The Green Door
I have a green door. And somehow, all of my return to the Mount is symbolized in that door, there behind me; watching.
Once upon a time (last semester), Tom MacLean painted his room. He painted all of it; walls, ceiling, outlets; deep navy blue, so that he lived in a cave. Then he hung up well-framed art, placed art lamps above them, bought a potted plant and a torch lamp, and lived in a boutique of style. It really looked very nice.
I didn't want a boutique. I simply wanted (and continue to want) walls and a ceiling which are not mistaken for the backdrop behind the victim of a firing squad. If I had a penny for every hole in these walls (and maybe a dollar for the huge, patched wound where Andrew Kurz pushed the bed through the ceiling) I would be a rich man. So, I gained permission last semester to paint my room. And, really, why not green? I'm going to be here for four years, so it may as well look good.
With the Register spread beneath, two gallons of olive green paint and a borrowed 1 1/2" brush, I began, and turned my glossy white door a sickly, streaked green that promised much style as soon as more coats were applied. But it took more than an hour, and I was really dripping on the Register, so I went the next day, to borrow a 3" brush and a drop cloth from maintenance.
Someday, I'll learn not to ask.
The head painter wigged on me. It seems that they spent $500 on contract labor and four coats of paint to return Tom's stylish botique to a soulless white. And the head painter wasn't too happy about that. If Tom had been a college kid, they'd have soaked him for damages, contractors' wage, materials and all. No one should be allowed to paint their rooms. They should be white. Unless I return with written permission from Fr. Rhoades, the Rector, I'm getting nothing and he's contacting his superior. Stupid, haughty, pampered seminarian. Try getting a real job once, instead of making useless work for us honest people. yadda yadda yadda.
So, the seminary now has a no-painting policy and I have a green door. A sickly, streaked olive green that accuses me. Remember the motto: It's always better to ask forgiveness than permission.
So that's my damn door. Everything else is kind of like that, too. I had such high hopes on returning. I was looking forward to seeing everyone and having fun. Then I learned that the evil seminary choir director had "left." Benedict Groschel was giving our retreat. I have a room to myself. And I have a green door. And no one speaks or smiles hardly; I mean, it's a silent retreat, but does that mean paralyzed facial muscles? But the choir irector's gone! And Groschel is good, though I keep sleeping through the conferences.
At least I have my computer, and thus a connection w/ the outside world, where people TALK! Do you remember when Charlie Brown was all psyched to kick the football, because Lucy really was going to hold it this time?
Aaarrgh!
A Well-Seasoned Traveler
I am not a seasoned traveler. Of course, if asked, I would style myself as such; but it would be more out of pride than out of any real relationship to the truth. Now, I'm not a travel novice. I've been a lot of places, traveled overseas, and traveled alone. I can discourse to anyone about concourses and boarding passes, luggage and the necessity to limit the intake of liquids. However, I am not a seasoned traveler, as became painfully evident in Omaha, as I was ready to return to the seminary. Oh, how I wish I had done more than acknowledge the existence of the concept of calling the airline 24 hours before the flight departs. But really, I've paid for a flight that was scheduled in September. I've never had any trouble before. What ever would be the need to call the airline? I mean, don't they schedule flights years in advance?
When I got to Omaha, 45 minutes before takeoff, I waddled into the terminal under the burden of my somewhat copious luggage only to discover, much to my dismay, that the Minneapolis airport had been closed due to snow, and all traffic had be re-routed through Eppley. I carefully stationed myself at the end of one of the two fifty-foot queues, each filled with many angry people waiting to vebally abuse the America West/Continental ticket agents. Luckily, I thought smugly, my flights have been arranged since September. As long as this line moves, I'll be outta here shortly.
In my carry-on bag was an entire box of Kleenex. As a result of little sleep and much vacationing, as well as a capitalizing little virus, my trip home from South Padre Island had been spent in the throes of a horrible cold that left me unable to sleep, breath, or talk above a whisper. My voice was only just returning as I reached the airport, but that was small comfort, since someone was apparently using the back of my throat as a testing ground for golf cleats. Not the stuff of which happy travelers are made. At least most of the fever was gone.
