by David V. White
that their work comes to them from beyond the threshold of consciousness.
– Shelley
Whatever the explanation for the power of art, it has worked its magic for a very long time in almost every culture. It is one of the most important ways we humans have tried to understand our world and the meaning of our lives within it. We have sought this understanding through the creative act – writing, sculpting, composing, painting, designing, performing, and decorating. And we have sought to experience it through the work of others: reading, looking, and listening. For centuries we have continually immersed our senses, our minds as well as our emotions, in every imaginable kind of artistic creation.
The importance of art is certainly no secret. Through the ages we humans have made a tremendous investment of time, energy, and money in producing it. Consider the resources and effort given to create, commission, purchase, and stage artistic works: paintings, sculpture, music, literature, opera, theater, dance, beautifully designed objects, architecturally magnificent buildings. Speaking of architecture, think of the cumulative investment that has been made to house and display the world’s art (museums, libraries, art galleries, symphony halls, opera houses – as well as the thousands of castles and great homes built to showcase art collected by royalty and the wealthy.) Next, imagine the amount of time we as a species have spent viewing, reading, listening, watching – giving our time to taking in art in all its forms. Considering this incredible investment of time, money and attention, it is quite clear that art is one of the central commitments of humankind.
In trying to understand this phenomenon, it is crucial to recognize that in most cultures through history, art was not a separate enterprise from the quest to discover a whole and meaningful life. On the contrary, art has almost always been intertwined with myth, ritual, religion, and things spiritual, bound up with the attempt to understand what is important, how we should live, and how to have a meaningful life. In fact, art in many cultures has been considered sacred, a primary way of connecting with and experiencing that which is larger than oneself.
Coming at this from another angle, noted anthropologist Mircea Eliade found that every culture he studied (both ancient and modern) recognized two levels of experience – the sacred and the profane. The “profane” was the world of our everyday, ordinary lives: making a living, building relationships, taking care of our responsibilities, enjoying ourselves, fulfilling our ambitions. The “sacred” involved our connection to something larger than ourselves, beyond the experience of everyday time and space.
In this context, many cultures have considered art to be one of the primary links to the sacred, the preferred medium for dealing with the most important issues and questions of life. It is not surprising then, that many artists through history have been a part of the established religious structures of their times, doing their work for and within those structures. Of course, some had a very uneasy relationship with these religious organizations, and a few were at odds with the establishment, even to the point of being declared heretics. Interestingly, though, both those within and those outside religious institutions mostly considered their work to be coming from and having to do with the sacred – having to do with something larger than the “small self” of their everyday lives. Efforts to define this “something larger” have been problematic, for artists themselves have defined it in very different ways. But almost all artists throughout history have felt there was a sacred space from which their inspirations arose, and about which their art was a glimpse.
This commonality of experience does not provide a specific explanation as to where artists’ inspirations come from. But focusing on this recurring theme – that the inspiration for art often comes from, and speaks about, Eliade’s sacred time and space – might help us understand our relationship to artistic inspiration, and perhaps even provide clues as to how we might look for answers to the important questions of our own lives.
Being an Artist Can Be Very Difficult – Why Do We Do It?
To understand the sacred role of art, it helps to recognize first that being an artist is often a very difficult, lonely, and unrewarding profession. Think of the countless stories of artists through the ages who have sacrificed everything in order to pursue their art – writers and poets and musicians who lived in poverty and squalor so that they could follow a dream. Many left their families and friends to pursue their vision, while others infuriated friends and family by following an inspiration that challenged the style and values of the time.
Beyond the stories that we know, there must be countless other stories we have never heard, the unrecorded stories of all those artists who did not become famous. I have often wondered, for every artist who has been recognized, how many made the same sacrifices, gave the same effort, but did not achieve lasting success? For every artist that history records as successful, there must have been a thousand, or perhaps ten thousand, who made the effort, gave their lives to their art – yet are not recognized or remembered today.
