EXPRESSIVE ARTS
by Iona Miller
The Many Expressions of Art
...Art has two aspects, one for the artist and the other for the beholder...For the artist, the meaning of art lies in the apprehension of a perceptive context that is clarified and fulfilled in the work, and at the base of the whole process lies the biological purpose of attaining a higher level of consciousness, thus annulling a participation mystique...the new discovery comes to the beholder by wa of the unconscious; he takes it in like the air he breathes. --M.C. Cammerloher, Art in the Psychology of Our Time
According to Jung's theory of psychological types (see Book 4, Hod), man possesses four different possibilities of reacting to his environment. These are represented as the functions sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling. The realm of Art consists of a). the representative or imitative arts (such as dance, drama, and ceremonial magick), which portray or reproduce a psycho-physical relationship and convey "meaning"; and b). plastic arts where visual perception is the central experience.
In the Greek language, the conjunction of concrete sensation, psychic image, and spiritual meaning is termed aisthesis. It conveys both the notion of breathing in (or smelling) and perceiving. The imitative arts, and ceremonial magick, in particular, create an atmosphere which is breathed in by the participant or observer alike. The meaning is inherent in the engagement with psychic reality. Cammerloher attributes representative arts to the function intuition; plastic arts are the product of sensation. In the past, mystical man, guided by his favorite function, intuition, could attain redemption or illumination. Application of the mysteries has broadened, and mankind has reached the stage where all the functions may be developed and serve as a key to the mysteries. In a holistic viewpoint, the total person possesses balanced activation and can use a function at will.
The great artist Eugene Delacroix expressed his opinion in his journal: When I have painted a fine picture, I haven't expressed a thought. Or so they say. What fools they are! They deprive painting of all its advantages. The writer says nearly everything to be understood. In painting a mysterious bond is established between the souls of the sitters and those of the spectator. He sees the faces, external nature; but he thinks inwardly the thought that is common to all people, in which some give body in writing, yet altering its fragile essence.
Art embodies or lends a visible and demonstrable form to perception and image. As the image becomes "fleshed out," there is an experience of fulfillment for artist or beholder alike which transcends the merely aesthetic. The art-experience enables man to consciously experience his particular perceptions and images by formative effort. Thus nature becomes both subject and object. Man as nature, becomes reflective, self-aware and perceptive. The dichotomy of the subject-object, or I-It relationship is harmonized. This enables the artist to annul his unconscious identification with the environment, which is known in psychology as participation mystique.
The Art of Painting:
Everyone possesses the ability to produce some visual representation of his perceptions, with or without formal training.
Cammerloher states: "The varying simplicity or development of the form then provides an absolutely unmistakable picture of the level his perceptions have attained." The three basic stages of artistic knowledge of the world are categorized as delimitation, direction and variability of boundaries and direction.
Art is the language for the communication of perceptions. Therefore, artistic statements are relative to the degree of knowledge attained. One who knows the language of art transmits more information. This does not refer to technical training, but to the ability to state perceptions clearly and consciously, on a precise level. In this manner, the artist produces "the only possible demonstration of the stage of development attained by his images." In other words, he has an ability to reproduce that which he sees with his inner eye. As a means of removing the artist from participation mystique, the artistic act is a way of illumination.
Anyone is capable of this experience at any level of technical ability. Technical art may be corresponded to the left lobe of the brain and is the product of logic (or thinking). An objective experience is reproduced, for example a photographic-type portrait or external landscape. Imaginal art, however, seems to emerge from the right brain, and is a grace or gift from the soul. We could hardly expect the artist to work without a model, and in this instance the model is internal reality. he still paints that which is "seen." But, the subjective experience is concretized in a communicative form, and he is able to share the quality of his vision with others. Delimitation implies a sharp boundary; there is now an inside and outside (the magic circle is formed).
With the drawing of the boundary, the force of creative action is acquired. The artist uses the canvas to focus his vision, which is executed using the magic wand of the brush (or knife). When one becomes able to differentiate detail within the boundary, dimensionality is established. Complex contours and their mutual relationships are established with precision.
The variable boundary stage may be characterized by the three-quarter profile, and utilizes the principle known as fore-shortening. Foreshortening gives the illusion of proper relative size. At this stage of perception-knowledge, space acquires a meaning of its own; static vision becomes dynamic; relativity becomes the prevailing view. Foreshortening, or perspective drawing, combined with the technique of mixing paints known as chiaroscuro, creates the illusion of depth in a painting.
The great masters of the Italian Renaissance developed this treatment of light and shade in painting, and this advance in technique made their work remarkably life-like. For the painter, the world is revealed by illumination. Any painting (other than simple graphic arts) either contains a light source within itself, or one is depicted as illuminating the scene from an assumed point outside the picture. It is the painter's aim to capture as accurately as possible the effects of light on visual perception.
Light and color are intimately related. Most people realize that color variation is the result of absorption patterns when an object is hit by white light. The variations of the spectrum which aren't absorbed are reflected back to the eye. Color is not only important in paining, but in psychology. Much ado has been made in recent years of various color therapies. However, these techniques ar inconsistent in their attributions of the various properties of color in respect to emotional response. On this point the Qabalah furnishes an extensive, cohesive theory worthy of individual testing.
Colors are defined in terms of hue, value and chroma. Hue distinguishes one color from another, such as red from green. Value indicates lightness or brightness, and is represented by ten shades of gray ranging from black to white. Chroma means intensity or saturation of color; is it relatively pure or grayish? Colors are combined in painting according to the elements of harmony. Colors emerge from a spectrum, and so they group in sequences. These sequences may be used as a tool for determining what is attractive to the eye, to convey just the right signals to produce the desired effect. Contrary signals to the eye disturb the effect, whether they are noticed consciously, or not. There are different types of harmonies. Analogous harmony comes from adjacent hues which lie next to each other in the spectrum, such as blue with its adjacents turquoise and violet.
