Gerardo Dottori Painting
There is an interesting article on Between about the Futurist Art movement and spirituality. It focuses mainly on the image content. This article has made me think I am guilty of discounting visual content too much. I honestly don't believe it is the imagery that makes a piece spiritual, but certain images do have powerful spiritual content. They act like doors to access archetypal spiritual energies. I think this is particularly true of people who are not consciously on a spiritual path; religious images act as a signposts directing them more deeply into the Spirit.There are certain images that cannot fail to move me, regardless of how they are painted, for instance, depictions of the Virgin Mary... Every Mary I see strengthens my feeling of Divine connection. There is one painting of Mary which particularly dear me (see this blog's sidebar). Why is a topic for another post, but the painting itself is no masterpiece. Yet this image never fails to cause my heart to leap. I have the same reaction to certain mandala pieces. I think I must go back to the very basic alchemical tenet: "As above, so below." Images can echo the Divine, mirror them imperfectly. But I would still say a truer and deeper measure of a work of art's spiritual nature, is to be found in the artist's process, not the artist's product.