And so the minutes went by. What did I suppose that these people were doing? What could possibly be taking so long? After all, their plane landed here: can't they just take off when the airport in Minneapolis reopens? As it turned out, no. America West insisted on re-booking every single passenger who was on that plane, whether they were going to Minneapolis or simply connecting there. For a while I felt pity for these poor people. Their lives were in disarray due to circumstances out of their control. Snow. And, it seemed, most of them were flying to Minnesota because, evidently, the half of the state that they were all related to was having some sort of family crises. One hysterical woman's father had just died, etc., etc. However, instead of getting re-booked rationally, each person felt it was his or her duty to scream at the ticket agent, as obviously every ticket agent at Epply keeps a magic wand under the counter so that they can change the weather in Minneapolis and re-open the airport. Needless to say, by the time they got to me, the ticket agent was a little harried. I was also feeling my patience slip a bit, but not with the agents. It wasn't their fault that they had two plane loads of angry Minnesotans in front of them. Instead, my over-packed luggage was beginning to crush me, and my heavy blue parka (that I was wearing, since it wouldn't fit in any bag) was really getting hot. And the ever-friendly Minnesotans would continually stare at my luggage, smile, and ask if I'd forgotten anything. By the fourth one of those, I was ready for, "Umm, nope, I don't think I did. I know my Uzi is in here somewhere. Would you mind standing away from these folks so I don't splatter any of your entrails on innocent bystanders. Thanks so much."
Finally, I arrived at the ticket counter and handed the poor dear my driver's license. She asked the standard questions, printed my boarding pass and began to put the tags on my luggage. She handed me my stuff, smiled, and said, "There you go. Your final destination is Cleveland." I accepted the boarding pass, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a little red light was trying desperately to attract my attention. I paused. What did I need? I had my luggage, my license back, and a boarding pass to get me to Cleveland…
Cleveland!?
Suddenly red lights and buzzers sounded throughout my brain as the other parts of synapse did a big "Oh, yeah, I'm not going to Cleveland, except as a connecting flight!"
So I put on my best confused Minnesotan look and said, "Oh, no, I'm going to Baltimore." Her reply was quick, "No you're not. It says right here, 'Cleveland.' " So she had proved that she was literate. Big deal. It was now time to discover is she was sentient. "Umm," I began politely, "I really am going to Baltimore. I've had this flight scheduled since September. Is there some sort of problem? I have my itinerary right...umm...it was right here...umm... Damn!"
I had lost my itinerary. Now there was not proof that I was ever supposed to go anywhere besides Cleveland. So she sighed and began to prowl through the tangled web of travel screens to find my complete itinerary. I stood there for a while, and then she sighed again and hit the desk lightly. "I don't know what to do with you," she said with some exasperation. Again, the little red light came on, but I was ready for it this time. This is obviously bad news, if the ticket agent said something that cryptic. "Really," I replied, not letting my growing alarm enter my voice. "What do you mean by that?" "Well, it shows here that you take off from Omaha at 5:25 PM and land in Cleveland at 8:45 PM, but that you take off from Cleveland at 5:20PM and arrive in Baltimore at 6:30 PM." Now I hadn't realized that the major airlines had moved so completely into flying time machines now as well as planes. And I guess she didn't either, as she then said, "I don't understand this. Let me call someone."
At that moment, I felt incredible love and respect for my ticket agent. Here was a problem she couldn't correct, but rather than putting me in another line, she called someone who could help. So, she was sentient after all. This feeling was the beginning of a graced moment that ended seconds later, when I remembered where I had placed my itinerary. So, when a very well-dressed woman arrived, I was able to show her that I had never intended to return to Baltimore by time machine, but rather by Embraer 145. After she punched a lot a screens up on the computer, she said, "It says that the flight isn't available today." What a strange thought. Unavailable? I paid for it. In September. Where did it go?
So I combined my colossal intellectual powers with Herculean restraint and asked, "What does that mean?" She must have done much the same, as she replied tightly, "That it's not available." So I tried again. "Does that mean that it's been cancelled?" "Yes." And then she used her trump card, to ridicule and shame me, the proud, faux-seasoned traveler. "Did you call the airline 24 hours before your flight?" she asked, smiling slightly. If she had listened closely, she could have heard my temper slipping away, bit by bit, and realized how close to total obliteration she was at that moment. But she either couldn't or didn't, and kept smiling. Taking a deep breath, I replied, "No, I guess I didn't think to do that." Meanwhile, my interior monologue is rife with comments about overpaid jades who ask rhetorical questions which endanger their lives. Realizing that, in a few more seconds, I was going to go into melt-down and destroy this woman who seemed to enjoy discomfited travelers, I took both another deep breath and control of the situation.
