Art as a Manifestation of the Spirit
The Creativity of Man
What can be more satisfying to a human being than to be in an environment where one can freely create? Bardejev writes that genuine human freedom encourages creative expression. None the less, some theologians argue that the power to create lies with God alone. Bardejev's response to this objection is, "Why, then, is it that God created man in his own image?" Obviously, there is a difference between the creativity of God and the creativity of man. However, God's granting us an understanding of the process of creation would lend itself to the argument that God intended for us to participate or collaborate in the divine act of creation.
The experience of everyday life lends itself to this argument. Every single day we carry out twofold activity. By observation and experience we encounter the world of our daily life and try to arrange our discoveries into an understandable whole. However, along with this process, we are constantly drawn to create, to fashion that which was not here before, what no one else has seen before, what no one else has yet discovered. We see this creative process in the artist, in the politician, in the craftsman and also in the culinary wonders of the chef. We apply creativity to our work and to our daily problem-solving. We also find in it a basis for criticizing others whom we find lacking in creativity, or worse, who fail to see brilliance in our creativity.
We can see this at work in the arts. Briefly, but with great insight, Semjon Ludovigovich Frank (1877-1950) explored the working process of the artist as a collaboration with the divine. Frank was born in Moscow, studied law and economics and as a young man became a member of a Marxist party. Shortly after the revolution, he left the party and was exiled. He went on to teach philosophy in Berlin and in France. After the second war, he taught in England, where he died in the year 1950. He adapted Bardejev's notion of creative freedom and applied it to artistic creativity in his essay "Reality and Man". Also, he dealt with this topic in his book Metaphysics of the Human Being, wherein he discusses the meaning of religious thought.
Inspiration — The Beginning of Artistic Creativity
How do we define art? A starting point may be to agree it is a visible expression of that which inspires the artist. (The verb "to express" is not unambiguous.) The French word expression originally referred to a material reality: something engraved into wax. Thus, in an analogical sense, it means to make visible something (invisible) from within. In a sense, artistic expression can be viewed as a bringing to life of an idea or inspiration held by the artist and expressed in a physical way, whether through painting or sculpture or some other artistic format. At a certain level it is a kind of incarnation. A given piece of art will be more or less expressive according to the skill of the artist.
What is it that an artist expresses? It is often said that an artist expresses him or herself. This is a misleading trivialization of the artistic process; artists themselves deny such a claim, not to mention talk of "loosing themselves" in the act of creating art. They speak of the need to express "something" beyond themselves, to bring form to inspiration from outside themselves. They speak of inspiration as something higher than themselves, something supernatural. Some artists will speak of a muse inspiring them, in this in-spiration the artist feels as if someone is breathing something into them. "It is commonly accepted that a creative process starts with inspiration. It is not sought for but it is born: an almost super-human voice suggests the inspiration, it is an alien force (not my thought) which forces an artist to accept the inspiration, cherish it, caress it, cultivate it and express it". Nevertheless, the inspiration itself has no form but it is the task of the artist to give it form. In this way, art is born, a collaboration of the super-human and the human. A transcendent voice receiving a human manifestation.
Personal Attitude of an Artist
What does an artist do in a moment of inspiration? An artist feels that he has received a command which he cannot disobey. One therefore leaves any other activities and obeys, though this stage is quite painful. An artist is internally divided. He listens to a voice, which is not his own, and at the same time he is becoming one with this voice and offers it his cooperation. "No matter how you look at it, both a personal effort to act and at the same time simply listening to the voice, which is communicating itself to him, are joined in unbreakable union. It means that human creativity presumes union of two things: on the one hand autonomous freedom of an artist and on the other hand, being grounded in something, which is transcendent and spiritual, which is higher than man and on which one is completely dependent."
