The artist as more aware or self-conscious.

[PDF] First of all, the artist is more self-conscious or more aware. The artist, we may even say the true artist, is more alive than other people. And this is very often revealed by the fact that he is more sensitive in the full sense of the term, in the best sense of the term, than people usually are. We know that the painter is much more vividly, much more keenly, aware of differences of shape, of contour, of colour, etc., much more alive to, more aware of these things than other people. If you happen to go out with an artist friend, say, into the country, whether it is in the Spring or the Autumn or some other time of year, you will notice, you will observe, you can't help noticing, that he sees more than you do. He'll call your attention to something: maybe the outline of a tree against the sky or the colours of a fallen leaf or a withered flower, or shadows cast by something, blue shadows cast by trees on the grass; and he'll point out to you that those shadows are blue and you almost certainly haven't noticed that. The painter has a much keener eye, he is much more aware of what is going on in the outside world, in the world of shapes and forms and colours.

And in the same way with the musician, the musician has a much keener ear, he can detect differences of notes which we perhaps can't detect. I remember that when I was in India I was astonished by the subtleties sometimes of the drumming in Indian music, the subtleties of their drum playing. These were difficult to detect, difficult to follow sometimes, even by an Indian who was comparatively experienced, comparatively trained in these things. There were sometimes unbelievable refinements and delicacies in the playing of that particular instrument. Sometimes the drum would be made to whisper, almost like a voice whispering; sometimes it would be very staccato, sometimes sort of soft, sometimes as it were grumbling. One could get the drums almost to speak. And sometimes such subtle difference as that only the trained ear of the musician could possibly detect and know that there was either something right or something wrong.

Then again we find that the poet is equally sensitive to the meaning and the value and the rhythm of words. We use words most of the time but use them in a very careless, a very coarse sort of way, not fully aware or not fully sensitive to the value and the meaning and even the texture of the words. I have already mentioned the name of Edith Sitwell and in this connection some of her comments on words and their different values are of very great interest. She is not satisfied with speaking just of the meaning of words and the length or shortness of the syllable and so on. She speaks in terms of the tone of words, of the texture of words: some words are rough and others are smooth, some words are even hairy, she says. And then again there is the weight of words: some words are light, some words are heavy. She, being a poet, is sensitive to all this, whereas usually we are not.

And in the same way, the artist, of whatsoever kind, is much more aware of his own response to all these things, his own mental and emotional states. Not just in the sense of reflecting upon them more than we do but in the sense of experiencing these states much more intensely and in a much more concentrated manner than other people. And then again we may say that the artist usually is more aware of other people than is usually the case. We see this especially in a very highly developed form in the work of the great portrait painters, of the great dramatists, of the great novelists. We see that in their works, other people, people of past ages and distant countries, live. I remember some time ago I saw in an art gallery a portrait painted I think early in the Renaissance period, I forget by whom it was painted, and it was a portrait of a pope. And you saw by looking at him that he must have been a very wicked pope. You could see all in his face, every bit of it, you could see everything he had ever done practically in that portrait, in that face. You could see it in his eyes, in the texture of the skin, the shape of the mouth, and his rather grim, fixed expression. You could see that he must have come to the papacy by corruption, it was written all over his face; and much more than that, you could see all sorts of things, you could almost reconstruct his biography just from that portrait. The artist, the painter, whoever he was, had seen it all and had not only seen it but he had put it all down there on the canvas, in pigment.

And as I said, we see the same sort of thing in the dramatist, especially a dramatist like Shakespeare. We see the same sort of thing in the great novelists. We can see how clearly, how intensely these great artists do see other people. I remember again, to take an example from painting, that I used to think when I was much younger, that Hogarth paintings of people were caricatures. But after being acquainted with people a bit more, for a few more years, and maybe observing them more closely, I came to realise that Hogarth was simply being deadly accurate. People were actually like that. He wasn't exaggerating anything, wasn't laying anything on thick, he wasn't a caricaturist, he just saw them as they were and as they were he depicted them in his paintings and in his engravings. He saw them with that almost terrifying, almost clairvoyant honesty and directness. But above all, we may say the artist is aware not just of the external world, not just of himself, not just of other people; the artist is aware in some sort of incomprehensible way of reality, in the sense that he is deeply and resonantly sensitive to the meaning and mystery of existence itself. It is this that he feels, this mystery of existence, whether cosmic or human.

Art and the spiritual life:

1. Art and the Spirtual Life.
2. The Artist as more Aware or Self-Conscious.
3. * The Artist as Creative.
4. What is Art?
5. The Artist as wicked, immoral and selfish?
6. Nabokov and the word Genius.
7. Values that can transform our lives.
8. When an Artist creates he objectifies.

By Urgyen Sangharakshita.

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Dernière mise à jour:
20 juillet, 2008.