"Well, it looks like we have a problem here. What are you going to do about it?" Touché. She must have seen the homicide written clearly in my eyes just then, as she said, "Just a second," and called to find me a flight on another airline. In a moment, she hung up. She had found me a flight on Southwest Airlines. Great. Just great. I've heard horror stories about this company. Aren't they the ones who treat their passengers like cattle? Isn't it true that there're not assigned seats? Isn't this the airline which has the "funny" flight attendants, the ones who crack jokes and don't do their work? Just great fricking fantastic. Truly, this woman was evil. "Come over here," she said as she smiled, "I'll take you to the Southwest desk." Like a spider rejoicing over another helpless victim in her web, she knew that she had made another traveler's life miserable. Southwest.
(Author's Note: I have learned since the composition of this piece that a). terrorists fly jets into buildings; b). Southwest is actually a very fine airline, providing reliable, economical transportation throughout the United States and Canada; and c). Northwest is, in fact, the worst airline in the world.)
The flight with Southwest was much as I expected. The planes were old 737's, the passengers were herded like cows into and out of the plane. Seats were assigned on a first come - first served basis. And, yes, the flight attendants thought they were funny as they made small talk while going about their attendant duties. I stayed fairly silent, on account of my barely being able to speak: my extended discourse with the good and the sadistic ticket agents rendering my voice almost inaudible. But by our landing in St. Louis, I was almost able to converse again. After a brief supper of airport food (and the resultant donation of my right kidney to pay for it), I boarded my St. Louis - Baltimore connection.
I was in the first boarding group, and saw a nice window seat (my favorite spot in a plane) in about row six. There was a large but respectably dressed, middle-aged woman in the aisle seat, so I asked if I could get past her into the window seat. She was reading a book and didn't seem like the kind to make excess conversation, so I was pleased when she smiled and said sure. I think that the gap between here two front teeth was the symbol of her allowing me to seal my doom; trapped between the wall of a plane and this woman.
Immediately she put her book down. "So, where are you going in Baltimore?" "Actually, I go to a small, private college called Mount St. Mary's." "Really, what's your major?" "Actually, I'm in the seminary." Her eyes got very large as she exclaimed, "The seminary! That's wonderful! I'm a priest!" My little red light was getting very tired of blinking, but it woke up in a hurry on that one. "A priest," I replied with that welcoming smile that says, "It's okay to talk to me, I just might hold all sorts of crazy ideas. I didn't recoil in horror, did I? That's right, I didn't. Are you wiccan or some sort of other wacked-out Satanist?" That's what the smile said. The voice was much more tactful, "You don't say! Imagine that!" Yes, imagine that. A woman priest, not in a collar (thanks be to God), right next to me, a male and obviously Catholic seminarian, for a two hour flight. Imagine that.
"Oh yes," she chirped on, "I'm Episcopalian." Phew, not wiccan! "...have a parish in St. Louis, but my family is from Baltimore..." And thus I learned that she was a healing minister, who specialized in the Holy Spirit (who knew you could specialize in that?). I learned that she had studied at St. Mary's in Baltimore, because the rector there really believed in the ordination of women, even though the [evil, patriarchal, Catholic] Cardinal was opposed to it. I learned that here, in this sincere woman was embodied everything that's wrong with relativism, syncretism, and subjectivism. She really loved saying the Mass and administering the Sacraments. And it was all a big lie. She believed it totally, but made the fatal mistake of assuming that strength of conviction was equivalent to truth. And she was a nice person, just totally wrong. God help me if I'm ever called nice. I'll know that my room in hell is reserved for certain at that point.
Finally, my voice had had enough. "I'm sorry. Please don't think I'm rude, but I can't talk anymore. I have this terrible cold and a sore throat," I croaked apologetically. At this point, her eyes got wide and filled with tears as she said, "Oh, you're so polite and nice! You're going to be such a good priest!" As she continued to chatter, I realized that she had just called me nice. I guess my trip to hell was going to be on Southwest.
Vacation Haiku
In a moment of travel frustration, while driving out to Boston from Nebraska with my friend, Edward, I decided that the most appropriate way to express my journey to others would be through the form of haiku: an ancient, calming Japanese form of poetry. No, the irony is not lost on me.
TRIP HAIKU
DAY ONE
~Departure~
Sleepy roommate: "Bye."
Every square inch of Geo
Full to leave by nine.
~On A Road Sign~
"POTHOLES BARICADES
AND ROAD CONSTRUCTION AHEAD
GOOD LUCK (dot. dot. dot.)"
~Driving~
Drive & drive. Gas stop.
Shovel fast food down our throats.
Drive & drive. Gas stop.
~Chicago In 2 Hours~
Spur of the moment.
Sears; Hancock; Food Court Pizza.
Walk round & leave.
~The 29.95 Motel Room~
Observant desk clerk.
