:  I wrote an essay, considered unworthy on the national level, but
I gave a workshop on it here in Texas concerning the fact that all art is
spiritual.  In the trivial sense all art is spiritual because Everything is
grounded in spirit and not in matter.  I think we could agree quickly on
this, that is art is not paint or music on paper, but the total experience
of the communication of the artist with the viewer/listener.

The question is not if it IS spiritual, but spiritual on what leve and to
what motive and effect.  Breifly pornography is spirutal in a NEGATIVE sense
of bringing the total person down to the level of physical OBJECT.  Erotic
art can be of high spirutality, as it is in the East in the temple of ANGOR
WAT for example, wouldn't you say?

Spirituality can only be conveyed in a "psycic-spiritual" way ( I know you
are going to ask for a defintiion, but I think you know this can't be
defined, usually called THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE).  But art can open the
laya center, the Jacob's ladder, the Golden Stairs in a way that
abstractions and words can only shadow.

Of interest to me now is the notion of the SHEKINAH, as the divine feminine
receptical of divine wisdom and love chained in matter until the redemption
of the unifications of worlds.  The Mona Lisa is an example in fine art,
logos such as TOMMY HILFIGER are debased hypnotic forms that hook are
unconsciousness into loving blue jeans and caps, don't ya know?

Namaste
Keith Price