The unification of these two tendencies is not psychologically painless. An artist suffers. He doubts: isn't it perhaps better to leave everything alone, leave the idea of creating something? Many artists have shared that it is not possible to abandon the idea. They feel that the inspiration has literally possessed them. Consequently, psychic struggle becomes a moral question. No human act is earnestly good if it is not completely free. This means that a strong inspiration takes away human freedom and enslaves one to something alien which has entered one's soul. Many people criticize artists who "lose" themselves completely into their work, especially, if they do not gain any advantages and obtain only misunderstanding: "He is crazy! He lost it. No one can talk to him."
Moral Problem of Obedience
How do we view this moral problem? Let us start with the analysis of the word "obedience". It has the same root as the word listen, similar to Latin oboedire or Greek hypakoé. Someone else, other then we, is speaking. If I make a choice that I will do what he says, I am giving up my will and I do the will of someone else. In a sense I am no longer free. Is it this way all the time? The Fathers of the Church considered this problem when they tried to explain the mystery of the Scripture. It is written by human beings and at the same time it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. How does it work? The Fathers searched for suitable comparison in their non-Christian world. They knew about famous sibyls and the permanent oracles in Delphi, where Phythie prophesied through the inspiration of the deity Apollo. What state of mind was she? She was completely unconscious, she was in ecstasy and she did not understand what she was howling. Special priests had to be present and explain what she was communicating. Thus, we cannot compare her with Old Testament prophets.
We believe that in the Scripture the Holy Spirit speaks through the inspired authors, that the voice of God is present. Christians see the contact with God in a different light then their pagan counterparts. In the pagan religion the closeness of gods diminished the freedom of human beings. Radical closeness with god causes nirvana, loss of human personality. The Christian Fathers believed the contrary: the closer one unites himself with God, the better a human one becomes, as we see it in the example of Christ himself.
When the Holy Spirit inspires a prophet, the divine does not diminish the prophet's perception, but rather illuminates it. In the same way, divine inspiration does not take away human freedom, but enhance it. Inspired authors of the Scripture thus understood what they have said and what they have written. They acted in the full freedom of the children of God. In a different level this applies to all Christians, whom the Holy Spirit inspires to pray and to act charitably. The Christian Greek Fathers justified it theologically by using a concept of trichonomy. According to the definition of Irenaeus of Lyons, a spiritual man is composed of three parts: a body, a soul and the Holy Spirit. Albeit the Holy Spirit comes from God, He is not a stranger to us, He belongs to us, and He is part of our identity.
From this assumption, Frank infers the basic position of an artist towards artistic activity. Artists act out of inspiration, listen to a voice of suggestion. What is that voice? Either, the voice comes from God, and then the artist and his work grows in perfection, and morally liberates him, because it becomes a voice of his heart, or it is an alien voice which does not come from God. In that case we are dealing with some form of demonic possession. Therefore, every genuine art is in its essence spiritual and Christian, even though the artist himself is not necessarily aware of this fact. If an artist is a genuine artist, he is an anonymous Christian, a witness of spiritual truth and value. False art, on the other hand, is a type of demonic possession, which tyrannizes and degrades the human being. It is an attack on human existence.
Genuine Art is Religious
Art is an important part of human life. We can apply that which Dostoyevsky said about beauty: "God and the Devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man". We cannot say that aesthetic creativity is outside of good and evil. Pondering this reality, Frank asks himself this question: Are great artists ready to accept this conclusion, which sounds so mystical and religious? It depends on whether they have accepted and learned religious language and teaching. Some present themselves as atheists. They are atheists in their mind but not in their heart. They attribute inspiration to some kind of Muse, and they do not care what she is. For them she is just a mythological and unknown picture of higher reality, which caused the inspiration. Nevertheless, she can be characterized better than that if we ponder the goal to which she is guiding humanity. She pushes an artist to create something beautiful. On what level is he creative? Every genuine artist would be offended if we ask him to create something mediocre, something imperfect. The desire of every artist is to create unspeakable beauty, something eternally uplifting. The desire for eternity, however, comes from God. If one perceives this inspiration, one hears the divine voice; no matter what one decides to call it.
