As I was drafting a press release the other day announcing an artist’s new work, I got to thinking—not about what the work might mean below the surface, but about why I don’t venture there.
"It had never dawned on me that I had no interest in transcendent meaning. If I had had any at all, it was eclipsed long ago by sensations, patterns, causes and effects." Now this is a sad state of affairs. The inner life, the life of the soul is all about transcendence. A well lived life hopefully is as the Greeks said about "filling one's flesh with spirit, one's spirit with flesh." Incarnation means bringing spirit into matter.
On the deepest level great art does this, spirit enters the painted plane.
Dear Ann, your comment although aesthetically pleasant and historically informed, is biased by a very specific metaphysical point of view which is the existence of the soul, spirit, anima, etc.. To establish your critic from such a point of view in 2025 is to say the least unserious, it is actually more like "sad" but the word is too condescending for my taste
"It had never dawned on me that I had no interest in transcendent meaning. If I had had any at all, it was eclipsed long ago by sensations, patterns, causes and effects." Now this is a sad state of affairs. The inner life, the life of the soul is all about transcendence. A well lived life hopefully is as the Greeks said about "filling one's flesh with spirit, one's spirit with flesh." Incarnation means bringing spirit into matter.
On the deepest level great art does this, spirit enters the painted plane.
I don't know what you mean.
Sadly that is the point...
Dear Ann, your comment although aesthetically pleasant and historically informed, is biased by a very specific metaphysical point of view which is the existence of the soul, spirit, anima, etc.. To establish your critic from such a point of view in 2025 is to say the least unserious, it is actually more like "sad" but the word is too condescending for my taste
To say the soul doesn't exist...good luck.