Art: A gateway to the transcendental

By Richard Payne

A brief discussion on the spiritual in art presented at the 3rd World Parliament on Spirituality 7th October 2020

My name’s Richard Payne.

I’m an artist working in Daylesford, a small village outside of Melbourne in Australia.

My initial training was in Architectural drafting and illustration.

Whilst developing my artistic skills, the need to make a living took me through various adventures including my own corporate design and communications company.

Seeing that ‘something was missing’ in my work. And believing it was my technical facility I moved to Florence Italy to study Classical Realism painting at the Florence Academy of Art.

At this stage I was invited to lecture masterclasses in perspective and art techniques for art academy students in Italy and the USA and post graduate sessions at the University of Melbourne. Which I continue to enjoy.

In parallel to my aesthetic journey, my main spiritual guides are my wife Anita and Dzar: a channelled group of energies. They both tell me I’m “a work in progress”.

In 1930, T. S. Eliot, wrote about art…

“It is not merely in the use of imagery of common life, not merely in the use of imagery of the sordid life of a great metropolis,

but in the elevation of such imagery to the first intensity — presenting it as it is, and yet making it represent something much more than itself”.

What Eliot was saying is that art can be more than endlessly copying nature or being focussed solely on the physical, material plane. Art at its highest is an object that opens a door to a larger dimension and transcends to universal truths.

In essence; Art is a fusion of the aesthetic and the spiritual.

As artists we’re striving to bring the two together enabling the creation of artwork that exists on the physical plane and opens onto the spiritual plane.

ART: is a gateway to the transcendental

I’d like to discuss:

1: Art as a combination of the Aesthetic and the spiritual, and introduce the thought that not all art is equal,

2: My journey,

3: How I connect with that spiritual, creative space when creating art.

1: Art is a fusion of the aesthetic and the spiritual.

In his ‘Discourses on Art” around the mid 1700’s, Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the British Royal Academy of Art held that not all art was equal and detailed the Ranks of Art.

The lowest level was Still life painting.

Followed by: Animal painting,

Landscape and city scapes,

Genre painting,

Portrait painting, then,

At the highest-level History painting, by which he meant: Historically important, religious, mythological and allegorical painting.

When you look at this hierarchy, you will notice that what positions a ‘type’ of painting higher on the ranking is the amount of imagination, idealism and spiritual content that’s required in addition to the aesthetic.

It’s a scale from purely physical concerns at the bottom level to the physical aesthetic concerns fused with high spiritual content at the top level.

As artists and viewers of art, initially we’re consumed by appreciation and mastery of the aesthetic, physical attributes of objects of art. And the focus is on still life painting…. Getting a painting of an apple to look like an apple. Most people with practice can learn to paint a reasonable still life.

Then slowly, as our skills and understanding increase, we realise that there’s something more to art than just mechanically reproducing nature. It’s the incorporation of spiritual, emotional and intellectual dimensions that transcends an object through higher levels to the status of fine art…. That’s the hard bit!

Abstract and non-figurative painting were unknown in Reynolds’ time, and I’d position it above ‘History’ painting as they generally have no physical subject and exist as pure expressions of energy.

It’s important here to say that this is not a scale of quality or taste.

There are excellent still life paintings, and many artists spend an entire career mastering any one of the genres. And of course, there are also many less than inspiring paintings from the higher ranking levels.

As well, you may ‘like’ still life paintings and ‘not like’ historical paintings. Nothing wrong with that.

Rather, it’s a way of acknowledging the increased difficulty of creation as the spiritual and imaginative content increases in a work.

More like, pop music based on two or three cords addressing base material concerns, could be considered less difficult than Mozarts.

It begs the question of how that spiritual content gets ‘into’ a work of art?

2: My journey

There’s a big difference between a person ‘having’ an intense spiritual, emotional experience and their ability to create an object that ‘communicates’ that experience intensely to others.

They’re two quite separate things that are, for the artist, none the less closely related.

To create art at the highest level an artist needs to fuse the two together.

In the physical realm, it’s not possible for a person to share one’s spiritual experience directly.

So, the artists energetic state when creating an object is not what we as viewers, primarily respond to.

However, the artists actual energetic state when creating an object can be a powerful catalyst for creation.

An example of what we’re talking about is; The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Saint Teresa’s mystical vision of an Angle piercing her heart with a fiery arrow of divine love.

