Breaking the Mould

and crossing the line.

I wonder what this artist was looking for when he sat cross-legged in silence.

Has any artist done anything as important as what the Buddha had done. Or is the collective through art trying to find out what the Buddha found out when he sat in silence. The artist in his work sits in silence in his studio. His studio is his temple. He uses the place to ponder on his work and listens to his mind and sees how his mind does his work for him/her.

Just as Buddha had been an inspiration to many also others have looked inwards to look inside the mind and see how it works by just observing it.

“Thought Forms” was written in 1901 by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater.

“Besant and Leadbeater — Thought Forms — 1901 — An analysis of thought energy, including color illustrations of various emotionally charged thought energies.”

The book was used by many artist as a reference:

“Kandinsky’s ~~occult~~ library was considerable, but certain books in particular fuelled his speculation. Three key works were Man, Visible and Invisible (1902) by C. W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms (1905) by Annie Besant and Leadbeater, and Rudolf Steiner’s Theosophy (1904).”

(the word occult is a conditioned word in today’s minds. A better word would be “Kandinsky’s spiritual library…”)

http://www.theosophical.org/publications/1405

As you can see that all these books were written during the magical period in the arts when the object based narrative works crossed the line with the advent of abstraction. The first abstract painting was associated with Kandinsky, a water colour in 1910.

Not only a painting crossed the line but minds too crossed a line to dwell in nothingness to ponder the relationship between the inner and the outer of the self. Art seems to function as a future trend for the collective consciousness. The artist ponders his inner processes of the mindbodysoul in the making of the art work and the viewer sees a glimpse of it when he stands in front of the work. He tries to see what the artist has seen as some try to see what the Buddha had seen.

A meditative piece of art work is like the meditative mind of Buddha contemplating the Truth of things and his place in the universe. The work of art is the manifestation of that process in the mind of an artist as to Nirvana was the final manifestation of Buddha’s process in his mind, in the search for the Truth. The artist is the conscience of the collective.

C.W. Leadbeater and Madam Blavatsky was part of the Theosophical mind at that time: There is no Religion higher than Truth.

Madam Blavatsky herself was an artist. Her life’s work is showcased every year at the Theosophical Center at Adyar, India. Members are invited to join the celebrations every year. People come from all parts of the world to celebrate Madam Blavatsky’s artistic installation of her life’s work. It is played out every year with lectures, music, food, art, celebrating a spiritual world where there is no religion higher than Truth.

https://www.siriperera.com/?p=204