Can art save souls?

[_Morley]

On another thread, Blixa said the following: “I don't often teach books I really, really, really love. I have no patience for hearing what yahoos say about those few things that have saved my life and made it worth living.” (viewtopic.php?p=546341#p546341) This made sense to me.

A couple of decades ago, I’d lost everything. Yeah, I realize that it’s always hyperbole when one says they’d lost everything, so I should be a bit more specific. I’d lost my marriage, my job, my house, my children, and my mind. I had had shock treatments and had been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for six months. I still owned a ten year old pick-up truck. I slept in the cab to keep warm.

When I was in the psychiatric ward a friend talked me into applying to a doctoral program in Vancouver. I was living in my truck when I was accepted. I cashed in my retirement and got some loans and grants and moved into an apartment a thousand miles away. Still I knew I was going to die. The depression was so profound that it filled every pore and flavored every breath. I was going to f*****g die.

So I went to France. I took the money that I had to buy a bed and groceries and tuition and booked a flight to Paris. I was going to die but I needed to see Paris before it happened.

I spent four days at the Louvre, one day in each wing. I spent ten days in Paris with its museums and baguettes and bare-bosomed statues. Did art save my life? Did a museum save my soul?

Can art and literature and music save lives and souls as readily as religion? Or are some of us kidding ourselves?

[_zeezrom]

Oh my God!

Apparently, the answer is yes. And I'm very happy to believe it.

Morley, you have quite a story. I'm glad you seem to have found peace.

[_Samantabhadra]

Most of the art and music produced over the span of human history has been inspired by religion in one form or another. Which is another way of saying, yes, absolutely.

[_Morley]

Most of the art and music produced over the span of human history has been inspired by religion in one form or another. Which is another way of saying, yes, absolutely.

Which religion inspired this musician?

[_moksha]

I once was lost till I found the Met
was realist but am now abstract.

[_Samantabhadra]

As a self-admitted elitist and unrepentant snob, I have no problem saying that one of the main problems with our degenerate times is the extent to which popular artists are no longer inspired by the cultural and religious canon. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Mondrian, and I actually do appreciate the oeuvre of Lady Gaga (who I think has more religious themes in her music than you may realize... many of her music videos are rife with Gnostic/Esoteric Christian symbolism). But yes, to the extent that it is useful or relevant to draw a distinction between "high" and "low" culture, one of the key facets of that distinction is the sources of inspiration, and I have no trouble throwing e.g. Britney Spears to the dogs.

Also, I said most art and must over the course of human history (going back roughly 5000 years). Most art and music, not "all" art and music.

[_Blixa]

Well, I've had some terrible moments, but nothing like your trials, Morley. I am very happy you were "saved" and are here now!

Yes, art has saved, if not my soul, my life, over and over and over again.

I still like Merlin's advice to the young Arthur in T. H. White's The Once and Future King:

"The best thing for being sad...is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn---pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics---why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to being to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough.”

(In fact the bit about knowing your honour being trampled in the sewers of baser minds always comes to my mind when reading the spew of various posters here and at MDD.)

[_Hoops]

I would offer, tentatively and with great hesitation and in anticipation of being taught, that it's not the art that saves, but the creative expression. When we tap into that creative force that we all share, that spark of the Divine, we see things, we experience things, differently. Sometimes it's not lasting, sometimes it is. I think we all know some creation that has profoundly effected us.

The creative expression that speaks to us most profoundly is the one that expands us, makes us larger versions of ourselves. That, in turn, makes us more available to Life.

[_Blixa]

I would offer, tentatively and with great hesitation and in anticipation of being taught, that it's not the art that saves, but the creative expression. When we tap into that creative force that we all share, that spark of the Divine, we see things, we experience things, differently. Sometimes it's not lasting, sometimes it is. I think we all know some creation that has profoundly effected us.

The creative expression that speaks to us most profoundly is the one that expands us, makes us larger versions of ourselves. That, in turn, makes us more available to Life.

I have no trouble acknowledging that that plays a part and indeed those art practices that are more about processes and less about "objects," are those I find the most engaging.

You won't be surprised, Hoops, that the experiences I've had that are closest to anything spiritual or religious, or are perhaps actually spiritual and religious, have been while engaging with particular artworks...

[_Hoops]

I have no trouble acknowledging that that plays a part and indeed those art practices that are more about processes and less about "objects," are those I find the most engaging.

I find this interesting and would interrogate you on why that is so. For me, I find both equally fascinating. Probably because it involves talents that I can only admire from afar.

You won't be surprised, Hoops, that the experiences I've had that are closest to anything spiritual or religious, or are perhaps actually spiritual and religious, have been while engaging with particular artworks...

Not surprised at all. And me to. for what it's worth, i think art and doctrine are two sides of the same coin.