Further, to become an artist, aspirants must commit to developing their skills for many years before the world can decide whether to reward them for their efforts. Most who make this commitment and sacrifice do not have worldly success. Even for the chosen few, recognition often comes toward the end of life. At the extreme, many who are considered great artists today received little or no recognition while they lived. Yet aspiring artists keep committing, keep making the effort, making the sacrifice – without knowing whether or not their work will ever be valued or appreciated. To belabor the point, many artists live in obscurity and poverty and rejection for a very long time before they are proclaimed a success – if ever it happens. So the life of an artist can be very hard.
My favorite example of this is Vincent Van Gogh. I have now seen most of his works, and upon revisiting his museum in Amsterdam, was reminded of the many years he painted without any recognition. It is believed by many scholars that he did not sell a single painting in his lifetime: all these incredible works, now worth several billion dollars, simply piled up in his brother’s garage, un-displayed, like the art of “Aunt Sue” or “Cousin Bill” who is trying to be an artist, but who no one appreciates.
It is very hard for me to imagine Van Gogh’s paintings stacked in a garage, unseen by anyone, scarcely protected from the weather, and mice. Yet today, those same paintings would sell for more than the combined works of any other single artist who ever lived.
The crucial point I am trying to get at is this: Van Gogh had to keep turning out those paintings, working away, day after day, year after year, without any recognition or appreciation. And it was definitely not easy. Once he said, “I have a dirty and hard profession – painting – and if it were not what I am, I should not paint . . .”
I have often thought about Van Gogh and his difficult life, as well as his towering success after death, partly because he is one of my favorite artists, and partly because his life exemplifies something important with regard to the questions at hand. His life was filled with failure and emotional pain; his letters to his brother Theo serve as a continuing testament to that pain. Because of these difficulties, he died young, by his own hand. Yet today he is considered one of the greatest artists of all time.
So I have asked myself: If I could have Van Gogh’s life – a life of failure while alive and great emotional pain, but followed by enormous success after death – would I choose it?
Thought Experiment: Would you choose Van Gogh’s life?
Knowing the above rough facts, if you could choose Van Gogh’s life for yourself, would you?
For me, the answer to this question has been easy: I would not choose Van Gogh’s life. But there is a much harder question: If Vincent Van Gogh had been my friend, and had asked for advice about how he should live, what would I have said? Most especially, I have wondered what I would have advised if I thought he would have been happier in a more normal life, becoming perhaps a blacksmith or a butcher. Would I have advised him to go the route of his personal happiness, or would I have advised him to continue with his art – knowing that such a life would turn out to be more difficult and painful?
Of course, there is no way to know if Van Gogh’s life would have been happier if he had given up his art. But many of us face, at crucial moments in our lives, exactly this kind of question: Do we do what seems practical and conventional and “steady” – following what we hope will be the path to conventional happiness? Or do we take the risk and follow the path that seems to have greater meaning, more passion, more life and vitality in it, even if it is riskier and more difficult?
What is the Source of Artistic Inspiration?
Why, then, did Van Gogh make the choices he made, and why do so many people invest so much time and energy in the difficult life-path of becoming an artist? What accounts for the power of the creative process to call us to its service, and what does this have to do with living a full and meaningful life?
One way to approach these questions is to explore more fully the thought: Where does creative inspiration come from – from whence does artistic creativity arise? Not an easy question. But a valuable suggestion comes from Willis Harmon in his book Higher Creativity, in which he documents a theme that runs through the reports of many, many artists as to the source of their ideas and inspirations. Summing up his thesis, Harmon quotes the poet Shelley: “One after another the greatest writers, poets, and artists confirm the fact that their work comes to them from beyond the threshold of consciousness.”
In one example, Mozart said of the origin of one of his works, “Though it be long” (he was speaking of a whole piece of music), “the whole work stands almost complete and finished in my mind . . . Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once.” Incredibly, Mozart is telling us that he did not think up this work, but that it somehow came to him complete and whole from somewhere beyond his conscious awareness. How can this be? Even if I memorized a long piece of music that already existed, I could not consciously hold all the parts in my mind at one time. The mind doesn’t work like that. Yet Mozart was able to see “all at once” a whole work that had not yet been written!
