Alex Grey’s piece about art and spirituality was interesting and a bit unexpected. After I read that the subject for week 7 is spirituality I quickly assumed it would be include a lot of discussion about religion. However, Grey focused relatively little on religion compared to what I expected. He wrote a lot about the spiritual process of creating art and the spiritual process of seeing and understanding art. Grey wrote concerning seeing art:
“…the viewer first encounters a work of art as a physical object seen by the eye of flesh. Second, the eye of reason sees harmony of sensations that stir the emotions, and a conceptual understanding of the art arises. Third, and only in the deepest art, a condition of the soul is revealed, one’s heart is opened, and spiritual insight is transmitted to the eye of contemplation.”
I think that Grey’s explanation of seeing art is interesting. I imagine that in order to fully understand what Grey is saying one would have to have been through the entire process before. I think that it is probably uncommon for people outside of artistic fields or without an interest in art to relate to what he is saying. For example, I am studying accounting and rarely spend much time looking at or analyzing art in my studies or in my free time. I do not think I have ever experience spiritual insight via the eye of contemplation and because of that I find it difficult to understand Grey’s explanation. I do agree, however, that seeing art comes in waves and at multiple levels. I believe that most people can understand and relate to the first two steps that Grey described, seeing a art only as a physical object and then beginning to see the harmony in the art.
The other portion of Grey’s piece that stood out to me was the creative process of artists that he described. Grey wrote concerning creating art:
“For artists, the goal is to reach a state of mind where art flows irresistibly through them. Finding that energetic and idiosyncratic fountain of creation, an art spirit, is the artist’s task. Artists must remain open to the tumultuous ocean of potential inspiration, the entire spectrum of consciousness, and yet reduce or essentialize that infinite ocean to a few flowing strokes from their own fountain, providing tangible evidence of inner discovery to the outer world.”
I think there a lot of fascinating thoughts in those lines, but what stood out to me is how Grey indirectly defines spirituality. Rather than any religious based meaning, to me, it seems that he defines spirituality as a deep inner level where conscious and unconscious thoughts seem to blend, like dreams, trances and meditation. It seems to me that Grey views spirituality as a very personal and self-centric level of consciousness rather than a relationship with or belief in an eternal being.
This post and the way you structured it is really interesting to me. You built it up to explain that as soon as you learned that week 7 was about spirituality you had this assumption that it would be about religion and dissertations about God and what that meant to art.
I can see clear visuals of ‘The Last Supper’ in your mind’s eye and I find it crazy that those visions never entered my mind.
‘Religion’ and ‘spirituality’ aren’t even found in the same story, to me. I have seen so many hurt or compartmentalized by religion that it’s almost a negative thing to me. Whereas to be spiritual I view it as this higher connection to the inner self and the unknown. It isn’t just about believing in an ‘external being’, but nor is it about a ‘self-centric’ perspective.
I think it is more about being in tune with the fact that there is more out there than we can be a part of or comprehend, but that we are conscious of that and we try to engage with it and relay that message. Be a vehicle of sorts.
Nice post, you have pre-thinking and analysis of details for this week reading materials. You concluded that Grey told the how creating and understanding art by spirituality. I saw you built two references to determined what you thinking for Grey’s explanation. Especially you said the artist and normal people have different views to touch art. I no more agree with your opinion because as same as you, I also feel difficult to achieve whole steps of seeing as Grey described that. I lack of both experience and knowledge of art even if I think my sense of art is strong in life. Otherwise, I also want to say that maybe the third steps also can be arrived without knowledge of art. Just people open and reveal the soul to accept it.