The spiritual power of art....?

Question

I've always enjoyed contemplating the value of art. Oscar Wilde wrote that "The only reason for making a useless object is that one admire it intensely. All art is quite useless". Oscar should know. I find in his writing a supreme example of the power that art has to immortalize its subject.

"The Picture Of Dorian Gray" is Wilde's sole novel; he wrote some poetry, children's tales, and, what he is most famous for, plays, but "Dorian Gray" is his only full-length work of fiction. It's the story of a handsome artist's model who's so admired by the artist he is posing for that the artist imbues his painting with the ability to age in place of Dorian. Dorian is immortalized. What most don't realize is that Wilde was doing the same.

His love of the time(pre-Alfred Douglas) was John Gray. John Gray became Dorian Gray in the novel, & Wilde used the novel to immortalize him forever in tribute of love. Quite spiritual I say. Do you believe art has spiritual qualities? Examples?

Brent: Oscar Wilde died a Catholic. Look it up. I'm an Ahteist, however.

*Atheist* I can't type today.

Answer 1

Don't close this question quickly Jack.

I have an interest in the power of writing. Lately, last few years, I have been lifting entire passages from authors "snippets" really... of profane observations for example: Bill Bryson's "being you is not a gratifying experience at an atomic level. Your atoms don't care about you." wherein he goes on to describe the miracle of evolution... the billion to one chance that humans exist and the Billions of unique sequences of DNA that make up the humanity.... Anyway, I lift such words, and I re-write them with a broad brush, emphasising the shapes of words, of individual characters.. and I imbue layers of meaning over them, re-interpretive meanings by emphasising certain characters, or by making the letter "T" seem like a crucifix for example, by fading words and highlighting words, by changing the flow of words as they move across my canvas page, by intentional misspellings and omissions, by exploring the syntax and rhythm of the statement... by using colour, texture, foreground and background, I intensify the meaning of the words.. to me... and I try to express that to others thorugh the work... and it is hanging... and people look and read it, they might try to look for Bill Bryson's meaning, or they may look for my interpretation of it.. but they are forced to interpret it themselves.

Now. Oscar is of course prophetic. The arts are useless remnants of a thought process that eventually might serve as an object to admire... so if we take that one step further... making art useful (Poor Oscar.. jis head in a book instead of in the air) ... art as a functional object... art as habitat for example... art generating a sense of place, art generating community, the city is dynamic art ... art as a record of a man's understanding of his universe at a particular time .... the idea that art is imbued with spiritual qualities becomes obvious doesn't it? It's not just a pretty photo of a handsome man smiling, his eyes lowered to the right, is it?

Answer 2

yes of course it does. art is very spiritual. My art has a lot of symbolism, predictions that have come true. As an artist I try to communicate what I can see on the spiritual level of my being on a canvas or board, sometimes I use glass, or metal. I'm usually not so much in my mind when I paint or draw or create something. I always realize what it is after wards, that's why I'm so shocked sometimes at what I've created.

I have a whole series of portals, that I had no idea of what they were when I painted it.

I finished a peice in April 2005 of my "own" version of the Pope's ceiling (I'm not Catholic, but very respectable). Pope John Paul passed the next week. I still didn't even notice it...only when I went to title it and date it a year later is when I realized the synchronicity. I think that is spiritual.
All my art turns out to be spiritual.
All art is spiritual.

Answer 3

That depends on what you mean by spiritual. Most explanations of 'spiritual' anything include the word 'god' somewhere, and be that the case for your definition, I would say no. Chi, or qi (pronounced the same way), entails air, energy, 'from the heavens', breath, and life. The community I hail from uses the word chi as short-hand for any energy considered 'life energy'. On the other hand, chi /power/ sounds like whoever said it wishes to connote some skill or mastery in its application, however real or imagined.

Answer 4

Art can have spiritual and/or emotional qualities. Look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel created by Michelangelo. If that is not a spiritual experience, I don't know what is.

Or the painting "Madonna and Child" by Raphael. To me, that shows love and extraordinary faith. Not just the love between the mother and the child, but also love of the subject matter.

Answer 5

I never really thought about art being spiritual until I was moved, in a time of a deep personal depression, to sketch using charcoal and pastels. I never had a lesson in my life, as is evidenced by the lack of symmetry in bodies that I drew. However, it helped me to artistically express some of the emotions I was clearing, as I was working to release the hold some really intense, too-long suppressed childhood traumas still had on me. I simultaneously was creating poetry and writing through journals. These are also works of art, tapping into the left brain feminine side of our soul, allowing us to express on paper that which we are unable to express sufficiently using only verbal communication.

Art in all of its forms is the expression of our thoughts and feelings, which are the energy of our soul. Yes. Art truly has spiritual qualities, without question.

Answer 6

Yes. It can awaken a deeper sense of "other", and thus of ourselves. For me, spirituality is a sense of connection with all "other" - without supernatural props or diversions. Creating art gives the artist that experience, and for me "good", or valuable art communicates it. And curiously, I think even what I see as narcissistic art, such as abstract or colour-field etc, which depends for its meaning on what the viewer projects onto it, works to the same end. Because it acts as a screen through which the viewer can contact his/her own feelings and responses - or lack of them! That's the universality of art, particularly Western art. It may explain the somewhat neurotic element in art - though that is not to denigrate it. It's what purges, detoxifies, celebrates and therefor fascinates us in all art, perhaps.

Answer 7

Definitely. One could suggest Yoda from Star Wars as a Bhuddhic master-like character which considering George Lucas is a Bhuddist, shows he has put his own spiritual meaning into those films.

Answer 8

I do. I believe that works of art can be used as for calming one's soul. Examples: Monet's art.
The colors themselves are soothing.

Poetry can be soothing. It can help one reflect; writing poems can be a catharsis for some folks. Get the bad stuff out; make room for the good to enter.

Answer 9

You can tell by my 360's that I love art.

To be able to create a masterpiece that has the ability to transform us into the artwork, where we actually become a part of it, just takes my breath away.

For me the more feminine the better.

Answer 10

Frida Kahlo.

Here is a woman who had tremendous obstacles in her life and channeled her emotions into her paintings. I can find a work of art of hers to fit my every mood from reflective, happy, sad to despair. Her paintings move me very deeply.