Complementary harmonies mix colors which are inherently opposites, like yellow and violet, or orange and turquoise, and red and green. In a balanced harmony the entire color spectrum is exploited. A primary triad includes magenta, yellow and turquoise. A four color harmony, or tetrad, could include red, yellow, blue-green and violet, for example. In a dominant harmony one color is glorified and its influence extends over the entire design. Harmony is assured by bringing all colors into a consistent relationship. Another important aspect of painting is the law of field size, or control of the field. An expert in this is able to create unique and startling color illusions.
Control of the field is achieved through producing a quality which pervades the entire canvas. It is an illumination quality -- bright, dark, grayish. The artist then adds touches of hue to make the canvas come alive, create a world of its own. Details in the canvas may appear lustrous, iridescent, luminous. Other qualities are transparency, texture, and solidity. To make a lustrous effect, requires mixing the background in shades by adding black. Then, pure intense color in small amounts appears lustrous.
Luster depends upon black contrast. The iridescent effect, like opal or mother-of-pearl, requires a background of a gray field. The predominance of soft gray creates an illusion of mistiness. The luminous effect is complex and subtle. Purity contrast, not value or hue, yields the desired effect. The luminous effect was brought to perfection by Rembrandt. The effect is seen in paintings where the light source is internal, such as a candle or fire-glow. Also, light shining into the eyes blurs vision, so this diffuseness must be accounted for in the painting.
Highlights and shadows add the finishing touches. A delicate transition from normal color into shadow, with a diffuse edge simulates "reality." The Art of Magic There is magic in art, and art in Magick. The magic of art is its expression of symbol or prototype. Art is the symbolic forming of archetypes working in time. In the creative process, the artist becomes seized or fascinated; the archetype rises up in him and he creates the images in his personal form. He shapes them into a "work" because he has been sufficiently aroused to call forth his creative powers.
This process is analogous to that produced through ceremonial magick. At the culmination of the rite comes the assumption of the godform, where the aspirant is seized by the archetypal power he has called up. The creative power of this form subsumes him. His "work" is in fact the Opus of the Great Work, the process of Self-transformation. Drama and dance are closely related in origin to ceremonial magic. So is the art of perfumery, through the development of incenses and fumigations. These scents were designed as psycho-sensory evocations. They call forth certain psychological states. Rhythmic swaying and dancing, and circumambulations are fundamental in ritual.
Modern forms of dance have their origins in rites of the past. According to Julian Jaynes, in The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, ballet is intimately linked with the goddess Artemis, which corresponds with path 25, ART. The golden oracle at Ephesus, famous for its enormous wealth, had trained eunuchs as mouthpieces for the goddess Artemis...and the abnormal dancing on the tips of the toes of modern ballerinas is though to derive from the dances before the altar of the goddess. In Magick, the will and the senses conspire to stir the emotions.
Through consecrations, oaths, invocations, the aspirant changes his experience of reality. He is transported to another world in a quantum leap of consciousness. A modern, example, which is not magick, per se, is the ability of movie makers to create a simulated 'astral journey." Caught up in identification with the movie, we are led along through another time, another place, another life, another world. Magick seeks to tap mystical experiences of this type which are internal, and spiritually meaningful.
In Magickal ceremony, the aspirant knows whether the work appeals to him; he may consciously understand, or wish to understand the latent meaning of the rite. In either event he intuitively perceives and apprehends the archetypes and their meaning. They enter into him unconsciously. In a discussion of Art, it is pertinent to recall that Crowley re-named Path 25, changing its name from Temperance to Art. We may infer from the position of this path on the Tree of Life (between Yesod and Tiphareth), that it concerns harmonization of the archetypal dynamics of "spirit" (Hod/Mercury) and "nature" (Netzach/Venus). Art, then, forms the magickal link between the archetypal and instinctual realms.
We may also refer to creative aspects of psychology, technology, alchemy, and magick as artistic expressions. There are also correspondences with Tantra, sex magick, and enflamment. Entrance to the solar sphere Tiphareth via the 25th Path, Trump XIV, in Magick implies Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. In psychology, this process is termed Individuation or coming into consciousness of the Self. This implies a breaking up of one's involvement in the collective psyche, or participation mystique, and a transformation of personality.
To enter this state "balance is required--the ability to let the ego move downstream, to lose its centrality and control, to give in, submit, enjoy and pleasure itself in the floodtide of becoming and then return to its central point, enriched by the experience; strengthened by its weakness, in its recognition of the limitations imposed by living entirely within the world of the natural standpoint."
In his work Ego at the Threshold, Edward Sampson substitutes the word 'transcendent' for the power of archetypal spirit, and states that "Balance is achieved when the natural standpoint and the transcendent meet in an atmosphere that permits the transcendent more than lip-service guidance in our everyday lives; with such balance we can extend ourselves beyond the everyday and experience a world always available; balance is achieved when the ego moves off to the side, enjoying living life, not merely thinking about it."
Magick, as art, carries us into the sacred realm outside of time and space, and may even predict the future. Art may be defined as recognition, selection and projection. Craft, on the other hand, (including Wicca, often termed 'the Craft") connotes the manual dexterity, charm or ability to create what you want. Art is a process, not a product, not the selection of a product. Art and magick build pathways in the mind for energy to flow; it develops a characteristic archetypal pattern. In the "arte de magick," man gives form to his own vision of Reality. The psychological effect of ceremony is profound and transformative; nature looses her omnipotence, and the aspirant gains independence, a sense of purpose. Magick mediates between the bizarre inner world and ego-consciousness.
According to Jung's theory of psychological types (see Book 4, Hod), man possesses four different possibilities of reacting to his environment. These are represented as the functions sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling. The realm of Art consists of a). the representative or imitative arts (such as dance, drama, and ceremonial magick), which portray or reproduce a psycho-physical relationship and convey "meaning"; and b). plastic arts where visual perception is the central experience.
In the Greek language, the conjunction of concrete sensation, psychic image, and spiritual meaning is termed aisthesis. It conveys both the notion of breathing in (or smelling) and perceiving. The imitative arts, and ceremonial magick, in particular, create an atmosphere which is breathed in by the participant or observer alike. The meaning is inherent in the engagement with psychic reality. Cammerloher attributes representative arts to the function intuition; plastic arts are the product of sensation. In the past, mystical man, guided by his favorite function, intuition, could attain redemption or illumination. Application of the mysteries has broadened, and mankind has reached the stage where all the functions may be developed and serve as a key to the mysteries. In a holistic viewpoint, the total person possesses balanced activation and can use a function at will.
