Avenues of Vision: The Unique Character of the Artist

In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). And that the world was made through the Word. And that nothing exists but that the Word created it. Therefore, the Word was an Artist.

We differ from the Word in many respects, but, for our purposes, it is to be noted that we are provided Material: we do not create it. The Material is given that we may create, and that we may create according to the inspiration that is given us by the Word.

We receive Creation. We have been given senses that perceive Creation, in whatever form it is manifested. The impact provokes response in emotional forms: anger, sorrow, warmth, joy, even lust and fear.

How Material is formed and manipulated, how it is presented, and how it is used and received are the issues we will discuss in this blog post. Somewhere we have lost the ability to perceive Creation and must somehow wait for the impact to make itself felt without our interference or interpretation.

           To create the appropriate leash for the arts, we need to define Creation (“Art”) as it relates to the artist, the church and to the public. Here’s my “highly biased and subjective” definition:

 Art is a creative expression, using visual, aural, lingual, sequential, even culinary and other, media to express concrete and abstract ideas in affective ways. Art may be considered anything that impacts the senses and gives an emotional impression or reaction. Watching a beautiful sunset, one can consider it amazing “Art” by the mere fact that an item has impacted that person emotionally, or aesthetically as some philosophers distinguish them. Whether it has been “created” or not is beside the point, but even in this, we can recognize a “Creator,” if only in the fact that the media in question can only be manipulated by Someone of God-like power.

Art is one of those amazing things, a blend (some might say “juxtaposition”) of process and vision. A vision, since a project needs a form to emulate, and a process, since that vision needs sinews and bones to exist beyond the mind of the Artist.

The Vision

The Artist first must produce the “vision.” This vision is an imaginative entity of what God, or in pagan cultures, a “muse,” breathes into being. This may be a “final” product from the point of imagining but it can also be a starting point, a thing that can be molded and shaped as human flaws become evident, even in within the vision itself.

In its initial stages, a vision is a raw affective thing which may be merely indescribable in that particular manifestation, that which exists within a transcendent mind. Here, I mean “transcendent” inasmuch as the mind in question can perceive in modes that go beyond the material world. We see this in the way a passionate artist tries to describe his new “idea” to someone else. At best, it is entertaining, although not in the way an artist would like to see! At worst, there is no communication and the artist gives up in frustration. This makes for a somewhat entertaining time when soliciting financial support.

 The expression of the vision is not the vision itself, but an emulation of it. The vision is that “something” that an artist feels or perceives within her own mind.

The interesting thing is that the vision is not just emotion. Often, emotion is only evidence that it is present. A mundane way to express it would describe it as “spiritual,” although such a word is inadequate to those who have experienced the condition, and inconceivable to those who have not. This is why so many artists, in both secular and sacred worlds, have more than a cursory idea than most society that the spiritual is “out there” in CS Lewis’s “Numinous.” Kierkegaard pointed out that non-believers receive this awareness of the spiritual and are led into Sentimentalism, while I would add two more possible paths: the occult and the mystic. A fourth opportunity is “the knocking by One” in hopes that the door will be opened. Opened, it is, at the hearer’s request, and that hitherto non-believing artist is introduced to Christ in a very new, personal and overwhelming sense.

Tree Grace by Makoto Fujimora

The working of the vision is shaped by education and by experience even though the original material is unchanged. Both are events that color a person’s perspective. Done properly, they enhance the artist’s awareness of his vision: anything else clouds and distorts it.

When I was a child, my family insisted that “more is better” when decorating a Christmas tree, until the poor thing was so wrapped in tinsel and stuff that the original item was lost. Trappings may be well and good. Used sparingly and appropriately, they enhance the form and color of the original. Too much, and the concept is lost amidst the stuff. This was my own experience: others may find that a lot of decoration recalls childhood memories of their own and thus an emotional bond with something opposite to my own sensibilities.

A vision in and of itself is usually barely tangible to the artist and, again, is manifested by her emotions. Education will open the mind to new possibilities in expressing that vision in a logical, pedagogical way. Experience tends to be more affective, with classic “positive” and “negative reinforcement” manipulating the person’s responses and her application and interpretation of that “vision.”

A third thing is the inner being of the artist himself. In Tolkien’s words, “suddenly, he was neither the Eye, nor the Voice2” but himself, and able to choose an avenue for his own sake, from his own perspective. The artist is neither education nor experience and the inner person, stripped of such, will choose accordingly. The original item will appear again, once the trappings fall away.

The vision has now taken some sort of shape. Beyond a spiritual birth and its emotional impression, it now takes form in the mind of the artist as a tangible product. The artist projects upon the vision and its emotional by-product the form necessary for physical manifestation, form developed by the media in which the artist is familiar. Although true to itself in form, the minimal trappings allow it to appear as a symphony, a sculpture, or a painting.

Depictions of Christ by various artists around the world

Structure and Chaos

Art without form is chaos. Art without freedom is stark. One might also say that about mathematics and other “logical” sciences, as well. One notes that the most gifted mathematicians are skilled in, or at least enjoy, some aspect of the Arts, while the most skilled artists find great wonder in the sciences, as well. Scientists reach empirically what Artists envision aesthetically.

Our vision must take on some form without losing its affective qualities. Our artist seizes this opportunity to clothe that vision in tangible materials that may be perceived by others. As our brain is made up of a logical half and an affective half, so must we communicate in such a way. Our vision will show itself best as a form with clothing, as flesh with a skeleton.

The artist, without letting go of his “vision,” then begins the process of birthing it. The artist must “break down” the vision intellectually to analyze its moving parts, composition and being. In his mind, he destroys that he may create.

Colors are broken down to their initial components so the artist may reconstruct them. The musician hears a chord and education and experience again allow her to analyze the frequencies inherent that she may write them down. A cook is aware of the spices in that particular taste so he can mix just the right amount of one or the other to emulate or enhance it.

The artist then proceeds to rebuild his vision in the real world, comparing it to the vision within his mind. As materials do not become available, he must literally improvise: at the worst he must reshape his vision to conform to his materials. Many are the visions that cannot be made manifest in this material world. They must be substituted by symbols so that those with “ears to hear” and “eyes to see” can perceive the truth behind.

Jack Ballard, composer

To hear more of Jack’s music, please click here.

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