Saint Teresa cannot directly share her intense private emotions and energetic experience with us. We cannot ‘have’ her experience we can only have only our own. Even if the Angle pierced our heart with the same arrow, we would have our own experience not Saint Teresa’s.

However, we can read her description in the Book of her life.

Around 1650 the artist, Gian Lorenzo Bernini created a sculpture of the event. Likewise, we read Bernini’s sculpture not his emotional state when he made it.

His spirituality, energetic state and ability to connect on the energetic plane, did however enable him to connect deeply with Saint Teresa’s written description. Enabling him enlightened insights into the beauty of that energetic experience that he could then communicate in his artwork, opening a gateway that we may not have seen ourselves through which we can connect in our own way.

As viewers, we all react to and appreciate Berninis sculpture from our own spiritual, energetic and educational position.

Some people have a transcendental experience in the presence of this work of art. To others it’s a little boy about to thrust an arrow into some poor woman and to others it’s pornographic.

As artists, our journey is to develop both our aesthetic and spirituality levels, then bring them together in the act of creation.

3: How I connect with that spiritual, creative space when creating art.

For me, this duel aesthetic, spiritual journey started with Still Life painting.

In the beginning, I was only conscious of the physical realm.

I focussed on ‘getting it right’; drawing, painting, technical processes, colour & light theory, aesthetics, principles of composition, perspective, etc.

In this period, I was un-conscious of the spirituality and energy of all things.

As my skills improved, I started to see something in the still life paintings of the masters; something extra. They didn’t just paint an apple they painted an apple that represented ALL apples. There’s an intensity to their pictures of simple pieces of fruit.

I searched for what makes an apple an apple; colour, shape, texture, the blush on the skin. All the physical elements that make up an apple. But still there was something more.

Then it hit me. An apple was all these things yes, but in addition it was the taste, smell and crispness.

For the first time, I started consciously thinking of the smell, taste and feel of the fruit whilst I was painting… Unknowingly, I had taken my first artistic spiritual step.

Now whenever I draw a tree for example, I sit quietly contemplating the tree.

Then, when it feels right, I ask the tree out loud “Who are you?” “What do you like best about being a tree?” And the tree would answer me. Then I draw.

If it doesn’t answer, then I sit some more until it does. Then I draw.

Slowly, I became less conscious of the physical elements of each painting and more consciously submerged in the joyous, beautiful energy of the subject. This spiritual connect was informing my creation.

During creation, the artwork talks very clearly to me now.

Originally it was a battle of wills. I was hearing but not listeneing.

The picture would suggest, “how about we do this, here?” I would reply, No! … I’m the artist, I’m the boss, then I forced it into my pre-conceived vision of the work.

Creation was a hard and exhausting battle.

Luckily this transcendental relationship evolved and eventually I realised that collaboration was far more joyous than battle.

For me now it’s more like a collaborative, fun, free-form dance immersed in a warm, energetic glow where the voice of the piece guides me.

Sometimes we do disagree and then it’s a negotiation in good faith.

To work at the level of abstraction, the artists aesthetic, spiritual and energetic state need to be prepared and in harmony.

Art is the communication of an experience not the act of having the experience so I hold the intention of the piece clearly in my mind from the beginning then open my portal to connect with the energy of it.

It’s essential that I remain in my own truth, and don’t try to make a painting that I think others will like or admire… I stay absorbed in the flow of creation totally oblivious to the physical world.

At the end of a session, I’ll often look at the canvas and ask myself, wow, who painting that?

Summary:

All art is not equal.

Art is a fusion of the physical aesthetic concerns and the spiritual with artwork containing a higher spiritual and imaginative content acknowledged by the rank of art.

Art is the communication of an experience not the act of having the experience.

The artists personal energetic, spiritual experiences and journey are a catalyst for creating art of the higher levels.

Likewise, how the viewer interprets the piece is also dependent upon their own spiritual journey – not all spirituality transcendent artwork will be understood by everyone.

My approach to the creation of art is to connect with, and talk to the energy of the subject then collaborate joyously with it, to express the purpose of the artwork.

Conclusion:

At the highest level of art the artists aesthetic, spiritual and energetic state flow in harmony with the piece, creating an object that can open a gateway to the transcendental for the prepared viewer.

Thank you.

Richard Payne