The great artist Eugene Delacroix expressed his opinion in his journal: When I have painted a fine picture, I haven't expressed a thought. Or so they say. What fools they are! They deprive painting of all its advantages. The writer says nearly everything to be understood. In painting a mysterious bond is established between the souls of the sitters and those of the spectator. He sees the faces, external nature; but he thinks inwardly the thought that is common to all people, in which some give body in writing, yet altering its fragile essence.
Art embodies or lends a visible and demonstrable form to perception and image. As the image becomes "fleshed out," there is an experience of fulfillment for artist or beholder alike which transcends the merely aesthetic. The art-experience enables man to consciously experience his particular perceptions and images by formative effort. Thus nature becomes both subject and object. Man as nature, becomes reflective, self-aware and perceptive. The dichotomy of the subject-object, or I-It relationship is harmonized. This enables the artist to annul his unconscious identification with the environment, which is known in psychology as participation mystique.
The Art of Painting:
Everyone possesses the ability to produce some visual representation of his perceptions, with or without formal training.
Cammerloher states: "The varying simplicity or development of the form then provides an absolutely unmistakable picture of the level his perceptions have attained." The three basic stages of artistic knowledge of the world are categorized as delimitation, direction and variability of boundaries and direction.
Art is the language for the communication of perceptions. Therefore, artistic statements are relative to the degree of knowledge attained. One who knows the language of art transmits more information. This does not refer to technical training, but to the ability to state perceptions clearly and consciously, on a precise level. In this manner, the artist produces "the only possible demonstration of the stage of development attained by his images." In other words, he has an ability to reproduce that which he sees with his inner eye. As a means of removing the artist from participation mystique, the artistic act is a way of illumination.
Anyone is capable of this experience at any level of technical ability. Technical art may be corresponded to the left lobe of the brain and is the product of logic (or thinking). An objective experience is reproduced, for example a photographic-type portrait or external landscape. Imaginal art, however, seems to emerge from the right brain, and is a grace or gift from the soul. We could hardly expect the artist to work without a model, and in this instance the model is internal reality. he still paints that which is "seen." But, the subjective experience is concretized in a communicative form, and he is able to share the quality of his vision with others. Delimitation implies a sharp boundary; there is now an inside and outside (the magic circle is formed).
With the drawing of the boundary, the force of creative action is acquired. The artist uses the canvas to focus his vision, which is executed using the magic wand of the brush (or knife). When one becomes able to differentiate detail within the boundary, dimensionality is established. Complex contours and their mutual relationships are established with precision.
The variable boundary stage may be characterized by the three-quarter profile, and utilizes the principle known as fore-shortening. Foreshortening gives the illusion of proper relative size. At this stage of perception-knowledge, space acquires a meaning of its own; static vision becomes dynamic; relativity becomes the prevailing view. Foreshortening, or perspective drawing, combined with the technique of mixing paints known as chiaroscuro, creates the illusion of depth in a painting.
The great masters of the Italian Renaissance developed this treatment of light and shade in painting, and this advance in technique made their work remarkably life-like. For the painter, the world is revealed by illumination. Any painting (other than simple graphic arts) either contains a light source within itself, or one is depicted as illuminating the scene from an assumed point outside the picture. It is the painter's aim to capture as accurately as possible the effects of light on visual perception.
Light and color are intimately related. Most people realize that color variation is the result of absorption patterns when an object is hit by white light. The variations of the spectrum which aren't absorbed are reflected back to the eye. Color is not only important in paining, but in psychology. Much ado has been made in recent years of various color therapies. However, these techniques ar inconsistent in their attributions of the various properties of color in respect to emotional response. On this point the Qabalah furnishes an extensive, cohesive theory worthy of individual testing.
Colors are defined in terms of hue, value and chroma. Hue distinguishes one color from another, such as red from green. Value indicates lightness or brightness, and is represented by ten shades of gray ranging from black to white. Chroma means intensity or saturation of color; is it relatively pure or grayish? Colors are combined in painting according to the elements of harmony. Colors emerge from a spectrum, and so they group in sequences. These sequences may be used as a tool for determining what is attractive to the eye, to convey just the right signals to produce the desired effect. Contrary signals to the eye disturb the effect, whether they are noticed consciously, or not. There are different types of harmonies. Analogous harmony comes from adjacent hues which lie next to each other in the spectrum, such as blue with its adjacents turquoise and violet.
Complementary harmonies mix colors which are inherently opposites, like yellow and violet, or orange and turquoise, and red and green. In a balanced harmony the entire color spectrum is exploited. A primary triad includes magenta, yellow and turquoise. A four color harmony, or tetrad, could include red, yellow, blue-green and violet, for example. In a dominant harmony one color is glorified and its influence extends over the entire design. Harmony is assured by bringing all colors into a consistent relationship. Another important aspect of painting is the law of field size, or control of the field. An expert in this is able to create unique and startling color illusions.
Control of the field is achieved through producing a quality which pervades the entire canvas. It is an illumination quality -- bright, dark, grayish. The artist then adds touches of hue to make the canvas come alive, create a world of its own. Details in the canvas may appear lustrous, iridescent, luminous. Other qualities are transparency, texture, and solidity. To make a lustrous effect, requires mixing the background in shades by adding black. Then, pure intense color in small amounts appears lustrous.
Luster depends upon black contrast. The iridescent effect, like opal or mother-of-pearl, requires a background of a gray field. The predominance of soft gray creates an illusion of mistiness. The luminous effect is complex and subtle. Purity contrast, not value or hue, yields the desired effect. The luminous effect was brought to perfection by Rembrandt. The effect is seen in paintings where the light source is internal, such as a candle or fire-glow. Also, light shining into the eyes blurs vision, so this diffuseness must be accounted for in the painting.
