The Artist-Mystic

[Anonymous No.18865561]

Are there any artist-mystics?
I'm currently unsure of whether to pursue a life of creation or one of spiritual contemplation. The two paths seem, as far as I can tell, mutually exclusive, since being an artist involves a great deal of individuation and developing one's personal style, while the mystic aims for the opposite and in many cases creates a vacuum of self. (I know that there are people like William Blake and Scriabin who however managed to do it.)

[Anonymous No.18865598]

>>18865561
I think pretty much all artists are mystics. In fact art and mysticism are practically a continuum to me

[Anonymous No.18865640]

there's a grand master residing in the carpathians, said to be versed in many secret sciences. occasionally he can be seen counselling the duke of austria.

[Anonymous No.18865698]

>>18865561
The greatest artists and poets were always mystics, journeyers of vision, the worlds of the spirit.

>>18865598
This.

Hildegard von Bingen
Andrei Tarkovsky
Mark Rothko
Vincent Van Gogh
Hieronymus Bosch
Michelangelo
Sor Inez de la Cruz
Tibetan Buddhist thangka and sand drawings

[Anonymous No.18865703]

>>18865598
In that they are at core irrational? Cut through the chaff of the mundane toward something transcendent? You know, the interesting thing is that even in something analytical like math/science, it's bursts of mystical inspiration that really create progress and change our thinking, like Kekule dreaming of the Ouroboros or Einstein having a vision of flying by a beam of light.

[Anonymous No.18865709]

>>18865561
Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Anonymous No.18865711]

>>18865561
Fra Angelico was a monk-artist. Not sure if he was a mystic, but some of his paintings suggest he may have been.

[Anonymous No.18865717]

Maybe not in the sense that you ask for, but Hegel.

[Anonymous No.18865724]

>Bach
>Arvo Pârt
>Friedrich Nietzsche

>>18865711
Yes, Fra Angelico is truly one of the greatest painters in history.

[Anonymous No.18865739]

>>18865598
Only an artist could spew such shite. Kys.

[Anonymous No.18865740]

In the Poetics Aristotle treats artists as imitators, but not in a bad sense. Artists don't create, they imitate, but in order to do so with excellence you need to observe nature as a scientist or monk would do, with respectful contemplation. Last week I've sit down and read all the stories I've written so far - guess what? They are horrible! I realized I was treating myself as a God, creating stuff from nowhere, when we should strive for the opposite, to imitate nature and in doing so predict the probable and possible future.

[Anonymous No.18865835]

>>18865561
Nicholas Roerich

[Anonymous No.18866075]

>>18865740
Yeah, it feels almost like you need to diminish your tendency for self-indulgence to be a good artist.

[Anonymous No.18866171]

Relevant link
http://70000-fathoms.blogspot.com/2014/11/art-and-artist-by-otto-rank.html?m=1

[Anonymous No.18866180]

david lynch

[Anonymous No.18866441]

>>18865561
>I'm currently unsure of whether to pursue a life of creation or one of spiritual contemplation
Why not both?

[Anonymous No.18866693]

>>18866441
How I love this picture. Especially the (friar?) monk just getting a peek at all the action Hildegard is going through.

[Anonymous No.18866758]

Sri Aurobindo was both an Indian mystic and a poet. Henry Miller appreciated mysticism a lot, and has a great, relevant quote about this:

>Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti.

And was particularly attracted to Buddhism in general, and Zen particularly. Hell, most of the Beat writers are the same -- having combined Buddhism with the counterculture/hippie/psychedelic movement of the day. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and the like. Then there's Philip K. Dick, of course, with his mystical experiences. Robert Anton Wilson, too (Cosmic Trigger is still one of the greatest, most mind-blowing books I've ever read, being a mixture of memoir with forays into occultism, conspiracy theories, discussions of various mystical traditions, etc.). Since most of /lit/ has a stick up its arse I'll probably get people saying that a lot of these people are American trash and not great artists, and they may have a point, but it's an answer to the question anyway.

Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gogol, too, of course, coming from the Christian angle. Rimbaud talked about "a deliberate derangement of the senses" and living a deliberately crude life in an attempt to make himself a "seer" or "poet." Honestly it all depends on how strictly you want to draw the line -- you could say some of these artists aren't really mystics just for being interested in mysticism or religions or saying some vaguely mystical stuff, but some of them (like Sri Aurobindo) fit this better, but you could say his poetry isn't as exceptional and outstanding as his contribution to Indian mysticism/philosophy was.

Then you have all the Sufi poets, of course, who fit this perfectly. Hafiz, Rumi, Attar of Nishapur (writer of "A Conference of Birds"), Kabir, Sarmad, and so forth (these latter two also straddling the line between Islam and Hinduism, as was common in Sufism around the regions of India and Persia, since Sufism is a complex phenomenon which isn't always strictly adherent to orthodox Islam).

[Anonymous No.18866781]

>>18865561
Stop treating your life like the character creator of an RPG and you will be fine.

[Anonymous No.18866804]

>>18866693
I know, right? It must have been quite a sight to walk into Hildegard receiving a vision from the Holy Spirit. I hope to meet her in heaven one day.

