Art & Spirituality

Art-making is a serious commitment to creating aesthetically-charged work. Art is not complete without the audience’s participation; it should provide a space for dialogue, for others to air their thoughts and feelings, add their own story to it. An art without discourse is incomplete.

What passes for art today is for the most part fiction, for it is a fallacy to suppose that method can become the meaning and aim of art. Nevertheless, most modern artists spend their time self-indulgently demonstrating method…The situation is worst in the visual arts, which today are almost totally devoid of spirituality. The accepted view is that this situation reflects the de-spiritualised state of society. But art must transcend as well as observe; its role is to bring spiritual vision to bear on reality… Andrei Tarkovsky, ‘Sculpting in Time’, p.96: 1987.

Tarkovsky challenges the artist in whichever field, to create work which will transcend as well as observe the richness and poverty of life, ‘to bring spiritual vision to bear on reality’ and not just reflect the vanity of materialism, nor the brokenness of the human condition (social realism), as if that was enough.

If we are to realise our potential as artists, this process has to involve an understanding of the spiritual dimension of creativity, along with a realisation that any fulfilment will come in relationship with others. It is only then that we may affect a change in the status quo.

Geoff Hall, Arts Development Officer, Saint Stephens, Bristol.