"Room for one." "But two in car -
Forty four ninety."
~Staying the Night~
Day's drive, then this motel.
Exhausted, cranky driver.
No beer on Sundays.
~Bad Dream~
My falling toothbrush.
Hungry, gaping toilet jaws.
Catch it. Oh shit. Splash
DAY TWO
~The Tragic Flaw~
Alarm goes, "BEEP." Snooze.
Eastern time comes too early.
Late start after ten.
~Auspicious Beginning~
Left map at motel.
Confusion and wrong turns - damn!
Map; Starbucks; lost hour.
~Niagra Falls and Canada 1~
10 dollars for parking.
Camera batteries, 10 more.
Scam the tourists hard.
~Niagra Falls and Canada 2~
Honeymooners stroll.
Tumbling water; floating mist
and erect nipples.
~The Race~
Sunset & six hours.
From Niagra to Boston.
Haul ass in the dark.
~Arrival~
Expressways empty.
Dark wanderings on strange streets.
"Hi." Two A.M. collapse.
~Coda~
All parking taken.
Meters, night...(permit only).
40 dollar fine.
Creative Intuition and the Nature of Art
The following was written as a senior at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Nebraska. It wasn't my Thesis, but it could have been. It is based on the book, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry by Jacques Maritain. It's a philosophy paper, so if you get bored and quit in the middle, I understand. I just thought it was really interesting and a hell of a lot of work to write.
"Qui autem perspexit in lege perfecta libertatis . . . non auditor obliviosus [est] sed factor operis." ("He that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty . . . [is] not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work.") - James 1: 25
"The artist . . . sees; that is to say, his eye grafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of nature." - Rodin (Maritain, 97)
The purpose of art is to communicate a knowledge that exists in an artist and springs from his creative intuition of the world. Creative intuition, then, is exactly what its name implies: the direct understanding of a thing antecedent to logical consideration of it. The artist through the work of art itself, and in no other way, communicates his creative intuition, his knowledge, to the world. Such is the artist's mode of communication: art. Such is the artist's mode of knowing: the creative intuition. The implications of these simple statements are philosophically profound and beg to be examined in greater depth.
In the flickering light of a fire, the paintings on the walls of a cave in Lascaux, France seem to move. Bulls and horses race across the walls with natural grace. In the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Picasso's Woman with Violin is detrimentally compared to a pile of rocks by a disenchanted viewer. In an upscale coffeehouse, the last syllables of "Kubla Khan" fall upon the ears of enthralled listeners. These disparate works, which man calls art, did not arise out of a vacuum. Yet the mechanism by which one person is termed "creative" and another not, is largely unknown. Between the covers of Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry, Jacques Maritain discussed this power of creativity, and his philosophically avant-garde conclusions will be examined and extrapolated in this paper.
To understand the creation of art, art itself must be understood to some degree. Thus, the paper will begin with an examination of art in its oriental and occidental manifestations. Then it will explore the basis of creativity. Next it will investigate art as a virtue and examine the role of the poetic muse, or creative intuition. Finally it will examine the role of the subjectivity of the creator of the work of art. From these interconnected topics, a rudimentary understanding of the artistic power and its necessary relation to the self-communicative nature of art will arise.
Art and poetry are really two different things, but are so closely linked that they will be practically considered as one within this paper. Art is the "creative or producing, work-making activity of the human mind" (3). The result of art is something tangible, like a painting, a poem, a novel, or a symphony. Poetry is not simply composing verses, but is "that intercommunication between the inner being of things and the inner being of the human self." Poetry, then, is the process that makes art possible (3). Both of these are manifestations of the spiritual nature of man, and are "steeped in" imagination and emotion (85). For the sake of uniformity of terms, art will be used to refer to both the work and the process, and the term auditor will be taken with its Latin meaning to delineate the person who listens to, or views as the case may be, a piece of art, poetry, or music.
Art, then, may be divided into two categories: art of the orient and art of the occident. The art of the orient in bereft of the names of its great artists, its Michelangelos or Picassos. That lack is due to the very nature of the oriental concept of art. The goal of oriental art is to inspire either pleasure or religious worship in men while totally abandoning the self-ness of both the creator and auditor. In oriental art, the absence of ego and subjectivism in the creative works is sought after. It strives to be the ideal communication between the object and the auditor. The art is deeply symbolic, and because of this and its lack of the ego of its creator, the work of art in only complete when experienced by the auditor. The artwork does not exist on its own (10-11).