Religious Life is Creative
Let us go forward to the next conclusion. If every genuine art is in its core religious, we might as well turn the syllogism around: religious evolution is in its essence creative. Frank distinguishes three levels: 1. Discovery of God; 2. Mystical experience; 3. Discovery of our own creativity. Let me explain. The first level consists in that of one becoming aware of the existence of a higher power, which in some way touches human experience. This experience becomes a mystical experience when it goes beyond human reason, beyond our understanding: the experience becomes more and more alive. The Artist then reaches a third level at which develops a desire to create. The inner experience cannot remain impotent or passive. God is act. Man, who met God, will ask himself questions: What did I do until now? What can I still do? Thus, religion, awakens creativity in every person.
Frank moves from these speculative reflections to moral conclusions, which are topical for our age at the level of education as well as work. Our school system has become more and more encyclopedical. We have reduced education to rendering information, which in itself has lost value. Blondel tried to shake this passive attitude. He shows, that in this the knowledge itself is distorted because to truly know or discover is evolucion creatice. To know something means to bring something from darkness into light, to give it existence in the true sense. In this way it is participation in the creative activity of God. Blondel, however, did not have any success. It is not easy to change a commonly accepted attitude, because in human society a machine-made attitude is preferred. It suppresses human creativity. Lack of creativity paralyzes activity of an educator in school as well as in a family. It also leads to a misconception about spiritual life. Fulfillment of divine will is understood to be a passive inactivity. It is God's will that we are to be creative, to be and live in His image.
Boundary of Human Creativity
Because we are only an image of God, we enjoy only a foretaste of divine creativity. The question is: What are the limitations of human creativity? What can we do in our desire to change the world? Artists do not like to hear about limitations. Naturally, a painter would say that he can paint whatever he desires and a writer will always demand the full freedom to express his own thoughts. They aspire to be like Nietzsche's super-man, who stands outside any limits of good and/or evil. What would we tell them?
Limitations certainly exist. Nevertheless, it is important to see that these restrictions are first of all internal, because anybody would perceive outward limitations as a form of personal degradation. Also here we need to imitate God. How is God creating? He is giving an existence at the same time he sanctifies that which he created and He guides his creation to perfection. Therefore, also man should create only that which he can sanctify. Pushkin has written, "Service to Muses cannot be related to vainglory, the beautiful must be only noble". What kind of nobility are we talking about? If the Holy Spirit inspires a genuine art then a desire for sanctification belongs to its basic necessities. An artist who would want to be outside "good and evil" actually appears outside reality and truth. This fact holds true for all of the arts: creativity demands a moral and aesthetic desire for holiness, otherwise it becomes a demonic force, a force that by its very nature is destructive to the artist.
As a consequence of the unconscious desire for holiness genuine artists are at the same time happy and unhappy with their creation. This is typical of the psychological state of Christian hope. What they create is not a supernatural beauty but it does truly possess a genuine value which points to an eschatological end. The heart of an artist is restless until it sees the whole world permeated with the Holy Spirit. It is not an accident that the final exam of icon-painters at the end of their course is to paint an icon of the Transfiguration at Mt. Tabor. It is the foreshadowing of the future, the eighth day of creation.
The Origins of an Artistic Painting According to P. Florentski
If we would like to try to summarize what we said up to now, we would say this: the vocation of an artist is to give form in our cosmos to an unspoken word of God; in a sense it is incarnation. How does this happen in a concrete way? Frank does not consider this process, however P. Florentski (1882-1937) analyzes it in his essay "Ikonostas".
