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Art illuminates Dharma

RichardHRichardH Veteran
edited March 2010 in Arts & Writings
I was painter before becoming a Buddhist. Art and art history were the orienting focus of life. Learning to paint involved falling in love with the natural world. The process of painting happens within a space of intense appreciation for the world around us, and this includes it's ephemeral quality. The blue of the sky isn't just blue, it is BLUE with a fierce intensity. This love of the world ran up against my initial understanding of Buddhism, where the world was sometimes described in terms that made it seem like a tragic mistake. In Buddhism there can be this dismissive tone toward the world, and even our bodies. Being born meant something had gone wrong. It is a burning house, get out! Although it is never stated that the world should never have been, that metaphysical judgement can be implicit in some Buddhist attitudes. This cannot be squared with the world revealed by art, and in the end the Insight of Art trumps that tone of nihilism. The world is not a tragic mistake, or a trap, though one can be trapped. The world is not a house on fire, though one can be on fire. Above all the world is not suffering. Suffering is suffering. On its own terms the world is Nirvana. This is how art Illuminates Dharma.

Comments

  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited March 2010
    ......and just a note... It is interesting to look at Buddhist attitudes around art making through history. It really ranges from a celebration of art as practice, to having a very limited role. Most Buddhist cultures have developed a rich heratige of Dharma art, so it seems like celebrating life happens anyway, even in those places where Buddhism sees life in a tragic light..
  • LesCLesC Bermuda Veteran
    edited March 2010
    Do you do any Buddhist art?
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited March 2010
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dlPzLGuWfA4/S5FEmCyIyrI/AAAAAAAAAu0/UNDyYZ5oGT8/s1600-h/crumpet.jpg




    "Flowers Bloom" 36in x60in. oil on canvas
  • PietroPumokinPietroPumokin
    edited March 2010
    Richard Herman wrote: »
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dlPzLGuWfA4/S5FEmCyIyrI/AAAAAAAAAu0/UNDyYZ5oGT8/s1600-h/crumpet.jpg




    "Flowers Bloom" 36in x60in. oil on canvas
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited March 2010
    Thanks P.P. That was a fun and challenging painting to do. In person it was much brighter and more colourful that it appears in the photo. It was part of an exhibition of symbolic work. The contemporary "spiritual" painting scene has fallen on hard times in terms of quality. Postmodernism kicked it to the curb and now it is in the hands of some major kitchmeisters. It was good to exhibit a painting on this theme in a contemporary urban gallery setting, and it involved taking those elements of spiritual cliche (symmetry, vertical axis, etc.) and just having fun with them. The result was kind of dignified.

    Painting is a good practice. It is good medtation. People dont have to worry about being "good" at it. Just doing it is a virtous act IMHO.
  • PietroPumokinPietroPumokin
    edited March 2010
    i totally agree, i love painting and wish i could do it more often
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