Highlights and shadows add the finishing touches. A delicate transition from normal color into shadow, with a diffuse edge simulates "reality." The Art of Magic There is magic in art, and art in Magick. The magic of art is its expression of symbol or prototype. Art is the symbolic forming of archetypes working in time. In the creative process, the artist becomes seized or fascinated; the archetype rises up in him and he creates the images in his personal form. He shapes them into a "work" because he has been sufficiently aroused to call forth his creative powers.
This process is analogous to that produced through ceremonial magick. At the culmination of the rite comes the assumption of the godform, where the aspirant is seized by the archetypal power he has called up. The creative power of this form subsumes him. His "work" is in fact the Opus of the Great Work, the process of Self-transformation. Drama and dance are closely related in origin to ceremonial magic. So is the art of perfumery, through the development of incenses and fumigations. These scents were designed as psycho-sensory evocations. They call forth certain psychological states. Rhythmic swaying and dancing, and circumambulations are fundamental in ritual.
Modern forms of dance have their origins in rites of the past. According to Julian Jaynes, in The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, ballet is intimately linked with the goddess Artemis, which corresponds with path 25, ART. The golden oracle at Ephesus, famous for its enormous wealth, had trained eunuchs as mouthpieces for the goddess Artemis...and the abnormal dancing on the tips of the toes of modern ballerinas is though to derive from the dances before the altar of the goddess. In Magick, the will and the senses conspire to stir the emotions.
Through consecrations, oaths, invocations, the aspirant changes his experience of reality. He is transported to another world in a quantum leap of consciousness. A modern, example, which is not magick, per se, is the ability of movie makers to create a simulated 'astral journey." Caught up in identification with the movie, we are led along through another time, another place, another life, another world. Magick seeks to tap mystical experiences of this type which are internal, and spiritually meaningful.
In Magickal ceremony, the aspirant knows whether the work appeals to him; he may consciously understand, or wish to understand the latent meaning of the rite. In either event he intuitively perceives and apprehends the archetypes and their meaning. They enter into him unconsciously. In a discussion of Art, it is pertinent to recall that Crowley re-named Path 25, changing its name from Temperance to Art. We may infer from the position of this path on the Tree of Life (between Yesod and Tiphareth), that it concerns harmonization of the archetypal dynamics of "spirit" (Hod/Mercury) and "nature" (Netzach/Venus). Art, then, forms the magickal link between the archetypal and instinctual realms.
We may also refer to creative aspects of psychology, technology, alchemy, and magick as artistic expressions. There are also correspondences with Tantra, sex magick, and enflamment. Entrance to the solar sphere Tiphareth via the 25th Path, Trump XIV, in Magick implies Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. In psychology, this process is termed Individuation or coming into consciousness of the Self. This implies a breaking up of one's involvement in the collective psyche, or participation mystique, and a transformation of personality.
To enter this state "balance is required--the ability to let the ego move downstream, to lose its centrality and control, to give in, submit, enjoy and pleasure itself in the floodtide of becoming and then return to its central point, enriched by the experience; strengthened by its weakness, in its recognition of the limitations imposed by living entirely within the world of the natural standpoint."
In his work Ego at the Threshold, Edward Sampson substitutes the word 'transcendent' for the power of archetypal spirit, and states that "Balance is achieved when the natural standpoint and the transcendent meet in an atmosphere that permits the transcendent more than lip-service guidance in our everyday lives; with such balance we can extend ourselves beyond the everyday and experience a world always available; balance is achieved when the ego moves off to the side, enjoying living life, not merely thinking about it."
Magick, as art, carries us into the sacred realm outside of time and space, and may even predict the future. Art may be defined as recognition, selection and projection. Craft, on the other hand, (including Wicca, often termed 'the Craft") connotes the manual dexterity, charm or ability to create what you want. Art is a process, not a product, not the selection of a product. Art and magick build pathways in the mind for energy to flow; it develops a characteristic archetypal pattern. In the "arte de magick," man gives form to his own vision of Reality. The psychological effect of ceremony is profound and transformative; nature looses her omnipotence, and the aspirant gains independence, a sense of purpose. Magick mediates between the bizarre inner world and ego-consciousness.
CREATIVE VISION
The Art of Alchemy
Another variation on the theme of magic is the alchemical Opus. It also involves an aspirant practicing the process of self-transformation. Carl Jung and his followers have detailed the correspondences between the alchemical work and modern psychotherapy. It seems, in fact, that alchemy is an antique form of psychotherapy, or service to the psyche, (or the gods). In projecting the contents of his unconscious onto the elements of the work (sun = gold, moon = silver, mercury = quicksilver, etc.) the alchemist is able to unite the opposites within himself and effect the transformation into the Philosopher's Stone. This stone, in fact, represents the point of maximum equilibration.
Alchemy is a sacred work, requiring the aspirant to be Self-oriented, rather than ego-oriented. The individual is considered a microcosm of the whole of existence: The individual psyche is and must be a whole world within itself in order to stand over and against the outer world and fulfill its task to be a carrier of consciousness. For the scales to be balanced, the individual must be of equal weight to the whole world. In Psychotherapy and Alchemy, Edward Edinger lists the following among the alchemical operations: calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio, seperatio, and the final coniunctio which results in the birth of the homunculus or Philosopher's Stone.
Poetic Metaphor: For the poet is a light and winged and holy Thing and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses. And the mind is no longer in him. When he has not attained this state, he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles. --Plato/Ion There is an ecstatic inspiration common to vision and word, song and prophecy. The origins of poetry lie deep in the history of mankind. In the remote past the subconscious spontaneously produced magical incantations and songs.
This transpersonal expression was fundamental in the creation of society or culture. The rhythmic sensuous images of prophecy and poetry enriched the consciousness of the individual and group, alike. In Plato's viewpoint the poet does not awaken the images; rather, the images awaken him. The gift of the poet is to capture and record the interrelationship of an archetype with his intellectual and emotional complexes, in an instant of time. Assuming that his technique is proficient, his task is to prevent the ego from tampering with the poem, refining or tempering the contents of the psyche, convinced of personally writing (rather than receiving) the poem.
