>>11515966
>Without going into detail, he mentions that the same dichotomy might be applied to art, ergo, classic arts could be deemed sacred and modern arts profane, on the basis that the former has perennial truth alive within it. This means, according to the framework established by the rest of the book, that those arts which are deemed sacred must have something super-individual in them.
The proper term would be supra-individual and not super but yes that's correct.
Does this mean that the great artist necessarily has the gestalt struggle of their native culture play out inside their own psyche? meaning that those cultures which are based on metaphysical realities will create arts which reflect those same realities. Or do individuals with the true artistic tendency, regardless of culture, have the perennial truth buried somewhere within their own soul?
If you want to post the exact passage I could probably explain exactly what he meant at that part, but as far as I understand him the way it works is that 'Traditional' works of art are ones that have this element of ritual and symbolism, which have a metaphysical significance, which are directly connected to one or another doctrine and so on. In almost all cases this would be done consciously and deliberately by the artist, and the source of him knowing how to do this would be both instruction in the method by an experienced teacher or by a solid understanding of the doctrine involved, which could be aquired as a part of one's instruction in the art. So it's not as though the artist is a microcosm of the society at large and uses this to create the traditional art, but rather that the perennial truth is inevitably formulated slightly differently according to culture and era, and that whatever doctrine that form takes in a given set of circumstances is taught to people including artists, who then use it for inspiration and guidance in their craft.
The truth is regarded as existing on it's own independently of humans and theoretically anyone who reaches a high enough state of spiritual realization could reach a partial or decent understanding of it, although almost all the times that an understanding of it occurs to such a a degree that a new religious tradition is established on that it is a rare and special occurance involving non-human origins, having to do with the direct intervention or the manifestation of the guiding and harmony-promoting aspect of the all-encompassing divinity; e.g. avatars, Christ, the angel Gabriele and Muhammad, the Sruti, the myths and symbolism surrounding the birth and life of Buddha etc.