“My
soul is always longing. That’s why I need art.”
Generally
speaking, people practice art for art’s sake, self interest or entertainment, moral
and philosophy, or personal spiritual growth.
Except for personal entertainment, the
mission of art refers to the inner calling to creatively serve our physically
and spiritually depleted world. The artist can be a spiritual emissary working
in any medium in any part of culture or any forms of art. The artist’s mission
is applied vision in that it connotes personal, passionate, and eternal
commitment to art.
The
will to make art is the will to affirm life, to express our unique beauty and
truth by devotional labor. This is a simple message anyone can appreciate: the
artists take delight in and care for their work, and we thereby are inspired to
find delight in our own work. If the mission of art involves opening the eye of
the heart so spirit can be seen and felt, this goal can only be reached when
both artist and viewer observe art as a holy covenant.
Art
that feeds the soul is a visionary covenant among spirit, artist, and audience.
The artist is responsible for outwardly manifesting and inwardly perceived
transcendental source. By contemplative absorption in the artist’s vision,
viewers place themselves in the mind of the artist at the moment of inspiration.
Viewers receive the same transmission and enter the covenant relationship. A
viewer of a Chinese calligraphy work does not worship a two-dimensional image
but the spiritual beauty the image mirrors.
In Chinese painting, one could
find animals, birds, flowers, and humans that were not only accurately depicted
in shape and manner. The object’s internal substance, emotion, ideas, and
aspiration were also captured by the artists.
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書法與德性可有關聯？
儒家所言「仁、義、禮、智、信」五德，於書法亦然，二者互為因果。 「仁」者善也，心善者度量大，並善為他人著想，處處圓滿而心理平衡；於字亦然，必呈現 古云「字若其人」、「字即心畫」，即由字象可知心象，故復稱之為書法「五德」。 The
five virtues of “benevolence, righteousness, politeness, wisdom, and
honesty” mentioned by the Confusianism also are imbedded in Chinese
calligraphy, and they complement and complete each other. |
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
(1475-1564) was trying
symbolically express through his art a spiritual ideal clothed in material form.
He once said, “It’s
not sufficient merely to be a great master in painting and very wise, but I
think it’s necessary for the painter to be very moral in his mode of life, or
even if such were possible, a saint, so that the Holy Spirit may inspire his
intellect.”
Anton
Rubinstein
wrote in his autobiography, “…
insight to realize the divine, spiritual, and emotional message which music has
to convey to those who understand – and care.“ This is the insight he sought
to awaken in his own students. He was the greatest pianist after Franz
Liszt, and Hans
von Bulow called him
“the Michelangelo on the piano.”
A
good Chinese calligrapher enriches the soul of humanity. He delights viewers
with nuances of shades of strokes and structure. He further reveals spiritual
pureness and richness until then unknown, and gives people new reasons for
loving life and new inner lights to guide them.