Recreating Ourselves Through Art

Some people ask: What does art give us? How important is human art, when nature is already the most beautiful masterpiece of all? Why go and contemplate a work of art instead of concentrating on the beauty of the sky, the warmth and majesty of a sunset, the wonderfully colourful flowers of spring or the waltz of yellowing leaves that fall in autumn?

 

Of course, pristine nature has its beauty, but the touch that conscious human beings can bring to it makes it even more sublime. Let's not forget that Nature's (or God's) greatest masterpiece is human intelligence.

 

In the temple of nature, you rediscover your “virginity”, your Nature, but in the temple of art and human creativity, you can re-create yourself by resonance, because harmony calls and invites harmony, and intelligence calls and invites intelligence. There are eternal vibrations in art, true art that is a window, a door that opens onto eternity. Letting yourself be impregnated by the Art of a true Artist awakens the Artist within us.

 

When I say “artist”, I'm not referring to the person who creates what are now commonly called “works of art”. In my opinion and in my language, an Artist is a person who commits himself or herself entirely to a work of art, whatever it may be, with intention and attention, in other words, with awareness. This art of making actually conceals an art of being, and those who contemplate and allow themselves to be touched by works made and created with art, will necessarily know how to live with art in their turn.

 

For an artist, observing and contemplating the art of another artist enables him to experience and touch a frequency, a vibration, a resonance that will heal the sick artist in him, awaken the sleeping artist in him and re-energize the tired artist in him. This resonance will even revive and restore his self-confidence.

 

We mustn't forget that the artist leads a profoundly solitary life, and that he must often sacrifice, forget or neglect this artist's life within him, for fear of being misunderstood or perceived as a narcissist or megalomaniac. Few people understand the quest for beauty and realize that working in the field of beauty is the best “ibada”, i.e. the best action resulting from a conscious choice. I would even go so far as to say that for the artist, the quest for beauty is the only “ibada”, in truth.

 

This is why, in the presence of a work of art, or quite simply in the presence of another artist, the artist finds himself consoled, reaffirmed in his posture, in his path, in his true identity: that of being a channel of Love, Beauty and Harmony, or in other words, that of being an 'Abdallah.

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Teaching shared on 24.10.2024 at Mackenzie King Estate, Chelsea, Quebec