Van Gogh And Samadhi

[joegarland]

Van Gogh's last famous painting, Wheatfield with Crows, is often assumed to reflect the utter insanity that van Gogh was facing shortly before he killed himself. However, the scholar Cliff Edwards offers a different interpretation. Van Gogh had been studying Japanese art and religion for the final years of his life, and had a deep identification with their love of nature.  Some of Vincent's letters indicate that he sometimes experienced samadhi, or something close to it, while painting. Edward's argument is that Wheatfield, which Vincent himself described as "wholesome and invigorating," does not reflect the insanity that Vincent experienced, but rather his feeling of unity with the world and a deep experience of anitcha, the ever-shifting impermanence of life.

In short, Wheatfield with Crows could be considered a "non-dual" painting.

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As a bonus, here's a painting done around the same time by Paul Gauguin, titled Where do we come from?  What are we? Where are we going? 

 

I don't think either of these painters were anywhere close to enlightened, but these particular works show that they had a spiritual bent to them.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2016 by joegarland

[Leo Gura]

Good share.

In Van Gogh's case, maybe it was both. There are plenty of examples from neuroscience case-studies that link various brain dysfunctions and abnormalities with heightened spiritual insights.

The Prophet Mohammad is speculated to have had epilepsy or some kind of similar brain disorder, which gave him extraordinary channeling abilities and powerful visions.

This isn't to reduce the significance of such insights, as some might object.

[Ray]

Thanks for the post, it raises awareness regarding the link between art and enlightenment. I've notice that lots of members of the forum have fear to say that art and entertainment could be define as something related to enlightenment, me incluse! This post and Leo's comment are helping me to augment the knowledge that could eventually lead me to be courageous enough for starting my art, movies . 

Did you know that Rupert Spira, an important spiritual teacher, create art through ought pottery? Stupid that it could sound it was really eye opening for me.

http://www.rupertspira.com/links.aspx?intContentID=11

 

[joegarland]

@Ray You're right. I'm training to be a painter, and I've got a lot of those doubts too. But these doubts about art and enlightenment are just a facet of the more general disdain for art that the current culture has. "Useless" things don't find an easy place in the modern world. 

Rupert gives me a lot of hope and encouragement on this path I'm on. I love this interview on his website:

http://www.rupertspira.com/essay.aspx?intContentID=5&intEXID=12

and this video is great:

 

[Arman]

I love that Rupert personally works with ceramics as, i assume, an art-form. There's something really fitting about it. It's nice to know that he expresses himself as an artist beyond his talks. 

God, ceramics and pottery have to be one of the most beautiful and 'down to earth' artforms/mediums. You can meditate in a cave for 40 years, you can smoke 5-meo-dmt, or you can watch someone slap together one of these fuckin' badboys

 

[Toby]

Another teacher that does art is Karl Renz: http://karlrenz.de/BIO/bio.html

Also Ramana or Nisargadatta wrote poems. Also a form of art. So you never know what life wants from you.

[Ray]

On 12/12/2016 at 6:33 AM, Toby said:

So you never know what life wants from you.

Yes, the more I've observe people in life, the more I can grasp the fact that we really have been giving some passion, some purpose, some deep interest that we truly want/have to to follow and express... we guys maybe are the one that life want to express "art', "useless" things, which is something challenging today in a world which give priority one to "usefulness" @joegarland, but at the same time I believe that if we truly are creators, and we spend enough time trying we will make it. And maybe we will even "aikido", use the historical period of "usefulness" to feed our muse and express something that could be even more "useless" ahah  

Such a great topic by the way, really inspiring. We should almost change the title with something like: Art and Enlightenment. Thanks everybody for sharing