Are There Distinctively Buddhist Approaches to Creativity?

[Dharmavidya]

I started a discussion in another forum and it has stimulated much response, so I am restarting it here to see what Amida people think.....

Buddhism in art can mean different things.
- It can mean art the depicts Buddhist themes, in which case the style could be any. In principle one could have a cubist depiction of Milarepa sitting in his cave.
- It can mean styles of art that have been developed in Buddhist cultures such as tanka painting or haiku poetry, in which case the style could in principle also be applied to other themes, even those outside of Buddhist tradition.
- It can mean a Buddhist appoach to creativity that is completely experimental and this could operate either in the practice of art itself or in art criticism and appreciation. Thus one might critique a piece of Western art - say the Mona Lisa - from a perspective that was somehow rooted in Buddhist principles or practice.

The third of these appears to me the most intriguing and I wonder if others have ideas what it might consist of or look like.

[Dharmavidya]

The dogmatic and pedagogic are useful if they are a springboard, not if they are a limit. Creativity needs something to lever against, I find.

[Mat Osmond]

I would say - hope, perhaps, because it feels a pretentious thing to say - that a groping towards a lived understanding of Buddhism has gradually become central to my own motivation in trying to make art. But I share the sense that to make overtly 'Buddhist' art - to employ formally Buddhist iconography - would be to short-circuit the hoped-for integration of the teachings and experience. This feels important, although its only a partial truth.
The painter Winifred Nicholson, also a Christian Scientist (and an eloquent writer on art and spirituality) thought that one shouldn't try to make 'spiritual art' - rather one should trust that the spirit will speak for itself in one's honest engagement with immediate experience. That could become a sort of protestant dogmatism I suppose, but it has a strong resonance for me, and evokes the Quaker's (?) 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.'

Its also,I think,relevant to why I value Mary Oliver so much. She always seems to be addressing the mystery of what is, but never through metaphysics. Just a constant, intimate attention to the everyday.

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

[Armida]

It feels alive.....

[Mat Osmond]

Koshin' s remarks (on the comment wall) about poetry reminded me that it is most often in poetry, of all the arts, that I find the clearest sense of a spiritual touchstone. I also notice that whilst my involvement in Dharma practice has been subject to periodic upheavals that seem to suggest a convulsive and rather neurotic (bombu?) dimension to my motivation, the poetry that moves me remains unaffected by any such upheavals.

For me poetry probably provides the clearest examples of the kind of categories that Dharamvidya suggests above. eg Poetry that simply breathes a living and tangible manifestation of the movement of the spirit, poetry that speaks from a Western perspective in Buddhist images, or poetry that whilst arising outside of Buddhism, expresses dharmic ideas.

Eg (of the latter) Mervyn Peake:

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
with love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

[Leo Kouwenhoven]

I consider myself as a Buddhist or Amidist in the making. The themes in the discussions, particularly about the sublime and the three different meanings Buddhism in art make me think and inspired me to take on an old plan. Recently my life took a turn in which I came in circumstances that permit me to devote myself to art fulltime, or almost fulltime. Soon I will be studying again on an art academy again, so I am somewhat an artist in the making as well. This is for the main part due to some people near me and the inspiration I got from my contacts with Amida people. And besides other subjects I like to paint, like the human figure, portraits, seasights/landscapes and the like that nobody before me tried his hand on...
I am specially fascinated by religious art. More precisely to find a style for expressing the inspiration I found in Amida-Buddhism with the means (knowledge, practice in (icon)painting) I have now. So is it possible to depict Buddhist themes and general religious themes in an iconic contemporary art-style. Precisely like you said in the first meaning of Buddhism in art. Sounds like a well thought choice but in reality it is matter of trying again and again. I tried to combine the traditional media like tempera paint (selfmade from pigments and eggyolk) and goldleaf to find expression or an expressionist-abstract style to depict the inspiration I got and get from some of the great Buddhist/Amidist themes.
It happened that I got fascinated by the 'theory or doctrine of the three minds:
"the first is an utterly sincere mind (shijoshin);
the second is a profound mind (jinshin); and
the third is a mind which dedicates all merit toward Birth in the Pure Land
with the resolve to be Born there or, in short, the longing mind (ekohotsuganshin)".
Let me show you what I tried around the three minds:
(the work is tempera and goldleaf on paper)

Tried to express the meaning of sincere faith: could it be that I see faith as a real appearance?

Defenitely inspired by what Dharmavidya once said: "We are broken people but the light of Amida shines through the cracks." Could this be the meaning of deep faith?

A window, a vision perhaps? Could this be a meaning of aspiring faith (in the pureland) for all of us.

A tryptic as you can see. Seeking an expression for inspiration as a study for a shrine or altarpiece.
Anyway meant this as a little tribute to you all my Amida friends. Hope you like it.

[Kaspalita]

Wonderful, thank you for posting these Leo.

I think this kind of work is very important in bringing Buddhism to the west. I do appreciate all the imagery and so on from the East, but I think there is a place for unhooking the traditional iconography and finding a place for expressing the spiritual relationship (with Amida) in forms that speak to our culture.

When I first looked at these I was captivated by the first image - but seeing the triptych something moves in me. I'd love to see the real thing some day.