Following this thread, the more one investigates, the more one discovers that artists often consider themselves “recipients of a gift.” Beethoven insisted that some of his most valued inspirations came to him from beyond what he normally thought of as his individual self. George Sand echoed this sentiment saying, “The Wind plays my old harp as it lists . . . It is the other who sings as he likes through me, well or ill.”
Over and over this theme repeats itself in the writings of artists concerning the source of their inspiration. The painter Paul Klee said, “The artist is merely a channel.” Wagner said of the overture to Das Rheingold, “It has at last been revealed to me.” The poet Keats said that a section of his poem Hyperion “came to him by chance or magic – to be, as it were, something given to me.” He also reported that sometimes, after he had written something down, he was struck with “astonishment,” for it seemed “rather the production of another person” than his own. The composer Tchaikovsky said, “Generally speaking, the germ of a future composition comes suddenly and unexpectedly.”
Higher Creativity gives many other examples of how “the muse can come, unbidden, and virtually dictate entire lines, passages, or works.” For instance, Goethe: “I wrote the book almost unconsciously, like a somnambulist, and was amazed when I realized what I had done.” William Blake reports, “I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty lines at a time, without premeditation, and even against my will.” Richard Strauss concurs, “While the ideas were flowing in upon me – the entire musical, measure for measure, it seemed to me that I was dictated to by two wholly different, Omnipotent Entities . . . I was definitely conscious of being aided by more than an earthly Power.” The composer Brahms declares, “Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God . . . Measure by measure, the finished product is revealed to me when I am in those rare, inspired moods.” And Puccini joins the chorus, “The music of this opera was dictated to me by God; I was merely instrumental in putting it on paper and communicating it to the public.”
Rudyard Kipling reflected often on these issues, and he concluded that the key to contacting one’s inner inspiration was “not to think consciously” but to “drift.” Harmon quotes a wonderful example of this “drifting” from Beethoven’s journals. This most majestic of composers reports that one day, while riding in a carriage, he fell asleep and began dreaming of Jerusalem. Within the dream there arose a beautiful piece of music. On waking, however, try as he might, he could not remember any part of it. But being a man quite aware of the necessity to “drift,” Beethoven arranged the next day to take the same carriage ride, and, though awake, began to consciously and intentionally re-enter the dream of the previous day. And he reports, “lo and behold!” the music “flashed across me.” And since he was now prepared, he “held it … fast” and began to write it down.
What is most interesting here is that Beethoven could consciously set out to explore the terrain between sleep and waking – could re-enter the dream world whilst still awake – and thus bring back the creative inspiration from that world. This is a marvelous example of a creative genius learning to open to the mysterious world of inspiration through a conscious intention, and then bringing its fruits back into life.
Another story concerns the poet Coleridge, who went to sleep under the influence of laudanum (a mixture of opium and alcohol) and awoke three hours later with several hundred lines of the poem Xanadu in his mind. Coleridge said that in his dream, “all the images rose up before him as things, without any sensation or consciousness of effort.” And when he awoke, he had a “distinct recollection of the whole,” and then “instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved.” So in this case, several hundred lines of a major poem appeared in a dream.
How do we make sense of these experiences? We could dismiss them if the creations were nonsensical, but many of the works referred to are great works of art, coming from some of the greatest artists who ever lived. Also, if there were not so many similar reports, from so many great artists, it would be easy to simply call them fantastical and ignore them. This, however, is not possible: these are but a few of the many, many examples that could be given. Of course, it could be argued that artists don’t understand their own source of inspiration, but who would know the source of their inspiration better than the artists themselves? It would be pretty presumptuous to suggest that the greatest creative geniuses among us did not know what they were talking about with regard to the source of their own work, simply because their reports do not fit a theory about where such inspirations “should” come from. (Not unlike telling Galileo that he couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing, because it didn’t fit current received opinion.) For all these reasons, there is something in the reported experiences of these artists it would be well for us to heed.
