I am always intruiged to read the work of artists’ and writers when they attempt to describe the character and role that the artist plays in society. Art historians tend to dramatize the artists’ role, emphasizing events or relationships in their life as the key to understanding their work. I find this completely flawed. As an artist myself, I know it is the work, the image seeking materiality, that compells the artist. And all other factors are sort of the fall out that happens from such a commitment. Jung believed that, “The essence of a work of art is…[its ability to rise above] the personal and speak from the mind and heart of the artist to the mind and heart of mankind.” (The Spirit,p.101)

In Carl Jung’s book, The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature, he describes the role of the artist from this point of compulsion.  Jung makes clear,”Art is a kind of innate drive that siezes a human being and makes him its instrument.” (Ibid.,p.101) It is a relentless compulsion that allows for no rest and in many ways consumes the energy and strength of the artist as he produces the work. I find myself saying, “I can rest when I’m dead, but the moment is now to do the work.” And many of my friends think I am crazy and how do I manage to keep going. But this ignores the key element- that the artist must do the work. If he refuses to be engaged, it will eat at him and cause him to be restless and unfulfilled. In the end it is not his choice. There are greater movements in the cosmos that he is a part of. Jung states, ”He is in the highest degree objective, impersonal, and even inhuman- or suprahuman- for as an artist he is nothing but his work, and not a human being.” (Ibid.,p.101)

A war takes place within every artist. There is an innate desire for happiness and the comforts of life that every man shares, but there is also this “…ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire.”(Ibid.,p.101) In many ways, the artists’ inherent willingness to sacrifice his personal happiness for the image underlies his estrangement from society as a whole. It is an inherent contradiction that he expends his energy to reveal a truth to society while simultaneously set apart, separated from the audience that he is compelled to reach. There is a certain insanity in this. I often think of the character of the fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear. He is constantly compelled to state the truth even though it will be his eventual demise. He cannot have it otherwise. The fool is driven to stay with Lear even if it means desolation and journeying through the storm that consumes all life and energy. Jung states, “Whenever the creative force predomonates, life is ruled and shaped by the unconscious rather than by the conscious will, and the ego is swept along on an underground current, becoming nothing more than a helpless observer of events.” (Ibid.,p.103)

Although the artist appears as an outsider traditionally, he has the ability to tap into those images that need to be expressed at a particular moment in time. Jung refers to these Images as symbols. “By this I do not mean that it is an allegory pointing to something all too familiar, but the expression of something profoundly alive in the soul (of all members of the society in which the image evolves as well as in the soul of the artist)…” (Ibid,p.103) “Whenever conscious life becomes one-sided or adopts a false attitude, these images “instinctively” rise to the surface in dreams and in the visions of artist and seers to restore the psychic balance, whether of the individual or of the epoch.” (Ibid.,p.104)

The artist is basically an instrument of psychic healing that needs to take place. The artwork itself becomes the very medicine, sometimes the bitter pill, that society is in need of. And society as a whole must allow itself to be fully engaged in the work of artists in order to be transformed and renewed. But does this happen anymore? Are we at all in touch with our artists? Do we believe that artists utter a necessary truth? “And if they do, in what way would we have to regard the work of art?” (104) Possibly with the utmost seriousness.

Early on, as a high school student, I became interested in Neo-Platonism. It seemed to connect many of the intuitive thoughts that I was having and give them form and relationship. Later in college, I formally studied Neo-Platonism as a philosophy major and I still felt it touched on many of my intuitive ideas. I recently read a book on William Blake and his relationship to Neo-Platonism titled, Blake and Antiquity by Kathleen Raine (part of the Bollingen Series, 1962). This might in fact be the very reason I am so attracted to the evocative drawings and dream like images of Blake.

Raine begins her essay,

“Neo-Platonism may be compared to an underground river that flows through European history, sending up, from time to time, springs and fountains; and wherever its fertalizing stream emerges, there imaginative thought revives, and we have a period of great art and poetry.” (Raine,p.4)

The English Platonist, Thomas Taylor had a powerful influence on Blake who, simultaneously, was reading the works of Swedenborg. Taylor called upon the,

“Young men of the new age…to enlist under the banner of Plotinus, confident that…the weapons of truth, in the hands of vigorous union, descend with irresistible force, and are fatal wherever they fall.” (Raine,p.5)