First, he takes for granted that the true inspiration comes from above. He does not speak about "hearing" the voice of Muse but of "seeing". The change is easy. Already the Byzantine writer St. Symeon the New Theologian observed that even though in a spiritual world we can speak about "hearing" or "seeing", we consider these words to be symbolic, because these are not physical phenomenon. It is more natural that painters would speak about seeing. Florentski illustrates it from a life of Raphael. Raphael confided to Bramant that while he was a young man, he had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother. From the first moment he touched brush he had a burning desire to portray her in her heavenly perfection, but he was afraid to start so great a task when it would be too much for him. He was afraid that an illusion of fantasy would mislead him. He had a certain vision of Mary, but this vision was completely spiritual and it did not have any concrete form. Florentski calls this level "a stage of ascension". A soul crosses over from the realm of this world and discovers something far better and higher. It is real, but it has no real form.
All artists who are impatient then enter into the second stage. They want their vision expressed immediately. But how? No form in this life corresponds to the inspiration, which they experienced. Thus, an impatient painter starts painting unreal, fantastic forms, which were born in his mind. What is the result? It's pitiful. The inspiration was an experience from the higher reality and the painted picture becomes an illusory fantasy, useless multiplying of shapes from this world. For instance, there are some distasteful pictures of the Garden of Eden, with flowers, which have no existence on the planet, there also fly birds with unnaturally colored feathers. Such picture fails to represent either Paradise or earth. It becomes a useless game of forms without any beauty.
Florentski also thinks that some mystics fall into this error. Someone experiences an ecstasy, for example, a delight above sense, a rapture of mind. Then they desire to share this experience with others and in their speech they use terms and pictures, which are necessarily bizarre. The result is that their experience looses power and is very doubtful. Such are also the paintings of impatient painters. For instance, if initially they desired to portray a holy man, what we see in their picture is neither a saint nor a real human being.
Discovery of a Symbol
What should a genuine artist do? He must be patient and wait, even though he may suffer. What is he waiting for? He waits for an additional vision of inspiration, which comes in the third stage. It is the discovery of the symbol. Let me explain it concretely by returning to the example of Rafael. He experienced a spiritual vision, a heavenly beauty of the Blessed Mary Virgin. At the same time, he was aware that he was not able to paint it. Yet, one day he met a girl from his neighborhood. She does not resemble the beauty of Blessed Mary Virgin. She is a girl from this world. However, something interesting happened. Looking at her, Raphael recalled the heavenly vision of Mary. The human features became the symbol of the heavenly face. Raphael painted the girl, which he met on the earth. But he and the people who understand his art, having looked at this picture encounter a higher reality, which exceeds common human experience. The painting became holy, but not in its external form, but with its ability to exceed the external form, and thus to express the heavenly. The first Christians prayed facing the sunrise, yet they did not pray to the sun. They saw a picture of Christ in the rising sun. Once the symbolism disappears, the reverence to the sun becomes idolatry. We can say the same about art. If it does not elevate us to the higher spiritual reality, it ceases to be art but an expression of sensuality. Ivanov characterized this feature as: a realibus ad realiora, it leads us away from that which is real to something which is even more real. Florentski assures us that it is not an illusion. Spiritual enjoyment, which we experience, "is more objective then all earthly objectivity, it is more elemental and more realistic". Thus, the enemy of genuine art is false aesthetics: to create something enjoyable which will bring attention to the self. Imagine a church where there is beautiful singing but where no one prays. Painters of the icons fought this danger with a tactic called "fasting of eyes", that is elimination of useless forms. Generally, we believe that that the art of every artist possesses this power when the artist freely finds their own personal ability to express the spiritual world using forms from this world.
