Spirituality or religion...

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Please note that the poem on the image below is my own, not the original Desiderata

Desiderata Redux

 http://lianne-schneider.artistwebsites.com/featured/desiderata-redux-lianne-schneider.html

There's a lot of discussion - some of it angry and defensive - about religion these days. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians go head to head with self-professed atheists, both bringing their arguments into the "body politic." Muslim fundamentalists, too, speak of non-believers as "the great Satan" and justify jihad on the basis of the Koran. In the name of God, too many are at war with one another these days and the world wobbles on its axis as the battles rage and conversations become confrontations full of vitriol. 

I'm not here to advocate for or against any of those positions. After all, what good would it do...people hear and believe what they want to believe. Just take the recent debate between Bill Nye the "Science Guy" and Ken Ham of the Creation Museum of Kentucky. Who won? Well if  you went in believing in creationism as what should be taught in schools in place of evolution, you came out believing Ken Ham won. Those on the other side thought Nye took Ham to the mat over and over.  

Personally, in spite of my own Christian background and education, I think the solution is really very simple. Acknowledge that one does not need formal religious affiliation to share something we all have in common - that's spirituality. "Spirituality," says Dr. Brene Brown, "is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives." Spirituality is the force behind our sense of empathy for another, the motive for our immediate practical and sympathetic response to a natural disaster anywhere in the world, the explanation for our sadness when a particularly good person dies, even our devotion and attachment to animals. When I read this passage from Dr. Brown, I was reminded of my own attempt to write a spiritual rather than a religious guide for a good and decent life. I called it "Desiderata Redux" - a revisitation to a well-known work by Max Ehrmann but now including a recognition of that sense of spiritual connection that is so much a part of what I personally believe.

I don't think this kind of universal spirituality - this sense of universal connectedness - could be the ground for any kind of hatred, violence or discrimination. I hope and believe that when we recognize this quality in everyone, we can let go of all that divides us and embrace that which binds us - our common humanity. Perhaps that is a bit "Pollyanna" but I've always been an idealist. As my beloved teacher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote: 

  

What makes art good...or bad?

[Disclaimer: the following quote is for the purpose of opening up the debate only, not the author's opinion.]

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
Al Capp
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_art2.html#kxbu7YVIo4gTqP5B.99

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
Al Capp
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_art2.html#kxbu7YVIo4gTqP5B.99

 "Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered."

Al Capp

Grasshopper Luncheon

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/grasshopper-luncheon-lianne-schneider.html

To my friends out there who are abstract painters, or digital abstract artists, creators of fractals and geometric artworks, my apology for the use of such an opinionated quotation as my thought-provoking ice breaker. But I needed something outrageous to provoke a response to the question - what makes a work of art good...or bad? It's a subject I was debating with a young friend of mine who began his side of the debate with a response to my statement that what constitutes "art" is a very subjective thing. I touched on it briefly in a previous post on empathy - art is good when it creates an empathetic relationship in which the artist's feelings about a subject or object are not just seen but felt and shared by the individual "receiver."

My young friend disagreed - he said, "I don't agree that art is subjective...there is good and bad." He was supported by another friend who said, "All art, painting and the like, have to have good designs, values, color theory...even the most abstract." In other words, there are "rules" to follow in order for a work in any genre - painting, digital artwork, sculpture, music, dance - to qualify as good. By that standard, the work I posted above is far from good - it's technically all wrong, it has a lot of "digital noise" at full resolution. it's not as sharp or clear as it should be and...it's out of balance in terms of composition. Still, I like it...and apparently a lot of other people do too. Does that make it good art? For them maybe it does - some people out there seeing this, felt what I felt about nature and color and light...and grasshoppers! Yet another person, jumping in on my side of the debate said, "I think some people like to elevate art to some kind of euphoric experience every time they see a piece when in reality art is a connection between artist and patron." .

CHALLENGE: Take these two little quizzes (and if you went to art school no fair) and see if you come up with the same standard of "good" art that history and the critics have given us:

 

http://reverent.org/great_art_or_not.html

http://reverent.org/bremen_artists.html

My young friend responded by saying that my liking a work was no measure of whether it has merit. Perhaps not - by my subjective response, I would have labeled Pollack bad art and a couple of paintings by dogs or cats as better (not good)! And I certainly would have placed several works by "unknown" artists above those considered great art according to some art critic somewhere. But the point I'm making really is who makes that decision...isn't it a bit of art snobbery to say that only work done with a real paintbrush, or with a film camera, or in marble rather than plastic wrap, or by some well known crooner like Perry Como from the 50s instead of Justin Bieber, is good art? 