What, then, is the source of artists’ inspiration? Brahms provides an invaluable clue in saying, “I have to be in a semitrance condition to get such results – a condition when the conscious mind is in temporary abeyance, and the subconscious mind is in control.” He goes on, “In this exalted state I see clearly what is obscure in my ordinary moods.” For Brahms, and many other artists, the source of inspiration and creativity is not the “ordinary mind” – not from the artist’s personal ego, from what he or she normally thinks of as “me.” It arises from somewhere or something experienced as “greater” or “larger” than the personal sense of self.
Over and over, then, many great artists through the ages have pointed to a world beyond the conscious mind as the source of their inspiration. And in the absence of a convincing explanation for this mystery, let us bow to the words of Shelley, who said that creative inspirations were the “visitations of the divine in man.” This does not tell us exactly what the source is, but it offers a clue, which will be taken up in a later chapter, The Unseen Order. And it highlights the overlapping nature of creative inspiration and Shelley’s “divine.”
Why Drift?
Why is it necessary to “drift?” Why is it necessary to leave ordinary consciousness in order to get in touch with creativity in almost every realm of human endeavor – from art to science to business to psychology. (Other chapters will discus how paying attention to insights gained from “beyond the threshold of consciousness” has been crucial in other areas of life.)
Why drift? Tackling this question, journalist Christine Cox gives a valuable suggestion: “In the lapsing of thought . . . our awareness of our personal ego also lapses. It is this momentary loss of the noise of the ego that is the true cause of the bliss that accompanies the creative state. And this silencing of the ego allows us to hear not only the symphony of bliss, but also the many-stranded music of reality, and the voice of inspiration arising from within.” In other words, in order to get in touch with deep inspirations, for art and for life, we must learn to get outside our small ego’s point of view. We must enter Eliade’s “sacred time.” Only this allows connection to a source of wisdom and guidance that is larger than our ordinary daily concerns, and only in this place do we get in touch with meaning, with values, with what is really important in our lives. And if the mystics are to be believed, only here will we find the path to enduring happiness.
With these clues in hand, let us return to Vincent Van Gogh. For years he worked feverishly, sometimes 10 to 12 hours a day. Although his life was quite painful much of the time, he could also write, “at moments, when I am in a good mood, I think that what is alive in art, and eternally alive, is in the first place the painter . . .” So pain was not his only experience of those years, at least when he was painting. In the same letter he writes, “Since I am a painter, I often work with pleasure.” And in another note he poignantly relates how he feels the deep connection between his pain and his creativity, and says he would not sacrifice the one if it meant the loss of the other. This recalls the words of the poet Rilke, who said that he was afraid if he lost his demons, he would lose his angels also.
Thus the key to Van Gogh’s experience might be that only when he was immersed in his painting did he feel that the “real” Van Gogh, the deeper Van Gogh – his essence – was present. When he reached this deeper state of inspiration and creativity, only then did he feel that his real self came alive. And in those exalted moments he felt meaning in his life. The rest of the time he was caught by his neuroses, his psychological problems, and because of this, his normal life had a great deal of suffering. Perhaps, then, the reason Van Gogh remained a painter, and worked such long hours – even though it was difficult – was to “experience the visitation of the divine,” to enter “sacred time” as often as he as could, especially since the rest of his life was such a mess.
So if I had been Van Gogh’s friend, would I have suggested he give up painting to have a more “normal” life? My answer, after much reflection, is no. Even though I have concluded that I would not have chosen Van Gogh’s life for myself, the advice I would have given him seems clear; receiving one of his letters, I would have replied: Vincent, only in those bursts of creativity, those moments when you lose yourself in your art, do you find any meaning or joy in your life. Only then do you seem in touch with your higher self, your essence, your deeper spirit. So, dear Vincent, even if it is hard, go for it, continue your work – it seems to be your path to a deeper meaning, a fuller experience of life.
In some profound way Vincent Van Gogh is still, to this very day, “alive” in his art. And something greater than him is alive there as well, alive through him, and perhaps through his suffering. I know this for certain from my own experience that day in the Museum of Modern Art, lost in the mystery of “Starry Night.”
And I am not alone in this experience. Listen to some of the words of Don McClean’s hit song, Starry, Starry Night:
Paint your palette blue and grey,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.
