Art & Consciousness
Everything we see falls apart, vanishes. Nature is always the same, but nothing in her that appears to us, lasts. Our art must render the thrill of her permanence along with her elements, the appearance of all her . It must give us the taste of her eternity. - Paul CézanneLet us choose to ignore the fact that this quote is rumored to have been “embellished” by poet Joachim Gasquet, and simply admire its wisdom and beauty. It is both comforting and intuitive to think of art and spirituality connecting to something infinite. But what exactly is that "something?"
Permanence is a tricky concept. Is there anything that can truly be considered permanent, even in a pragmatic sense?
Maybe the closest thing we have to permanence in our universe is what psychologist Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious.” Jung defines collective unconscious as a “psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.” In other words, there are universal, eternal symbols that, somehow, are imprinted on our DNA and connect us across generations - even millennia.
What art does best, perhaps, is communicate these universal archetypes in beautiful and meaningful ways. Proust, in his landmark work Remembrance of Things Past, introduces the idea of moments bienheureux, or “fortunate moments,” in which sensory experiences trigger visceral, “true” memories or snapshots of past experiences. Proust argues that these moments are not so much true as they are a kind of impression of reality. These phenomena, he claims, reveal the “essence of things” - in other words, that which art, at its pinnacle, is attempting to convey.
According to Proust, the artist uses metaphor to interpret this essence. The artist, Proust writes:
can describe a scene by describing one after another the innumerable objects which at a given moment were present at a particular place, but truth will be attained by him only when he takes two different objects, states the connection between them. . . and encloses them in the necessary links of a well-wrought style; truth—and life too—can be attained by us only when, by comparing a quality common to two sensations, we succeed in extracting their common essence and in reuniting them to each other, liberated from the contingencies of time, within a metaphor.Although not a religious person, I believe that there is an eternal consciousness that is common to humans past, present, and future. Of course, “eternal” is a problematic word, as we can not say for sure if there is a beginning or ending to our present reality. Nevertheless, as an artist, academic, and spiritual person, I believe there is value in examining consciousness, its universality, and both our shared and personal relationships with it. I am also interested in why and how we both conceive and experience art, as I feel that art is humanity’s attempt to access, understand, and interpret that consciousness.
Think about it - is there anything that separates humans from other living beings more than the creation and enjoyment of art? Why is that? What is art tapping into, and why does every human that has ever lived experience it in a similar way?
So, after all this blather about the eternality, universality, and spirituality of art, you might be asking how the intellectual and biological examinations of consciousness by Jung and Proust fit into the conversation. In truth, artists and scientists are both in the business of interpreting reality, albeit in fundamentally different ways. Artist Rupert Spira puts it this way:
I would say that the purpose of an artist is to reveal this presence of consciousness through the medium of the senses. So in this respect the artist has a special responsibility. A mystic’s job is to explore the nature of reality, but more is required of the artist. He or she has to simultaneously make manifest the ongoing results of this enquiry in form. So the role of the artist is to provide a way that this presence can be approached and experienced through the senses. The scientist’s job is to provide a true model of reality, a true model of the universe. The artist’s job is to provide a means whereby this reality can be experienced in a direct way. I think this is what Passolini meant when he said of making films, ‘I am trying to restore to reality its original sacred significance’.
Let us close with this bit by Rainey Bennett from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1959:
I suppose I’ll have to squeeze Leonardo once more to make you understand. Leonardo was both artist and scientist in one head, wasn’t he? Well, as soon as he settled down to his paint pot and brush, he ceased being a scientist and became an artist in an unmethodical search for spirit. If he hadn’t, Mona Lisa’s head would have become phrenologists’ fodder. No - Art keeps trying to see what can never be seen but only felt, while Science is ever ready to pin point something.
Karma
I would like to add a final thought about karma. Karma is a term that is as misused and misunderstood as it is ubiqutous in our popular culture. In a 2019 article for Ideapod with the utilitarian headline, "Here's a great explanation of what karma really means and how it can improve your life," Lachlan Brown astutely nails down how we in the west fail to grasp this concept:
Why does mainstream society get karma so wrong?
Karma in pop culture often means that people get what they deserve.
How did we develop this view?
Because we have this misguided perspective that we need something outside ourselves in order to be happy.
It’s because of this false view that we desire to transform karma into a sort of cash machine based on our ethical and spiritual behavior.
If you think about it, much of western culture revolves around this "cash machine" ideal. Even our spirituality has a Vegas-style progressive jackpot feeling to it. If you accrue enough net goodness over a lifetime, you go to heaven. If not, well...
Karma is another word for action. But, in reality, karma is about both action and intention. The simplest description that I can wrap my head around is that all of our actions and the intentions behind them create a certain kind of energy in the world, which in turn influences all other actions, intentions, and arisings. This idea is the very essence of interdependence, or pratītyasamutpāda. Right actions or intentions do not guarantee some sort of reward, whether spiritual or material. Karma itself is the reward.
A quote regularly attributed to Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the British Boy Scouts and inspiration for the greater scout moment worldwide, is "always leave the campground cleaner than you found it." The world is our campground for the duration of our incarnation in it. If we orient our thoughts, intentions, and actions in a thoughtful, compassionate direction, the karma you create will serve as a kind of Roomba for the earth. I am intentionally using the Roomba metaphor because, ultimately, we have no control over the results of our intentions or actions. As it is written in the Bhagavad Gita, we are entitled only to our actions, not the fruits.
Karma is another word for action. But, in reality, karma is about both action and intention. The simplest description that I can wrap my head around is that all of our actions and the intentions behind them create a certain kind of energy in the world, which in turn influences all other actions, intentions, and arisings. This idea is the very essence of interdependence, or pratītyasamutpāda. Right actions or intentions do not guarantee some sort of reward, whether spiritual or material. Karma itself is the reward.
A quote regularly attributed to Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the British Boy Scouts and inspiration for the greater scout moment worldwide, is "always leave the campground cleaner than you found it." The world is our campground for the duration of our incarnation in it. If we orient our thoughts, intentions, and actions in a thoughtful, compassionate direction, the karma you create will serve as a kind of Roomba for the earth. I am intentionally using the Roomba metaphor because, ultimately, we have no control over the results of our intentions or actions. As it is written in the Bhagavad Gita, we are entitled only to our actions, not the fruits.
For more of my thoughts on western culture’s singular focus on material development, see my post: “You’ve Got to Be Kind.”
"The full humanization of man requires the breakthrough from the possession-centered to the activity-centered orientation, from selfishness and egotism to solidarity and altruism." - Erich Fromm, The Art of BeingThank you for reading.
References
Bennett, R. (1959). The Romance of Art and Science. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 15(2), 52–54.
Brown, L. (2019, August 26). Here's a great explanation of what karma really means and how it can improve your life. Retrieved from https://ideapod.com/heres-great-explanation-karma-really-means-can-improve
Epstein, R. (2004). Consciousness, art, and the brain: Lessons from Marcel Proust. Consciousness and Cognition, 13(2), 213–240.
Pioch, N. (2002, September 19). Cézanne, Paul. Retrieved from https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/st-victoire/1529/
Spira, R. (2002, January). Interview with Daphne Astor - Consciousness and the Role of the Artist, 2002. Retrieved from https://non-duality.rupertspira.com/read/interview_with_daphne_astor__consciousness_and_the_role_of_the_artist_2002
The Concept of the Collective Unconscious. (2014). Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1): Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 42–53.
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