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Although much may be spoken or written about art, it is for me, an immediate wordless experience which always refers back into the consciousness from which it arises. The experience does not refer outward to any finished product such as the actual "art" which this consciousness seems to produce. This must be true for all the arts.   This is even true of the actual business aspect of these arts, but is rarely seen being practiced in such a creative way. Purely conceptual robotic behaviors do persist - naturally. Surely it is true of life, where the most basic awareness itself is present even underneath any creative consciousness of insight - and is even underneath that robotic behavior as well.

The sages have reminded us that all these objects of art ( and the words about them ) do exist in reality, but only conditionally. These objects of art, of everyday life and these words are always misleading lies unless they somehow tend to deconstruct the very concrete or inherent existence they seem to have. And so, when painting, or in the design process, I find myself here, only conditionally or even perhaps not at all.

Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj describes the position of the artist facing the canvas - the canvas of life - with tools in hand:

"You are the ultimate potentiality of which all embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression." ...and here too... "Avoid a battle with the mind. Just live life as it comes - but alert and watchfully - allowing it to happen as it happens, always doing things the natural way, suffering or rejoicing as life brings."

It does play out that this doing of things in the natural way covers all the territory possible. The implications are staggering. Art then, when natural, is nothing special at all, and on the other hand, everything doing itself naturally absolutely is miraculous. Seeing things as they are is "like cleansing a mirror" ...as Nisargadatta teaches... "The same mirror that shows the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought 'I Am' is the polishing cloth. Use it."

The thought 'I Am' is also the paint brush to the conditional one who is painting. So I use it. The canvas is the mirror that is polished by the paintbrush.

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"First, let us be clear about what art is. The producer of art is, I would say, in a thanking position. I say a thanking position because he thanks for being allowed to be. Being allowed to be in this joy, in this equanimity, brings him to produce art and to share this joy with others. So art, in a certain way, points directly to our real nature.

The science of creating art is to free our expression from the material part. By this I mean that the creation should take us beyond the five senses. It must free us from matter and also from ideas. Art must be conceived in such a way that it meets the observer. To do this, to come to this meeting with others, there must be room for the observer to participate. This means one must know exactly where to stop. When you know really where to stop, what not to put, there is a coming together of the artist and the person who looks at it, because the observer is invited to participate, to complete the work. This is true of painting, music, architecture, poetry, dance.
Coming together is the goal, if we can speak of a goal, of the work of art.

There must be space in the work, and this space can only appear when the artist as "an artist" is absent. When there is no one writing or painting, there will automatically be an economy of expression. Look how a couple of images in a few lines of haiku poetry can evoke a whole realm of emotion in the reader. That is an example of what I mean."

~ Jean Klein

"When Rama asked, 'Which is the great mirror in which we see these images of things? What is it that is called the Heart of all the beings in the world?' Vasishta answered, 'When we reflect we see that all the beings in the world have two different hearts.'

One of these is worth acceptance, the other is illusion. Listen how they differ. The organ called the heart placed somewhere in the chest of the physical body is illusory. The Heart which is of the form of Pure Awareness is worth acceptance; it is both within and without — it has no inside or out.

That indeed is the essential Heart and in it all this world abides. It is the mirror in which all things are seen. It is the source of all wealth. Hence Awareness may be termed the Heart of all beings. The Heart is not a part of the perishable body inert like a stone."

~ Yoga Vasistha ~

From Listening - Jean Klein

"The vision of beauty is spontaneous in just the same sense as the inward light of the lover(bhakta). It is a state of grace that cannot be achieved by deliberate effort: though perhaps we can remove hindrances to it's manifestation. There are many witnesses that the secret of all art is to be found in self forgetfulness.

In all ages of creation the artist has been "in Love" with the particular subject - when it is not so, we see that the work is not "felt". The artist has never set out to achieve the Beautiful in the strict aesthetic sense, and to have this aim is to invite disaster, as onw who should seek to fly without wings.

The true critic (rasika) perceives the beauty of which the artist has exhibited the signs. (The philosopher defines Beauty hermetically and according to merely personal and ideologically conditioned preferences.) It is not necessary that the critic should appreciate the artist's meaning - every work of art yields many meanings - for he knows without reasoning whether the work is beautiful before the mind begins to question what it is "about".

We gain and feel nothing merely when we take it on authority that any particular works are beautiful.   It is far better to be honest and to admit that perhaps we cannot see their beauty.

The critic as she becomes an exponent, has to prove her case. She cannot do this by any process of argument but only by creating a new work of art, the criticism.   Her audience, catching the gleam through her - but still the same gleam, for there is only one - has then the opportunity to approach the original work a second time. "

~Coomaraswamy