Among the metaphors of poetic speech are perceptions made through paranormal experiences of the senses. An example is "seeing music", "hearing the stars sing" or experiencing "bitter cold." In each descriptive phrase a quality or experience of one sense is combined with an object not ordinarily associated with it. Nevertheless, an understandable meaning is conveyed intuitively. We all sense the inherent meaning of "warm or cool colors" or "bright sounds".
This perceptual phenomenon is known as synesthesia, or sensory blending. This sensory blending is common in mystical experiences of an "extrasensory" nature. Actually they never are perceived through an extra sense, at all. But through a re-visioned experience of the normal five senses. Poets are able to 'touch the stars", or see "dawn smile", or be "lulled by glowing light as if it were music". Pervading a high degree of poetic metaphors are images of light and sound, in which brightness equates with loudness and brightness and pitch have an affinity. However, this doesn't mean loudness and brightness are perceptually or metaphorically equivalent in all cases. There are many examples of poets who were involved in a spiritual quest. William Blake, of course, combined both his talents in poetry and illustration.
The 19th century revival of the Western occult tradition influenced the works of W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley. In America, the New England contingent of Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickenson and others who sought reality through spiritual intuition. Some of the most soul-moving poetry comes from the writings of the Saints or Masters of the East, the mystic poets. There is a great deal of beautiful Sufi poetry. Sikh scripture is also replete with references to the Light and the Sound of divinity. Kabir and Guru Nanak were saints who expressed their love for the Lord din poetry. Other oriental poetic forms include the Zen Koan, and Haiku. Both convey a profound spiritual message in a minimal number of words. Modern examples of the psychological quest are poetess Anne Sexton, Rainier Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman and Robert Bly.
The "Artistic Temperament" The public has a way of creative mythologizing which makes the artist more than an ordinary person. The phenomena which creates movie stars and superstars occurs in other fields and projects the "mad scientist", or "eccentric artist." Part of the artist's gift is his relative lack of adaptation to the values of "average" society. The artist is aloof from daily life, in a world of his or her own. Or, if they are close to the streets, they have a radically different perspective on things which produces his unique vision. Rodin, Picasso, and Dali are all examples of psychological "rugged individualism." An artisan has a trade; an artist lives an alternative lifestyle. It is impossible to analyze why this impulse occurs to one individual and not another.
According to Jung, an artist leads a dual existence; he mediates between world like a shaman: In his capacity of artist (the person)....is objective and impersonal -- even inhuman -- for as an artist he is his work, and not a human being. Jung observed that every creative person could be considered a "duality or a synthesis of contradictory attitudes," a unique human with a personal life, but also the carrier of an impersonal creative process. The artist's creative achievement cannot be accounted for by an examination of his personal psychology. A Masterwork stands on its own. Jung even went further by stating that: The personal life of the poet cannot be hold essential to his art -- but at most a help or a hindrance to his creative task. He may go the way of a Philistine, a good citizen, a neurotic, a fool, or a criminal. His personal career may be inevitable and interesting, but it does not explain the poet.
Society frequently projects artists are folk heroes or antiheroes. In Sam Keen's Voices and Visions, Joseph Campbell states: The creative mythology of the modern artists arises when the individual has an experience of his own -- of order, or horror, or beauty -- that he tries to communicate by creating a private mythology. So it is the creative individual who must give us a totally new type of nontheological revelation, who must be the new spiritual guide. Campbell sees creative artistic work as a "response to the need to escape from danger and chaos and find some new security." This inner quiet repeats the main theme of the hero monomyth (see Book VII, Tiphareth for Hero archetype).
Further development of consciousness leads the artist to acute perception. He no longer simply reflects the collective values, he is now free to criticize them. Campbell states, "...the world of the artist or the intellectual must be fierce, accurate in its judgment of the fault in a person or society. But along side this judgment there must be affirmation and compassion. What is important is to keep the dissonance between judgment and compassion." It is curious that Campbell should employ precisely these words. This judgment and compassion refer explicitly to the qualities know respectively (in qabalistic terms), as Geburah/Mars and Chesed/Jupiter. They are the sphere which are encountered immediately after Tiphareth-consciousness is achieved. They represent aspects of the Individuality, just as the lower spheres denoted aspects of the personality.
Specifically, Geburah represents the force aspect of individuality. Chesed represents and transmits the ideal form of the individuality from the Supernal Triad to consciousness. The Supernal Triad (or top three spheres) represents existence so ideal the mind cannot conceptualize it. It is the true home of the soul. For consciousness to enter this level of mystical attainment means balancing the forces of Geburah and Chesed on the Middle Pillar. This harmonization corresponds with path 13, Trump II, The High Priestess. We may consider The High Priestess a higher octave of "Art," since both a lunar in nature. The Priestess knows the art of piercing the veil, or soul-making. Not all would-be artists, however, attain this integrated ideal. Like shamans, some artists have inherently imbalanced personalities. Many experience a gut-wrenching pathos, a sad yearning which may be encoded in their work.
Susanne Langer describes her reaction to such art in Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling.The fact that I know as much as I do of the essence of pothos comes from meeting with great music (and art). If those passages make me sad is an extraneous and irrelevant detail. My grasp of the essence of sadness...comes not from moments when I have seen sadness, but from moments when I have seen sadness before me released from entanglements with contingency. We have seen this in great beauty, in the works of our greatest artists.
In therapy, unexpressed pathos (which is an indicator of the Puer archetype; see Chapter 7, Tiphareth), is sometimes given vent through creative activity. The therapeutic value of art has long been recognized. Jung encouraged his patients to give free reign to their preconscious contents by painting in a spontaneous manner. However, Langer points out that, It may well be that an artist never creates a work of art unless he is emotionally stirred; if so, it does not follow that this, his own emotional excitement is what he portrays. ...may portray something quite independent of his own psychic processes. He may go beyond the thing felt. In art therapy, the resulting paintings often lack technical precision, but show striking examples of the symbols and imagery of the individuation process.