[Anonymous No.18866816]

>>18866804
>I hope to meet her in heaven one day.
I hope you do too Anon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6qFCYRQKVA

[Anonymous No.18866831]

>>18866816
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6qFCYRQKVA
What a great album. My personal favourite is also the one most people start with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei88J4lERbk
Have a great day, fren. God bless you.

[N E M O . !!GgBWHLRiayD No.18866841]

>>18865598
I concur; art is theosophical.

[Anonymous No.18866854]

>>18866831
For me it's O tu suavissima virga
https://youtu.be/bgeEM0QyWyk

[Anonymous No.18866855]

>>18866831

God bless you too, Anon!

>You may enjoy Arvo Pärt's sacred choir music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTRSrre_kPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOpa5Ec3i4s

>And Taveners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dQK7tBnBQ&t=378s

[Anonymous No.18866869]

>>18866855
Tavener is a solitary beacon in late 20th c

[Anonymous No.18866881]

>>18866869

He certainly is an example of OP's inquiry about artist-mystics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK7Qkxt8FNs

[Anonymous No.18866903]

>>18866781
Wow, I feel like I needed to hear that. Know yourself and all that...

[Anonymous No.18867031]

Evelynn Underhill's Mysticism might be an appealing read to you:

>Where Underhill struck new ground was in her insistence that this state of union produced a glorious and fruitful creativeness, so that the mystic who attains this final perfectness is the most active doer – not the reclusive dreaming lover of God.

>We are all the kindred of the mystics. ..Strange and far away from us though they seem, they are not cut off from us by some impassable abyss. They belong to us; the giants, the heroes of our race. As the achievement of genius belongs not to itself only but also to the society that brought it forth;...the supernal accomplishment of the mystics is ours also. ..our guarantee of the end to which immanent love, the hidden steersman. ..is moving. ..us on the path toward the Real. They come back to us from an encounter with life's most august secret. ..filled with amazing tidings which they can hardly tell. We, longing for some assurance. ..urge them to pass on their revelation. ..the old demand of the dim-sighted and incredulous. ..But they cannot. ..only fragments of the Symbolic Vision. According to their strength and passion, these lovers of the Absolute. ..have not shrunk from the suffering. ..Beauty and agony have called. ..have awakened a heroic response. For them the winter is over. ..Life new, unquenchable and lovely comes to meet them with the dawn. (Cropper, p. 47)

[Anonymous No.18867117]

>>18866781
Then how should one live?

[Anonymous No.18867204]

>artist-mystic
I set my sights rather on the:
>scientist-priest
Which is the only way to save the world from tech-dystopia and systematize the overspecialized and divorced fields into a whole and alive Metaphysic

[Anonymous No.18868040]

>>18867204
I used to think that the gap between the spiritual and material was unbridgeable, as one is objective/shared and the other is subjective/personal. But I think as consciousness is further explored, there will be a way of sharing personal worlds in ways that we currently can't imagine.

[Anonymous No.18868067]

>Are there any artist-mystics?
Hilma Af Klint

[Anonymous No.18869141]

>>18865561
https://youtu.be/TGRDYpCmMcM

[Anonymous No.18869181]

>>18865561
St. Catherine of Bologna

[Anonymous No.18869357]

>>18865561
Any books on this idea? I'm an artist myself and have been looking for answers my entire life

Closest thing I've found is Hegel and Rudolf Otto's aesthetics

[Anonymous No.18869362]

Robert Crumb

[Anonymous No.18869652]

>>18866180
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18869718]

>>18865561
François Augiéras

[Anonymous No.18869762]

>>18865561
>>18865835
>scriabin
>roerich
cepeбpяный вeк so UNFATHOMABLY based

[Anonymous No.18869777]

>>18869762
That painting is Vrubel, he is my all time favorite

[Anonymous No.18869791]

>>18869777
Yeah I know I fucking love him too. I posted Vrubel by association because he is from the same time period in Russia, him and Roerich floated around the same people /artistic movements (Mir Iskusstva etc)... Scriabin's music influenced them as well. It was such a great time for russian art

[Anonymous No.18869830]

>>18869791
It really was. There is fittingly also a very fertile period of orthodox theology stretching from late 19th century to mid 20th

[Anonymous No.18869996]

>>18865561
Threadly reminder that Blake was a larper, a fraud and a liberal.

[Anonymous No.18870085]

>>18869996
yes, we know that your kind considers anything heterodox to be a larp

[Anonymous No.18870180]

Yes, but it's a dualistic form of mysticism. Look into the poetry and journal of Hopkins for instance

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44389/as-kingfishers-catch-fire
Also pic related is obligatory

[Anonymous No.18870251]

>>18870085

His poetry is dogshit.

The English love their "eccentrics". So that even scum can look up, not too high so that can no longer see, even bugs can look up to certain English "poets" and """philosophers""" (though some are truly good). The wicked and hateful English species equivocates a bug attracted to shit to the verb for travelling up with the wind. An early "clever English joke" which was never even a joke, just their manner of instinct or "common sense". I wish one of your proud conquerors would of killed you all.