It is useful to consider Indian and Chinese art, especially painting (although it is easy to see how Japanese hiku fits into the above-mentioned schema) as examples of oriental art. Indian art is completely filled with figures and motion. It expresses, for the benefit of men, the rush of life and the vitality in things in a religious and magical way (12). Chinese art is characterized by the abstraction of the things contained in the work of art. It uses the power of suggestion to express the contents of a painting, in which the blank spaces have as much value as the lines and colors (14). Still, it is not beauty for beauty's sake, but rather for spiritual instruction (15). Both Indian and Chinese art focus on the same, natural subjects, but differ in the poetic approach. Yet the more the artist strives to conceal himself, the more poetic it becomes, and the more it truly expresses the essence of its creator (17).
Occidental art began with the same lack of self-transmission in art, though not for the same, conscious motives. The art of the occident was a quest for the transcendent and the beautiful, and it strove to communicate these things to the auditor. It initially focused on nature, and since man was the most beautiful form in nature, this eventually led to body worship. This focus on man did not lead to an awareness of artistic self in the art, though. Rather, it concentrated on man as a thing (19). It was only with the advent of the Gospel and its focus on the superiority of the inner person that the revolution in occidental art occurred(20).
Occidental art underwent four major stages of development as it grew more aware of the importance of the artist's self in the artwork. In the first two evolutions, the subject matter of the artwork was of primary importance. The artist strove to communicate the thing to the auditor. Initially man was portrayed as good and art focused on the divine Being transcending the world (20-1). The immanence of Divinity began the second stage, as man realized that God was also within himself. Art began to portray the suffering Christ, emotions, and the humanity of its subjects (22). The artist began to convey not simply the person portrayed, but his "human-ness" as well.
In the third stage, the artist's subjective self became more important than the object portrayed. The artist began to communicate primarily himself, and secondarily his knowledge of the thing (22). The content of the painting is now left to the viewer's imagination. Therefore if the viewer has no imagination, like the poor soul viewing the Picasso mentioned above, the work of art is meaningless. This type of art may be experienced in the auditor's emotions, but is only understood in the intellect. The artist creates from imagination, and the things of the world serve, not as objects captured in art, but as objects with which to feed the imagination (25). From this store in his imagination, which contains the objects of the world and his thoughts, the artist communicates himself to the auditor.
In the fourth stage, the knowledge and objects are expressed enigmatically through the artist's self. The artist is freed from the object expressed, as things now only have meaning as expressed through the consciousness of the artist. The value of art in this stage is not in the piece of art itself, but in its creation and in the expression of the artist. In this stage, painting is purely painting and writing purely writing (as opposed to painting something or writing about something). Yet it is at this point that art is most human, for art is now expressing the meaning of things, rather than the things themselves (27-8). The semantic philosopher would assert that art has now passed beyond the dyadic relationship between artwork and object into the triadic relationship in which the meaning of an object is conveyed by the artist to the auditor through the work of art. Art then takes on a spiritual dimension which is uniquely human.
The delving of the artist into himself supercedes any quest for external beauty as he strives to find meaning in things and in himself (28). Viewing a Jackson Pollack painting will only serve to exemplify the fact that art has moved beyond the sphere of strict reason to become more aware of the self of the artist.
Ignoring the practical arts (which are based in necessity of creating some lacking thing to fulfill a need), art is bound by one primary rule, the rule of art itself. The artist creates to release his creative intuition, to express his knowledge of things and himself. The intuition is strictly an intellectual, spiritual power, and therefore is not found in animals. Like the proverbial monkeys at their typewriters, neither the greatest work of literature nor any other work of art can be produced by anything lacking the intellectual power of creativity (40). Furthermore, the act of creating transcends mere usefulness. Its purpose is not to create some item for use (as per the practical arts), but simply to release that creative intuition which is bound up in the artist. This intuition in the intellect naturally overflows and moves into expression through the will (40-1). It is self-diffusive and demands expression.
The artist cannot control this creative power, the overflowing of the intuition into the will. It is entirely transcendent of the human consciousness and demands that the artist be entirely subject to it (43). Yet as man can only act for the good, so too can art only strive to engender beauty. To create true art, the will must tend toward beauty (the artist must love beauty), and the intellect must be ordered toward beauty (43). Without beauty in the creative expression, the art is dead; it does not speak (45).