The most prominent motif in these artistic expressions is the mandala. It is a variation on the magical circle, a symbol of the unfolding Self. A modern cultural example of unfolding variations on the mandala comes from a branch of technological art which corresponds with Path 25: Aerospace. The quest is sublimated now into the creation and indwelling of a new extension of mankind's world -- the space station. The majority of these are wheel-shaped for efficiencies sake. Here the puer tendency to verticality and ascensionism is disciplined to very pragmatic ends. There is always the puer complex at work motivating the artist, as well as an element of Narcissism.
The artist has a love relationship with the image of himself which is projected onto the canvas. Both imaginal art and archetypal thought enliven the world of fantasy and imagination, by turning vision inward. They are a release from the literalization of object-orientation. They take the psychic energy which normally flows outward, and turn it in. Art therapy is a way of integrating the values of archetypes. But in order for the values of, let's say the anima or animus, to be incorporated into the personality of the artist, he or she must assimilate the psychological significance of their own work. Otherwise, the creative urge may be just another way of projecting one's inner reality into the outer world.
This integration does not always happen spontaneously to the artist. If this were so, every great artist or poet would be a Self-Realized or God-Realized individual. History has shown different. Discipline is not the only distinction between the true artist and the dabbler or dilettante. To subject oneself to hard work and the evaluation of one's fellow man is no small accomplishment. The development of artistic insight rather than an externalization of one's specific neurosis is another. One must combine the innate curiosity and vitality of youth with the maturity and dedication of experience.
In her classic on the archetype of Eternal Youth, Puer Aeternus, Marie Louise vonFranz discusses the artist and puer complex. In the really great artist there is always a puer at first, but it can go further. It is a question of feeling-judgment. If one ceases to be an artist when ceasing to be puer, then one was never really an artist. Objectifying the puer, is only the first step. Puer has to learn to carry on with the work he does not like, not only with work where he is carried away by great enthusiasm, which is something everybody can do...being carried away by a festival of work. Puer has to kick himself again and again to take up the boring job through sheer will power. Puer is also the impulse to feel special, precocious, or gifted. The complex is a desire. What, then, are the psychological criteria for an "artist"?
VonFranz lists some in her work, Creation Myths....these four factors -- originality, consistency, intensity, and subtlety -- (show) the differences between someone who has creative fantasies and someone who is only spinning neurotic nonesense...the continuity of devotion an individual is capable of giving his fantasy is very important and shows the difference between someone who is gifted with creative fantasy and somebody sucked into sterile unconscious material. There are also certain psychological types more adapted or inclined toward artistic expression.
Different types -- both introverts and extroverts -- pursue different areas of art, such as fine art or performance art. Many artists are Dionysian temperaments strong on Sensation-Perceiving (SP). This penchant for acting on impulse contains a seeming paradox, for SPs, living only for immediate action, become the world's great performing artists: the virtuosos of art, entertainment, and adventure. The great painters, instrumentalists, vocalists, dancers, sculptors, photographers, athletes, hunters, racers, gamblers -- all need the skills which come only from excited concentration on an activity for long periods. No other type can mobilize what virtuosity takes: untold hours of continuous action. ...In a sense the SP does not work, for work implies production, completion, and accomplishment. The SP has no such desire for closure, completion, finishing. He is process-oriented. What ensues from his action is mere product, mere outcome, mere result, and is incidental.
Thus, the SP's "work" is essentially play.(Kiersey, Bates, 1978) In Myers-Briggs terms, ISFP is known as "the Artist"; ESFP as "Entertainer"; INFJ as "Author"; INTO as "Architect"; ENTP as "Inventor"; ISTP as "Artisan"; while ESTP is a born "Promoter".
Another variation on the theme of magic is the alchemical Opus. It also involves an aspirant practicing the process of self-transformation. Carl Jung and his followers have detailed the correspondences between the alchemical work and modern psychotherapy. It seems, in fact, that alchemy is an antique form of psychotherapy, or service to the psyche, (or the gods). In projecting the contents of his unconscious onto the elements of the work (sun = gold, moon = silver, mercury = quicksilver, etc.) the alchemist is able to unite the opposites within himself and effect the transformation into the Philosopher's Stone. This stone, in fact, represents the point of maximum equilibration.
Alchemy is a sacred work, requiring the aspirant to be Self-oriented, rather than ego-oriented. The individual is considered a microcosm of the whole of existence: The individual psyche is and must be a whole world within itself in order to stand over and against the outer world and fulfill its task to be a carrier of consciousness. For the scales to be balanced, the individual must be of equal weight to the whole world. In Psychotherapy and Alchemy, Edward Edinger lists the following among the alchemical operations: calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio, seperatio, and the final coniunctio which results in the birth of the homunculus or Philosopher's Stone.
Poetic Metaphor: For the poet is a light and winged and holy Thing and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses. And the mind is no longer in him. When he has not attained this state, he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles. --Plato/Ion There is an ecstatic inspiration common to vision and word, song and prophecy. The origins of poetry lie deep in the history of mankind. In the remote past the subconscious spontaneously produced magical incantations and songs.
This transpersonal expression was fundamental in the creation of society or culture. The rhythmic sensuous images of prophecy and poetry enriched the consciousness of the individual and group, alike. In Plato's viewpoint the poet does not awaken the images; rather, the images awaken him. The gift of the poet is to capture and record the interrelationship of an archetype with his intellectual and emotional complexes, in an instant of time. Assuming that his technique is proficient, his task is to prevent the ego from tampering with the poem, refining or tempering the contents of the psyche, convinced of personally writing (rather than receiving) the poem.
Among the metaphors of poetic speech are perceptions made through paranormal experiences of the senses. An example is "seeing music", "hearing the stars sing" or experiencing "bitter cold." In each descriptive phrase a quality or experience of one sense is combined with an object not ordinarily associated with it. Nevertheless, an understandable meaning is conveyed intuitively. We all sense the inherent meaning of "warm or cool colors" or "bright sounds".
