In the reading about art and spirituality, the author mentioned about the difference between seeing a thing and looking at a thing. When I think about this question, I find myself unable to answer it because I always think they are the same. The insight given by the author is that “seeing determines every aesthetic decision. First, artists see their subject, which inspires them to create. Then there are the technical aspects of seeing, such as an accurate analysis of the formal relationships that the artists to express.” I think that it is very important to understand that seeing is an interactive process between the artists( as a viewer) and the object. The idea that the eye is the gate to an inspiring, spiritual process is very intriguing. I think that the author has described the way of seeing as a spiritual process that is conversational and engaging. I think that the description of the ‘creative process’ is very deep and I think the most spiritual thing in that process is incubation and inspiration. Through the unconscious ‘sift’ and the ‘flash of one’s own unique solution’, people are going through a spiritual, meditation-like process and that is a very mysterious process. I really like how the author makes art a very spiritual process, both from the seeing and the constructing process. I think that what makes art intriguing is that entirely the aesthetics, but the spiritual nature underlying art. The spiritual essence in art is what makes art so mysterious and great.
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I do agree that the process of creative need spiritual things. However, the spiritual things need a deeply seeing. For the artist, they also need a deeply seeing back to his or her own creation, and figure out what can be prove to be more inspiring. As the spiritual process, the seeing need to be deeper, not only on the improvement of artwork itself, but also on the psychology mood when the artist creating the artwork. For the viewer, in order to understand the artwork better, deeply seeing seems very helpful. The spiritual process can also exist for the viewer, know the meaning of artwork, understand the meaning of artwork, and empathizing with the artist. The above process need deeply seeing and also need time to prove the skill. I believe once the viewer understand the background of creating, the meaning that artist trying to show out, and feel like they are actually experience the same situation, this is the highest level of appreciate the aesthetic of art.