Enlightened artists?

[Andrei_Tabarna]

Do you have any examples of enlightened people making art? I imagine that higher states of consciousness would be a great source of inspiration for music, literature, painting, sculpture, game design, and so on. I know that you can't express in words how it's like to be in one of these states, but maybe art mediums have a better chance, since art has an emotional impact on people.

Also, why do you think that the most known artists generally have all sorts of problems and addictions in their lives? Does that mean that personal development can negatively impact your creativity, since the greatest works come from less developed people? I think otherwise, but the reality is that the greatest artists that ever lived had chaotic lifestyles and did not pursue enlightenment or spirituality. 

[Surfingthewave]

I think William Blake, Leonardo Da Vinci and Paul Cezanne were pretty Enlightened. As for musicians, David Bowie, John Lennon, Kate Bush, Dave Grohl, the list is long. 

I don't agree that the greatest artists that ever lived did not pursue Enlightenment, I think they did actually and their work is a testament to it. 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[Willie]

I doubt he was enlightened, but M.C. Escher‘s art is some pretty high-consciousness stuff. 

[erik8lrl]

Enlightenment is not easily measured; one can be very conscious and create very holistic art but not fully awakened. However, I think some of the greatest works of art came from people who are at least awake to a degree. But the more conscious the art, the harder it is for it to go mainstream. The closer you are to describing the truth, the more abstract and confusing it becomes. So a lot of the greats are not recognized by the public. 

You can judge the wholeness/consciousness of the art based on either the art's content or its structure or both. 

Some arts are very high conscious in their content. Meaning the subject the art is trying to convey is very high conscious (existence, God, love, consciousness, etc.).

And some arts are not super conscious in their content, but their structure can create such an extreme sense of wholeness within people. To the point where it can create altered states of consciousness. (A lot of classical music are like this)   

Some arts are both high conscious in content and structure, and those are the really profound ones. 

 

But here is a list of artists that I think are at least awakened to some degree.

Or at least can create art that is extremely high conscious and whole. 

 

Music:

Estas Tonne

Jeff Buckley

Leonard Cohen

Claude Debussy

Misk'i Takiy

Olafur Arnalds

Sam Garrett

Dan Deacon

 

Film:

Andrei Tarkovsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky

 

Novels:

Ted Chiang

Kana Akatsuki

 

Manga/Anime:

Hiromu Arakawa

 

Poetry:

William Blake

Charles Bukowski

 

Architecture:

Christopher Alexander

 

Games:

David OReilly

Tetsuya Mizuguchi

Hidetaka Miyazaki

Edited March 7, 2021 by erik8lrl

[Andrei_Tabarna]

38 minutes ago, Surfingthewave said:

I think William Blake, Leonardo Da Vinci and Paul Cenzanne were pretty Enlightened. As for musicians, David Bowie, John Lennon, Kate Bush, Dave Grohl, the list is long. 

I don't agree that the greatest artists that ever lived did not pursue Enlightenment, I think they did actually and their work is a testament to it. 

I would love for that to be the case, and I will check out your examples for sure! But from what I personally know, the vast majority of great artists created their masterpieces from a place of misery. For example, Vincent van Gogh cut his ear and killed himself. Charles Dickens, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill all appeared to suffer from clinical depression, and so on. This to me seems very counter-intuitive, since I myself as a musician seek spiritual development, partly because it is a great inspiration for my music. So I wonder if artists HAVE to be suffering or to be depressed in order to create innovative art, because that seems to be the the case most of the times.

[Andrei_Tabarna]

7 minutes ago, erik8lrl said:

Enlightenment is not easily measured; one can be very conscious and create very holistic art but not fully awakened. However, I think some of the greatest works of art came from people who are at least awake to a degree. But the more conscious the art, the harder it is for it to go mainstream. The closer you are to describing the truth, the more abstract and confusing it becomes. So a lot of the greats are not recognized by the public. 

You can judge the wholeness/consciousness of the art based on either the art's content or its structure or both. 

Some arts are very high conscious in their content. Meaning the subject the art is trying to convey is very high conscious (existence, God, love, consciousness, etc.).

And some arts are not super conscious in their content, but their structure can create such an extreme sense of wholeness within people. To the point where it can create altered states of consciousness. (A lot of classical music are like this)   

Some arts are both high conscious in content and structure, and those are the really profound ones. 

That's very interesting to me! That makes me wonder if a piece of art can actually have the potential to enlighten people, since that is what it conveys. I know that art is subjective and everyone can interpret it in different ways, but I think that would be a really exciting possibility. That would totally change our concepts about what art means.

[zeroISinfinity]

 

 

 

[Surfingthewave]

@Andrei_Tabarna I think the expression of suffering is an important part of the artist's tool, yes. 

I also think  @erik8lrl makes an important point about content and structure.

To pursue Truth and Beauty in art is the path for a lot of artists and this may cause suffering along the way. 

As an artist myself it's more about the process rather than an end result. What I've realised is the artist's path is similar to awakenings, the practice of art is like an Sadhana. You leave the end result to God/universe/self.

Suffering may come from too much attachment to the end result. Picasso had years of traditional training, but had major success when he threw the rulebook out the window and painted what he truly saw, letting go of the end result. 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

I think that many of the so-called great artists are messengers of Truth/Enlightenment/God/whatever you want to call it without having any clue where the messages that they are transmitting through their art are coming from, what these messages mean or why they of all people were chosen to transmit them; you might say that they don't receive their divine inspirations because of their 'wokeness' but in spite of their lack of it. (This, of course, only ads to the sense of miraculousness of great art and accounts for much of its mysterious appeal... check out the movie Amadeus for a great meditation on this subject!)

This seemingly incompatibility between the message and the messenger can of course create massive discord inside a person; being bombarded with these kinds of divine inspirations without having the necessary level of consciousness to truly contain them is kind of like having psychedelic breakthroughs without first having laid the proper foundations.

When you look at a guy like Richard Wagner (to name just one very striking example of mind-boggling discrepancy between the petty character of an artist and the transcendent quality of his art), it seems like his immense creative genius was almost too much for his mind and body to handle... it's a bloody wonder that the dude ever made it to the age of 70!

Edited March 8, 2021 by Bazooka Jesus

[Surfingthewave]

@Bazooka Jesus But this begs the question, what is great art? Who cares? 

The more awakenings I experience the better quality and rawness of my art. Surely it's about an expression of this rather than what it looks like/sounds like etc.

Yes I agree it's about what you do with that divine inspiration rather questioning do you have it or not.

There is no separation between messenger and message. But many artists get caught in the trap of creating art to be successful rather than creating art to answer divine inspiration. 

John Lennon didn't give a **** about who listened to his work, he created masterpieces because he listened to his own inner guide. It's counterintuitive yes, but so is the root of pursuing Enlightenment. 

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

@Surfingthewave As much as I adore the music that he left us, John Lennon doesn't really strike me as a mentally well-balanced person who lived a healthy kind of lifestyle, so I guess his example rather proves my point. 

[mandyjw]

Rupert Spira was a ceramic artist before he got into teaching. http://www.rupertspira.com/home.aspx

[Surfingthewave]

@Bazooka Jesus

I'm not quite sure what your point is.

So what if he wasn't balanced, most great artists aren't! 

[Thought Art]

I fell like Win Butler from Arcadefire is based on the lyrics of their first two albums.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

22 hours ago, Surfingthewave said:

@Bazooka Jesus

I'm not quite sure what your point is.

So what if he wasn't balanced, most great artists aren't! 

Exactly, that's my point. LOL

[Kuba Powiertowski]

Jim Carrey?