This perceptual phenomenon is known as synesthesia, or sensory blending. This sensory blending is common in mystical experiences of an "extrasensory" nature. Actually they never are perceived through an extra sense, at all. But through a re-visioned experience of the normal five senses. Poets are able to 'touch the stars", or see "dawn smile", or be "lulled by glowing light as if it were music". Pervading a high degree of poetic metaphors are images of light and sound, in which brightness equates with loudness and brightness and pitch have an affinity. However, this doesn't mean loudness and brightness are perceptually or metaphorically equivalent in all cases. There are many examples of poets who were involved in a spiritual quest. William Blake, of course, combined both his talents in poetry and illustration.
The 19th century revival of the Western occult tradition influenced the works of W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley. In America, the New England contingent of Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickenson and others who sought reality through spiritual intuition. Some of the most soul-moving poetry comes from the writings of the Saints or Masters of the East, the mystic poets. There is a great deal of beautiful Sufi poetry. Sikh scripture is also replete with references to the Light and the Sound of divinity. Kabir and Guru Nanak were saints who expressed their love for the Lord din poetry. Other oriental poetic forms include the Zen Koan, and Haiku. Both convey a profound spiritual message in a minimal number of words. Modern examples of the psychological quest are poetess Anne Sexton, Rainier Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman and Robert Bly.
The "Artistic Temperament" The public has a way of creative mythologizing which makes the artist more than an ordinary person. The phenomena which creates movie stars and superstars occurs in other fields and projects the "mad scientist", or "eccentric artist." Part of the artist's gift is his relative lack of adaptation to the values of "average" society. The artist is aloof from daily life, in a world of his or her own. Or, if they are close to the streets, they have a radically different perspective on things which produces his unique vision. Rodin, Picasso, and Dali are all examples of psychological "rugged individualism." An artisan has a trade; an artist lives an alternative lifestyle. It is impossible to analyze why this impulse occurs to one individual and not another.
According to Jung, an artist leads a dual existence; he mediates between world like a shaman: In his capacity of artist (the person)....is objective and impersonal -- even inhuman -- for as an artist he is his work, and not a human being. Jung observed that every creative person could be considered a "duality or a synthesis of contradictory attitudes," a unique human with a personal life, but also the carrier of an impersonal creative process. The artist's creative achievement cannot be accounted for by an examination of his personal psychology. A Masterwork stands on its own. Jung even went further by stating that: The personal life of the poet cannot be hold essential to his art -- but at most a help or a hindrance to his creative task. He may go the way of a Philistine, a good citizen, a neurotic, a fool, or a criminal. His personal career may be inevitable and interesting, but it does not explain the poet.
Society frequently projects artists are folk heroes or antiheroes. In Sam Keen's Voices and Visions, Joseph Campbell states: The creative mythology of the modern artists arises when the individual has an experience of his own -- of order, or horror, or beauty -- that he tries to communicate by creating a private mythology. So it is the creative individual who must give us a totally new type of nontheological revelation, who must be the new spiritual guide. Campbell sees creative artistic work as a "response to the need to escape from danger and chaos and find some new security." This inner quiet repeats the main theme of the hero monomyth (see Book VII, Tiphareth for Hero archetype).
Further development of consciousness leads the artist to acute perception. He no longer simply reflects the collective values, he is now free to criticize them. Campbell states, "...the world of the artist or the intellectual must be fierce, accurate in its judgment of the fault in a person or society. But along side this judgment there must be affirmation and compassion. What is important is to keep the dissonance between judgment and compassion." It is curious that Campbell should employ precisely these words. This judgment and compassion refer explicitly to the qualities know respectively (in qabalistic terms), as Geburah/Mars and Chesed/Jupiter. They are the sphere which are encountered immediately after Tiphareth-consciousness is achieved. They represent aspects of the Individuality, just as the lower spheres denoted aspects of the personality.
Specifically, Geburah represents the force aspect of individuality. Chesed represents and transmits the ideal form of the individuality from the Supernal Triad to consciousness. The Supernal Triad (or top three spheres) represents existence so ideal the mind cannot conceptualize it. It is the true home of the soul. For consciousness to enter this level of mystical attainment means balancing the forces of Geburah and Chesed on the Middle Pillar. This harmonization corresponds with path 13, Trump II, The High Priestess. We may consider The High Priestess a higher octave of "Art," since both a lunar in nature. The Priestess knows the art of piercing the veil, or soul-making. Not all would-be artists, however, attain this integrated ideal. Like shamans, some artists have inherently imbalanced personalities. Many experience a gut-wrenching pathos, a sad yearning which may be encoded in their work.
Susanne Langer describes her reaction to such art in Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling.The fact that I know as much as I do of the essence of pothos comes from meeting with great music (and art). If those passages make me sad is an extraneous and irrelevant detail. My grasp of the essence of sadness...comes not from moments when I have seen sadness, but from moments when I have seen sadness before me released from entanglements with contingency. We have seen this in great beauty, in the works of our greatest artists.
In therapy, unexpressed pathos (which is an indicator of the Puer archetype; see Chapter 7, Tiphareth), is sometimes given vent through creative activity. The therapeutic value of art has long been recognized. Jung encouraged his patients to give free reign to their preconscious contents by painting in a spontaneous manner. However, Langer points out that, It may well be that an artist never creates a work of art unless he is emotionally stirred; if so, it does not follow that this, his own emotional excitement is what he portrays. ...may portray something quite independent of his own psychic processes. He may go beyond the thing felt. In art therapy, the resulting paintings often lack technical precision, but show striking examples of the symbols and imagery of the individuation process.
The most prominent motif in these artistic expressions is the mandala. It is a variation on the magical circle, a symbol of the unfolding Self. A modern cultural example of unfolding variations on the mandala comes from a branch of technological art which corresponds with Path 25: Aerospace. The quest is sublimated now into the creation and indwelling of a new extension of mankind's world -- the space station. The majority of these are wheel-shaped for efficiencies sake. Here the puer tendency to verticality and ascensionism is disciplined to very pragmatic ends. There is always the puer complex at work motivating the artist, as well as an element of Narcissism.