Blake begins his own personal journey discovering his Platonic leanings in the work entitled, Cave of the Nymphs. The symbolism that he longed for, that was both old and new, became evident in Neo-Platonism. It encapsulated his love of the ancients and brought them into the modern age through a symbolism that transcended time. Raine states, “… the language may at times be forgotten, yet we cannot call it dead; for the visions it describes are, as Blake says, ‘Permanent in The Imagination’; the beauty and the meaning of such symbols is unaging.” (Ibid.,p.8)

One of the Platonic ideas that Blake spent much time meditating on is the idea that souls descend into generation. Heraclitus states,”…birth into the cave is a death from eternity, the sleep of forgetfulness that overcomes those who, as in Plato’s parable, drink the waters of Lethe and are born on earth.” This concept is evident in Blake’s painting, The Sea of Time and Space (1821). In this painting, there are figures with looms and shuttles, weaving the garments, the body, that the figures will wear when they enter life. In this painting,souls take on the materiality of existence and are born into the world.

But one thing I sense in Blake is that he does not just stop at identifying with Platonic ideas. He goes one step further. He identifies, as the artist, with this material embodiment. What is the artist, but one who takes an imaginative leap by carrying his idea from thought and manifesting it into a material form. Artistic creation is the very act of materializing a thought, feeling or intuitive insight, into a vessel that reveals those thoughts and feelings. The artist needs matter to create. The artist, not only transform matter, but also invests his own soul into that creation.This, too, is a materialization of a spiritual movement that takes place within the artist. Any artistic undertaking is a conjunction between thoughts, soul and matter.

Related but conversely stated, Gaston Bachelard believed that,” We need to first imagine something before we can discover it.” Matter must first be imagined before the senses can percieve it. Matter only takes on ‘life and existence’ after the entrance of the imagination. Blake elaborates in The Songs of Innocence, that it is the imagination, not the senses, that are able,

“To see a world in a Grain of Sand

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.” (Ibid.,p. 88)

Blake writes, “Every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause.” Blake believes in the artists’ ability to be a catylst of movement between the spiritual realm(imagination) and the world of matter. The artist acts as a medium between worlds. “When man lives imaginatively, his world is determined by quality” and unity. The artist is a projection of the oneness that is possible in living the creative life. Blake states,

“Heaven above, heaven beneath,

Stars above, stars beneath,

All that is above is beneath.

Understand this and be happy.” (Ibid.,p.79)

Material imagination, the imaginative quality of soul, of ‘vision’ as Blake puts it,”… regenerates and resurrects Nature… and Paradise is regained.” (Ibid.,p.100) Blake continues this thought which reaches it’s apex, “I see Every thing I paint in This World…to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees.” (Ibid.,p.100)

I spent most of the winter this year painting a series of still-lifes built on the idea of objects as vessels, having the ability to contain thought, as well as, act as a vehicle for the imagination to embed itself in time in a substantial way. The objects are not just well rendered in the form of a painting, but themselves, act as a conduit between thoughts and emotions and the artistic manifestation of the image. They are, put simply, vehicles for imaginal being.

This concept reflects my idea of the material imagination. The imagination needs matter (material substance) in order to manifest itself fully. It is never, strictly speaking a concept or rational production. The imaginal realm seeks “embodiment”. Matter is just made of “stuff”, elements, and needs, and I want to say more strongly, calls for Form. The imagination can not have an existence without a transformation of matter.

The Sufi masters wrote about this independent  realm of images. The reverie of the artist or poet enters upon an isthmus that reaches into this world, where images reside. But it is not the artist who draws them out of the pool. But it is the images that are seeking material form that present themselves to the artist. The artist intuitively knows when these significant images appear before him- he feels compelled in some way to deal with them- to bring them into consciousness and mold the vessel that will give them life- an independent life beyond the personal life and workings of the artist.

But through the creative act- the artist is not just the craftsman providing form, but consequently, through this process, is transformed himself. He transforms matter and matter transforms him. All that he desires(to create and be creative) in living the life of the imagination is reversed, and the work gives to him Being, Imaginal Being- the two, image and artist, manifesting an imaginal existence. This is the Elan- the word expressing a moment of total understanding and of great joy in that comprehension.

This imaginal existence, where one’s being unites in a material way with the imaginal object, culminats in a profound and transformed state of being. It is the very apex of the creative life. In this vision, one feels the unity and oneness of all of creation and one’s own wholeness integrated into the very fibres of existence.

But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself…If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is – infinite.”
― William Blake