I'm still saying that for both the artist and the receiver of the art there has to be a subjective relationship - I don't stand in front of a Bouguereau and measure to see if he kept the rule of thirds, whether he had the audacity to shade with black or whether his figures are larger than their backgrounds. I don't examine the Pieta and say Mary's hands are too big - in fact she's too big period. No I stand in awe - because those works of art speak to me and I don't care if they kept the rules. Think of Mozart - if you recall the film - the Emperor telling him his music had "too many notes" - it didn't meet the objective standard for "good" music then. 

Where would we be if individual artists hadn't tried to express their own vision in their own way regardless of the rules? We've entered the digital age - more and more art is created digitally today. Cameras come equipped with lenses and filters and editing software that can immediately improve or alter what the photographer actually saw with his/her eyes into something else entirely - something that expresses how he/she felt about what they were photographing. Is HDR photography less of an art form than the photo-montage and retouched images of Pierre et Gilles (who are listed among the top 100 most influential photographers of all time)? Is a true digital painting - done from scratch even if using some additional editing software - not just as much a painting as a Pollack? 

Art is only good when it expresses something honest about who the artist is and that something speaks to and is felt and experienced by the viewer/reader/listener. In my humble opinion that is.  Pollack himself said, "Every good painter paints what he is." (I've honestly no clue who that is but I'm sure some of you can relate and love his work). For myself, I will continue to evaluate an artwork the way Schopenhauer suggested: 

 

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
Al Capp
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_art2.html#kxbu7YVIo4gTqP5B.99

Heroic virtue #2 - Empathy and Art

Empathy is "seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, 

 and feeling with the heart of another." 

 Alfred Adler

Pieta 2

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/pieta-2-lianne-schneider.html

 Yesterday I spoke of philosopher Sam Keen’s book, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, and mentioned that in it, the author lists 10 heroic virtues one must possess in order to complete the sacred quest to ignite the flame in one’s heart. And although Keen was writing to men about how to do that in today’s society, he was actually outlining for all of us the qualities we need most desperately to live “heroically” through difficult times. The first virtue he named was wonder – that opening to mystery that I spoke of in yesterday’s post. I hope that I left you curious about the rest of those virtues and how each might apply to art/artists.  

The second heroic virtue mentioned by Sam Keen is empathy – defined at Dictionary.com first as…the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.  Psychologists Arthur Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham explain, “When we move out of ourselves and into the other person’s experience, seeing the world with that person, as if we were that person, we are practicing empathy.”

But it’s the second definition of empathy that applies particularly to art…“the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself:  By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self.” In fact, the first use of the word empathy in 1904 was used in discussing a concept of art appreciation.  

Even before the actual use of the word, in 1897, Leo Tolstoy described the quality as “infectiousness” or “contagiousness” in his book “What is Art? "Art," he said, "is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them…” Furthermore, Tolstoy claimed that no matter how interesting a supposed artwork might be, it isn’t a work of art unless it creates a sense of union and shared emotion and the work itself arises from the artist’s own inner need to express his feeling.

In other words, the primary purpose of art is to evoke not just feeling but empathy, the heroic quality that Sam Keen equates with being “spiritually available” and open to others. Empathy makes it possible for one to give oneself to others and to live vibrantly without concern for possessions or self-image. One does not have empathy – rather, one IS empathetic and good art evokes that response by encouraging the viewer to feel the feelings the artist experienced in creating the work. Art is not art unless it is a two way street that engages the emotions of both the artist and the viewers/readers/listeners. That emotion can be awe, sadness, grief, joy, wonder, tenderness, a sense of poignant remembrance…any reaction by which the viewer “catches” the feeling the artist had when creating the piece. Some artists evoke a unique combination of emotions that draws the viewer into the image immediately – like this image (and many others in her portfolio) by Trudi Simmonds.

She tells a story with each piece she does and her reverence for and appreciation of horses in particular not only engages me but evokes such poignant memories or dreamlike worlds that I honestly can’t explain it…I can only step into the world she created and feel it. She accomplishes what Tolstoy required of art – an empathetic response – because her own emotional involvement is evident in each work. 

Clearly, empathy is essential to a true work of art…are you an empathetic artist? Are you evoking an empathetic response to your work? If you aren’t creating because you simply HAVE to and because you have something you feel compelled to share, then probably not. But if you are creating from your own empathetic virtues, then chances are your viewers can feel that too.