To accomplish this quest, the artist does not have any set rules or guides. Art will be bound only by art itself, the desire to create and express. Therefore the artist must follow his senses, pleasure and pain, to guide him to the beautiful (44). If the artist begins to learn "rules," or styles, which people claim will guide him to beauty, the primary rule of art is usually obscured. The artist begins to be bound by the corporeal strictures inherent in the means of making something instead of surrendering solely to the spiritual rule of creating to express (45). The true artist will choose rather to properly apply the corporeal rules of media, and then they become vital tools in his expression. But if his art is bound by "rules," it is dead; and if the artist ignores the rules simply to ignore the rules, his art is trapped in mediocrity, as he has no understanding of art itself (48). Therefore, the artist must cling to his creative intuition and do whatever seems natural to express it (45). If the artist is correctly ordered, the resulting product will be beautiful.
By its nature, real art is not the mere imitation of the subject, but is its interpretation and distillation (22). This process of distillation is intellectual, surely, but is without a parallel in logical reasoning. It is antecedent to the reasoning process. Through the experience of a thing, the thing and the self are grasped together (30). This knowledge has no conceptual expression, which would result from logical consideration, but is expressed solely through the artist's work (30). Therefore, as the artwork is expressing a "pre-reasonable" knowledge, it departs, sometimes dramatically, from reason (61).
Art, then, is a spiritual ability or power, like reason. It may also be considered a practical virtue, like prudence. Art, like all practical virtues (including prudence), perfects man's acting. It resides in the intellect, and is itself intellectual in essence; it is an intrinsic perfection of the intellect (34-5). However, art is also unlike prudence, for though both perfect man's acting, prudence works for the good of man, while art works solely for the good of the work of art itself. Therefore, the good-ness of the work is essentially unconnected with what is actually the good of the person (36). A man ruled by prudence will perform or not perform a certain action because of the effect such an action will have on his person. Art does not consider the effect on the artist, and only guides him to act in a manner conducive to creating a beautiful piece of artwork. The virtue of art is itself infallible. It will lead the artist to do whatever is best for the good of the artwork. The artist, however, is not infallible in his following of the virtue (35). Just as a prudent man may occasionally do something rash, so may an artist sometimes disobey the promptings of the virtue of art.
It must be remembered that the virtue of art exists in the artist. If the artist is bad in some way, or acts in a way which is detrimental to himself, even if it is for the good of the work, the artist himself will be damaged. And while that does not affect that particular work, it damages the artist, the vehicle for the transmission of the artistic virtue and the creative intuition (37). Thus the quality of a work of art is not based on the actions that created it, insofar as the artist is guided by his intuition, but on the actions previous to this act of creating, and their effects on the artist.
If he is aware of its effects on his art, the artist may be tempted, out of curiosity, toward moral experimentation of every kind. He would do this for the good of the work; trying different things antecedent to the act of creation to see which allow him to best express his creative intuition (37). However, this leads to a warping of the artist's contact with reality and harm of subsequent works of creativity (37).
The virtue of art is all-consuming. It constantly calls the artist to act in ways more conducive to the expression of his creative intuition. Therefore, if the artist is truly great, he will spend his soul to feed the all-consuming drive of art, whatever the consequences may be. He may use good means or dissolute means, but the goal is the same: to more fully express the creative intuition. To accomplish this, the artist must, to some extent, free himself from conventions, such as language and accepted styles. These conventions are by their nature full of clichés and banalities and carry many assumed meanings (53). To truly express himself, the artist studies convention, rejects it, and strives to form something purer (54).
However, even (or perhaps only) the untrained auditor, who in this case may not have been indoctrinated by the libertine and nihilistic attitudes of the artistic community, realizes on his most human level that convention cannot be abandoned completely. Convention stems from what all men have in common, and when it is rejected in toto, the art becomes meaningless to the auditor. Art which totally defies convention has lost that basic tenet of humanity which is community, and it ceases to communicate the artist's creative intuition to any auditor. It must be stated that in many cases, a piece of art may seem totally devoid of reason, but this is not usually the case. Rather, reason as well has been subjected to the all-consuming fire of art. The artwork has captured its most primitive first principles, so that it has not abandoned reason, but has not yet arrived at reason. It is simply the expression of the artist's intuition without reasoned consideration of it. It has returned to the primary rule of art, creating to express (54-5).
This return to the first principle of art, though, is fraught with peril. The danger here is that the artist has not in reality acquiesced to the primary rule, which is spiritual, but has abandoned the spiritual entirely and based his work solely on emotion (55). As with works bound by convention or mimicry, neither are works which are purely emotional art. The purpose of art is to communicate knowledge, and in forsaking the spiritual, art has lost its essence and is dead.