The artist has a love relationship with the image of himself which is projected onto the canvas. Both imaginal art and archetypal thought enliven the world of fantasy and imagination, by turning vision inward. They are a release from the literalization of object-orientation. They take the psychic energy which normally flows outward, and turn it in. Art therapy is a way of integrating the values of archetypes. But in order for the values of, let's say the anima or animus, to be incorporated into the personality of the artist, he or she must assimilate the psychological significance of their own work. Otherwise, the creative urge may be just another way of projecting one's inner reality into the outer world.
This integration does not always happen spontaneously to the artist. If this were so, every great artist or poet would be a Self-Realized or God-Realized individual. History has shown different. Discipline is not the only distinction between the true artist and the dabbler or dilettante. To subject oneself to hard work and the evaluation of one's fellow man is no small accomplishment. The development of artistic insight rather than an externalization of one's specific neurosis is another. One must combine the innate curiosity and vitality of youth with the maturity and dedication of experience.
In her classic on the archetype of Eternal Youth, Puer Aeternus, Marie Louise vonFranz discusses the artist and puer complex. In the really great artist there is always a puer at first, but it can go further. It is a question of feeling-judgment. If one ceases to be an artist when ceasing to be puer, then one was never really an artist. Objectifying the puer, is only the first step. Puer has to learn to carry on with the work he does not like, not only with work where he is carried away by great enthusiasm, which is something everybody can do...being carried away by a festival of work. Puer has to kick himself again and again to take up the boring job through sheer will power. Puer is also the impulse to feel special, precocious, or gifted. The complex is a desire. What, then, are the psychological criteria for an "artist"?
VonFranz lists some in her work, Creation Myths....these four factors -- originality, consistency, intensity, and subtlety -- (show) the differences between someone who has creative fantasies and someone who is only spinning neurotic nonesense...the continuity of devotion an individual is capable of giving his fantasy is very important and shows the difference between someone who is gifted with creative fantasy and somebody sucked into sterile unconscious material. There are also certain psychological types more adapted or inclined toward artistic expression.
Different types -- both introverts and extroverts -- pursue different areas of art, such as fine art or performance art. Many artists are Dionysian temperaments strong on Sensation-Perceiving (SP). This penchant for acting on impulse contains a seeming paradox, for SPs, living only for immediate action, become the world's great performing artists: the virtuosos of art, entertainment, and adventure. The great painters, instrumentalists, vocalists, dancers, sculptors, photographers, athletes, hunters, racers, gamblers -- all need the skills which come only from excited concentration on an activity for long periods. No other type can mobilize what virtuosity takes: untold hours of continuous action. ...In a sense the SP does not work, for work implies production, completion, and accomplishment. The SP has no such desire for closure, completion, finishing. He is process-oriented. What ensues from his action is mere product, mere outcome, mere result, and is incidental.
Thus, the SP's "work" is essentially play.(Kiersey, Bates, 1978) In Myers-Briggs terms, ISFP is known as "the Artist"; ESFP as "Entertainer"; INFJ as "Author"; INTO as "Architect"; ENTP as "Inventor"; ISTP as "Artisan"; while ESTP is a born "Promoter".
MODES
Many painters find basic ploys to be old hat. For those who don't, maybe it's okay to hear about them again. Still others need badly to hear a few of these for the first time:
Shuffle the deck. When working on a series, go back to half- or nearly-finished pieces in a random order. You'll find that reshuffling the pile brings fresh insights to individual pieces, as well as a uniform spirit to the series.
Mix and match. The transposition of motifs from one work to the next gives power to a series. It's sort of like the leitmotif in a musical production--returning to and reworking felicitous phrases. Mixing and matching teases out visual joy.
Commit and correct. Don't know what to do next? Commit yourself anyway--in the full knowledge that your effort can be changed. While it's good to look three times, think twice and paint once, it's often valuable to make a move rather than to interminably stew about making a move.
Overshoot and cut in. When going for the magic of negative shapes, try to set yourself up to cut into rather than to paint up to. It's not always possible to make this happen, of course, but when you do it's the efficient way to find expressiveness.
Black and white. Works can be reduced to black and white by squinting at them or viewing them in reduced light. When the black and white pattern of a painting holds together, the work will be more convincing in colour.
Let it cure. Giving half-finished work a chance to be by itself for a while permits the artist to be surprised by both its felicities and its faults. Critique yourself in a timely way. You only get a wee while with your work. The customer gets an eternity. You owe it to the customer to use every ploy you can to get the thing right.
Slip into elan (meaning vivacity and impetuousness). Variations in brush speed brought on by pressure, impatience, flow-mode, dream-mode or showmanship can cause an effect known as "surface confidence." A convincing casualness trumps weak, stuffy or overworked surfaces. Elan is the golden mark of professionalism. It carries with it the truth that our main job is to connect.
Shuffle the deck. When working on a series, go back to half- or nearly-finished pieces in a random order. You'll find that reshuffling the pile brings fresh insights to individual pieces, as well as a uniform spirit to the series.
Mix and match. The transposition of motifs from one work to the next gives power to a series. It's sort of like the leitmotif in a musical production--returning to and reworking felicitous phrases. Mixing and matching teases out visual joy.
Commit and correct. Don't know what to do next? Commit yourself anyway--in the full knowledge that your effort can be changed. While it's good to look three times, think twice and paint once, it's often valuable to make a move rather than to interminably stew about making a move.
Overshoot and cut in. When going for the magic of negative shapes, try to set yourself up to cut into rather than to paint up to. It's not always possible to make this happen, of course, but when you do it's the efficient way to find expressiveness.
Black and white. Works can be reduced to black and white by squinting at them or viewing them in reduced light. When the black and white pattern of a painting holds together, the work will be more convincing in colour.
Let it cure. Giving half-finished work a chance to be by itself for a while permits the artist to be surprised by both its felicities and its faults. Critique yourself in a timely way. You only get a wee while with your work. The customer gets an eternity. You owe it to the customer to use every ploy you can to get the thing right.
Slip into elan (meaning vivacity and impetuousness). Variations in brush speed brought on by pressure, impatience, flow-mode, dream-mode or showmanship can cause an effect known as "surface confidence." A convincing casualness trumps weak, stuffy or overworked surfaces. Elan is the golden mark of professionalism. It carries with it the truth that our main job is to connect.