[Anonymous No.18870268]

>>18870251
>would of

[Anonymous No.18870307]

>>18869996
thanks for ruining a comfy thread

[Anonymous No.18870400]

>>18870251
alright great

[Anonymous No.18870416]

>>18870180
Very nice poem

[Anonymous No.18870449]

begome bydagorean

[Anonymous No.18870455]

>>18865561
Have you read William Blake's Milton? It will put the case for a creative life. If you struggle with it read the Milton chapter in Bloom's book on Blake.

[Anonymous No.18870528]

>>18865698
>Mark Rothko
I hate this CIA nigger like you wouldn't believe.

[Anonymous No.18870564]

>>18870251
Blake is anti-English in that sense, he creates an evil Satantic triology from Bacon, Locke, and Newton who will be defeated by prophetic imagination. Blake's Hebraic prophecy style isn't for everyone, not all of the Lord's people can be prophets.

[Anonymous No.18871488]

>>18866855
>>18866854
>>18866831
>>18866816
Nice

[Anonymous No.18871496]

>>18865698
>Hildegard von Bingen
>Andrei Tarkovsky
>Mark Rothko
>Vincent Van Gogh
>Hieronymus Bosch
>Michelangelo
>Sor Inez de la Cruz
>Tibetan Buddhist thangka and sand drawings
based, especially Rothko.

[Anonymous No.18871726]

Check out Owen Cyclops
https://twitter.com/owenbroadcast

He is interested in Christian Mysticism. Voracious reader. Currently focused on Christian Americana Mysticism and its symbology.

[Anonymous No.18872244]

>>18865561
Dan Luvisi is always posting occult gnostic shit on his instagram stories

[Anonymous No.18872310]

>>18871726
Owen is very based even though he writes like a drugged out skater
>so like this Walmart parking lot lamp fixture i saw totally dovetails with this painting of a haloed monk if u think about it and that's why the like folk-semiotics of theophany....

[Anonymous No.18872330]

>>18871496
Rothko's color field is pretentious shit, much like abstract expressionism generally. Splotches of ugly colors to give the viewer a sense of disgusted boredom from dismal chaos.

Interestingly, abstract expressionism was actually propped up by the US government to crowd out more socially critical art like pic related. The media tried to spin it as the CIA promoting the individualism and liberty of American artists against socialist realism, when in effect it's little more than neutered and sterile corporate lobby art.

[Anonymous No.18872377]

>>18872330
Here's another good piece by Irving Norman.

[Anonymous No.18872407]

>>18872330
>>18872377
Nice, but I still like Rothko: His art, and much abstract expressionism, expresses this extreme immanence, the art puts us back into ourselves because there's nothing really to look at. It's hard to express but for me it's the best illustration of fx. Spinoza.

[Anonymous No.18872437]

>>18872407
The DMV makes me feel like that too.

[Anonymous No.18872561]

>>18872437
the dmv?

[Anonymous No.18872844]

>>18865561
Shakespeare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJ4wkaWljo

[Anonymous No.18873090]

>>18872330
Wow, thank you for sharing this. It definitely has the otherworldly feeling of psychedelics, while managing to say something about the way the world works. Feels almost like a Bosch revamped for more recent times.
Do you feel like all mass art is just a prop tool of the elite?

[Anonymous No.18873180]

>>18873090
Much art is bought and sold purely for its value. Van Gogh is great but his art is sold like tesla stock and that's sad.

[Anonymous No.18874150]

I've started to search for this path also. Berdyaev might be a good read for you.
>Boпpoc o peлигиoзнoм cмыcлe твopчecтвa дo cих пop eщe никoгдa нe был пocтaвлeн, тaкoй вoпpoc нe вoзникaл дaжe в coзнaнии. Этo — вoпpoc нaшeй эпoхи, нaш вoпpoc, вoпpoc кoнeчный, к кoтopoмy пpивoдит кpизиc вceй кyльтypы.
>The Meaning of the Creative Act

[Anonymous No.18874352]

>One cannot escape from the world with greater certainty than through art, and one cannot relate to it with greater certainty than through art.

>Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force: the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak.

[Anonymous No.18874697]

>>18866758
nah

[Anonymous No.18874825]

>>18865561
John Coltrane

[Anonymous No.18874845]

>>18865561
Blake himself said every man has poetic genius in him and this is what is special and divine of man. Embrace your imagination, put time into your craft. Don’t expect rewards.

[Anonymous No.18874953]

>>18870251
>For all the riches in this world
May be gifts from the Devil or Earthly kings
I should suspect’d I worship the Devil
If I thanked my God for Earthly things

He was GOOD in a time of scientific revolution. Try to compete with Based Blake anon

[Anonymous No.18874989]

>>18874825
Alice too.

[Anonymous No.18874996]

Dante is sometimes considered to be part of the Catholic mystical tradition, and there are some sources which indicate that his vision of Heaven in the Paradiso is based on an actual mystical experience he had.