Christological side of art
Let me mention one thinker who pondered this problem theoretically and at the same time was a master of words. His name is V. Ivanov (1866-1949). He expressed in an exceptional way the Christological side of art and the whole of culture. After all, the word culture is derived from the word cult and the true cult is only in Christ. Since his childhood Ivanov was passionately interested in world cultures. Though he started with the study of literature in Moscow, two years later he moved to Berlin and from there to London, Paris and then Italy, Greece and Egypt. He mastered well the classical culture in Berlin with Mommsen. Nevertheless, in the end, his chase after the beautiful in the cultures of the world only gave him sadness. Frankly, he was astonished at how much struggle and time it cost many generations to develop the language of a culture, its national structure, its poetry, mentality, etc. He was amazed by the greatness of the cultures which were born on this earth. In spite of this, we can see an opposite effect: great cultures are annihilated, and are completely forgotten. What remains after these cultures is no more lively reality but a collection in a museum. Many tourists admire the Pyramids, many philologers study the language of the Pharaohs, but the majestic culture of Egypt is dead. How can we view it? Should we just observe the death of a national spirit and wait the moment when this death reaches also our national treasure? What can be done for the preservation of the culture, and keep it alive? In the middle of doubts Ivanov got a new idea. Among all the old majestic cultures there is only one culture which did not die but is still alive. It is the cultural tradition of the Hebrew people. The most puzzling thing is that this tradition, judging by human standards, was not one of the most developed cultures. And still, something amazing happened. Even little children of many cultural nations know or heard about the beginning of Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem. It was translated into all languages that which remained from old Jewish literature, and which is now accepted as the Holy Scriptures. The poesy of Psalms is the prayer of the Christendom. How can we explain this miracle? The answer is simple: All which was fashioned in the Old Testament time found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ and thus it entered into Christ and in Him it received eternal value.
Based on this observation, Ivanov concluded a moral conclusion. The experience of the survivor of the Jewish nation must not be the only one. Also, it shows us what we could do for the preservation of our culture: give it a meaning in Christ Jesus. It is the only way that our culture will have a value in and for the entire world. In an analogical sense, the culture becomes the liturgy into which the Word of God is incarnated, for the salvation of the whole world. Poetry and every other art resemble the priestly vocation and in its core it resembles the mystery of Mary.
Mariology — side of art
Now, allow me to offer you one of my personal memoirs. One famous Mariologist, G.M. Roschini, lived in Rome. In the year 1979 a Festschrift was published to honor him. For this occasion, I was asked to write something about the Marian devotion in the East. I was hesitant. Recently, I published a few essays on this topic and I do not like to repeat myself. However, since they pleaded I decided to do something out of the ordinary. I took the writings of Frank in which he discusses how art is shaped and then I compared his thoughts the to P. Evdovkimov's essay about Mary. It is striking how these texts correspond to each other. The reason is, the writers pursue the same approach. An artist receives the divine inspiration and allows the spirit of God to use him as a physical instrument. In the same way, the Holy Spirit descended to Mary and she surrendered herself completely to the divine will. In this way a true divine-human reality emerges, the word is born. God becomes a man — God incarnates himself in a human being.
Therefore, Christ is the peak of all arts because through his humanity a divine beauty shines: "Who sees me sees the Father" (John 14:9). The reality of Christ is the ideal of all artists and artistic creativity is the example for every human activity. I will close quoting Evdovkimov: "Liturgical texts often return to some fact and explain it; in the body given to Christ (so that he can be incarnated), all people partake in the existence of the divine Word", on this beauty without end. Dostoyevsky said 'Beauty will save the world', but not any beauty, the beauty of the Holy Spirit and of a woman clothed with the sun."
References
P. KLEIN, Die "creative Freiheit" nach Nikolaj Berdjajew, Regensburg 1976.
Paris 1956, pg. 283-298.
Ibid., pg. 272.
Ibid., pg. 273.
Bogoslovskie Trudy 9, 1972.
T. ŠPIDLÍK, Un facteur d'union, la poésie. Viachesslav Ivanoff, in: Orient. Cristiana Periodica 33 (1067), pg. 130-138.
Per una mariologia antropologica, in: Marianum 41 (1979), pg. 491-506.
Ibid., pg. 221.
(Umenie prejav Ducha, in: A. Piatrová a I. Rusina, Kres?anstvo a kultúra, sv. I, Bratislava 2000, Pg. 19-27)
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