Art can follow three paths as it seeks to free itself from convention and rules. It may be sheer art, creating to express. This is the true course of art. It may also follow two other paths, which are not really artistic at all. The first of these is the path of sheer creativity. On this path, the "artist" concocts novelties because they are new, and claims some meaning for them. This is possible in God alone; it is impossible in man. Man cannot create something ex nihilo, but must always work with things already created. Thus they have already been imbued with meaning by God Himself, and any new "meaning" an "artist" along this path may assign is really meaning-less. The work is no longer communicating knowledge and has lost the essence of art (56).
Along the third path, the second path of error, the "artist" creates for sheer self. The "artist" finds joy in the artistic, creative, state and creates simply to remain in that state, not unlike a drug addict seeking his next "fix." This is the path of surrealism, which is an aberration in art and can mean nothing to anyone but the creator (57). Surrealism is not only a total departure, but also a rejection of reason, and strives to convey not beauty itself, but horror and disorder as things of beauty (57, 60). Its only purpose is to confuse the auditor. Since it does only that, rather than communicate knowledge, neither is surrealism truly art.
Thus far, a fairly lucid exposition of the nature of art and creating has been presented. True art results from an overflowing of the "pre-reasonable" knowledge of the creative intuition. It is creating to express this knowledge. Yet the creative intuition itself has yet to be considered.
Plato felt that art arose from a mania, madness, or passion within the person in a sort of child-like play. This was the finest gift of the gods to mortals, as it allowed the total free expression of the self. Thus this virtue of art is divine, not human in origin, and comes from the Muses (62-3). A more complete understanding of the soul agrees with the "divinity" of the creative intuition, inasmuch as it is an "inspiration from above conceptual reasoning" (66). The creative intuition is an understanding of things that is above, or antecedent to reasoning and logical consideration. It is primarily an unconscious act which emerges finally into the consciousness only immediately before and during the act of creation. Creative intuition is that "most precious light," seen at the edge of consciousness, which illumines the world (67).
The term "unconsciousness" means that spiritual, vital activity which occurs in the soul of man without his directing it. It may interfere and mingle with his intellect, but the two are essentially distinct. This concept of "unconsciousness" is drastically different from the lurking unconsciousness of Sigmund Freud. For Freud, it consists of those automatic drives, complexes, and repressions, which are all material in nature. Freud's unconsciousness is completely deaf to the intellect (67).
The creative intuition is akin to understanding without reasoning. It grows in the "source-less light" at the center of the soul along with the other powers of the soul: love, knowledge, and will (68-9). The active and possible intellects play an important role in the process of creative intuition It is impossible for the human to know the active intellect or the impressed species, the product of the active intellect, in and of themselves. man only knows the expressed species by reflection in the possible intellect. creative intuition, then, may be considered the un-reflected impressed species. They exist surely, and are truly knowledge, yet they are only known through artistic expression. The artist, rather than allowing the impressed species to be expressed in the possible intellect and reflected upon, is driven to express them without the aid of reason, through art (72).
The question arises as to how this intuition came to be. Aquinas states that the lower powers of the soul flow from the higher and exist for the sake of the higher powers. Thus the senses act for the imagination and the imagination for the intellect (76). The spiritual unconsciousness where the creative intuition has its genesis is completely intellectual, but is free from, or previous to, abstracted concepts or reasoning. The intuition is in some sense both productive and akin to the cognitive. It results from an "inner law of expansion" and manifests the creativity of the spirit (79). Unlike a concept, which comes from the possible intellect, the creative intuition flows from the entire being of the man acting in concert. It does not flow from simply the intellect or the imagination, but from "somewhere near the center of the soul" where all is one (80). It becomes clear, then, that the creative intuition is some pre-conceptual power which is always in actuation, since it acts without our conscious command.
The power of creative intuition is, then, like the active intellect inasmuch as it is constantly in act. It is continuously intuiting the world which is presented to it by the totality of man's being. If it is in act, then, the power "does not tend toward a concept to be formed" which already exists unknown to us. Rather, it is non-conceptual knowledge in act (80).
Creative intuition, like all the powers of the soul, is innate. It cannot be taught or learned. The artist can simply dispose himself to its movement within him (102). Unlike the rest of the spiritual powers, however, the creative intuition is not concerned with universals. It is grounded in the concrete and can only immortalize the thing which is contained in it at any given moment (91).
This power, this creative intuition, exhibits a kind of free creativity and is analogous to God. God has totally free creation; He is not affected by things previous to creating something. Furthermore, He is always forming; He does not create, stop, and create again. He knows all things in Himself; He does not know things as things and know Himself separately (81). Moreover, He does not express Himself and His knowledge of things by creating more things. In God, knowledge, creating, and being are one.
Analogously, the artist creates things, and is not formed by the things he creates. Yet as he expresses his knowledge, he can only do it in an incomplete manner. Everything which he expresses has been "filtered" through himself. Thus the subjectivity of the artist is essential in the creative intuition and expression (81-2). The subjectivity in question is not sentimental feelings and clichés, but rather the subjectivity, the "self-ness" of the artist expressed through his work. The more truly the work is art, the more truly it will express the self-communication of the artist, for the two are inseparable. They flow from one man; from a unified center of act (82). Unlike God, the artist is bound both by his media of expression and by some degree of self-unknowing (81). And since the artist cannot create ex nihilo, the expression must be himself. If the artist is communicating himself from himself through his work, it is small wonder that art is so all-consuming. The artist spends his very soul to create.
The knowledge of the artist contained in the creative intuition is knowledge of the artist's soul. He cannot know himself as himself. Instead, within the deep recesses of his passions, amongst those things where are pressed upon him by the world, he commits an obscure knowing of self and world simultaneously. The artist, in his creative intuition, does not know things as separate from himself, as is the case with speculative knowledge. Instead he knows them "as inseparable from himself and from his emotions; and in truth as identified with himself" (83). This union of knower and known is similar to that intentional union between the intellect and the object that forms conceptual knowledge, yet the knowledge of the creative intuition is unconscious and is only expressed through the artistic work (83).
Creative intuition is "connatural knowledge." That is not knowledge which has been reasoned out and is capable of being expressed as universal concepts. Rather it is based in the inclinations of the artist. If the artist truly posses the practical virtue of art, these inclinations will be ordered to and communicate his being, rather than simply communicating his intellect as expressed by concepts (85). These inclinations naturally flow into expression in the work of art. The work of art is to connatural knowledge as concepts and judgements are to ordinary speculative knowledge. They are both expressions of the knowledge contained within a person (86).
The process of gaining knowledge through creative intuition is similar to gaining speculative knowledge, but is essentially tied to the self which is gaining the knowledge. First the person suffers an emotion, which was caused by something either inside or outside of himself. This emotion then spreads through the entire soul, with which it becomes connatural. Once the emotion is connatural with the soul, it is illumined by the illuminating intellect. Then the emotion turns toward and excites the intellectual memory. However, though the emotion is now completely spiritual; being both connatural with the soul and having been illumined by the illuminating intellect; it still bears the individuating effects of matter. Thus it is received by the intellectual memory in a determined way. The intellectual memory, though, responds with "undetermined vitality and productivity" (88); it responds automatically and without determination as to how it will respond. The emotion yet remains an emotion, but the illuminating intellect now makes it an instrument of intellectual judgement that is connatural with the soul. It then becomes the vehicle to know the thing or things which caused the emotion (89). In this way, by starting and ending with the same unconscious emotion, the subjective and objective aspects of the knowledge of the creative intuition are inseparable (90). The person knows in an "intellectual flash" those things which affect him. He will not be able to express his knowledge in words or reasoned discourse, for it has not been reflected upon by the intellect. He can only express it through artistic creation, the most primordial mode of expression.
It follows that, as creative intuition is a power of the soul, all humans posses it. However, it is obvious that some humans are creative, while others are very pragmatic. The solution is akin to the difference between those people who exercise their intellects almost continuously and those who are guided constantly by their feelings. The creative intuition is primordial and radically natural. But like any power of the soul, it can be ignored and unused. When a man becomes "caught up" in his business and affairs and relies totally on his intellect, the creative intuition will be repressed, atrophy, and eventually be murdered (89). The result is a person who is neither creative nor understands the creative individual nor art itself. On the contrary, the artist who is open to his creative intuition will posses a deep knowledge of the world that will overflow into his art as it strives to express itself.
Art then, is truly and simply the communication of the knowledge of the creative intuition possessed by the artist. True art is that which fully expresses the intuition and is not bound by corporeal rules of media. If it fully expresses the intuition, and if the artist is rightly ordered, the work of art will be beautiful. And while the artist will not be able to express his intuition in concepts, for the intuition is pre-reasonable, he will express himself through his created object, for the creative intuition is self-diffusive and cannot but flow into expression in the artistic object.
By first examining oriental and occidental art, this paper began to elucidate what was being expressed through art. It then considered creativity and the role of creative intuition in art. Finally it discussed the inseparability of the subjectivity of the artist with the knowledge being conveyed. Through all of this, a basic philosophical picture of knowledge, of creativity, and of the nature of art itself has been achieved.
Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott Rieker Scott