In a sense, I think that the creative process is a threat to the separate self because Eros —the Great Daimon—is the creative impulse towards wholeness, the glue that binds the part of the great web of being together. It’s an essentially self transcendant force. Self-expression isn’t so clear cut because the self isn’t so clear cut. Channeling this force can erode the separate self, or the fuel neurosis that amplify it. Like that famous Joseph Campbell quote, we could say that “the psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic [or artist] swims with delight.”
I wrote a piece about Austin Osman Spare a little while back, an artist who dwelled on the threshold between madness and mysticism. He’s a mad genius in my opinion. He claimed to be possessed by entities or spirits of deceased artists. Being a vessel for obsession was, for him, the ultimate goal of the artist. What I love is that his body of work clearly shows a wide variety of styles, as if he’s channeling different entities.
yes completely agree! and thank you! i absolutely love spare. the book of pleasure especially is so important to me. i'm excited to read your piece on him!
Wonderful read, thank you. I loved following the thread through all the artists own work and hints of their relationship to the Paraclete, a word I learned recently, though I think it only exists in Christian canon, the friend, the guide...but also as you point out, it's equal opposite. I think it might all depend on your personal relationship to it.
Amazing & wonderful! If this is the start of a longer piece (it seems so, to me), then the English poet John Clare & the English painter Richard Dadd might also be worth checking out.
The creative force of the universe is not benign!
In a sense, I think that the creative process is a threat to the separate self because Eros —the Great Daimon—is the creative impulse towards wholeness, the glue that binds the part of the great web of being together. It’s an essentially self transcendant force. Self-expression isn’t so clear cut because the self isn’t so clear cut. Channeling this force can erode the separate self, or the fuel neurosis that amplify it. Like that famous Joseph Campbell quote, we could say that “the psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic [or artist] swims with delight.”
I wrote a piece about Austin Osman Spare a little while back, an artist who dwelled on the threshold between madness and mysticism. He’s a mad genius in my opinion. He claimed to be possessed by entities or spirits of deceased artists. Being a vessel for obsession was, for him, the ultimate goal of the artist. What I love is that his body of work clearly shows a wide variety of styles, as if he’s channeling different entities.
Loved your essay 🖤
yes completely agree! and thank you! i absolutely love spare. the book of pleasure especially is so important to me. i'm excited to read your piece on him!
https://aetherealmoods.substack.com/p/on-art-obsession-and-magic-studio?r=2csp76&utm_medium=ios
Wonderful read, thank you. I loved following the thread through all the artists own work and hints of their relationship to the Paraclete, a word I learned recently, though I think it only exists in Christian canon, the friend, the guide...but also as you point out, it's equal opposite. I think it might all depend on your personal relationship to it.
thank you! and yes i’m always fascinated by how many different words and conceptions there for this figure and how the context changes.
Art is a path - a ritual.
A hybrid path,
an emergency from the dark.
Art is possessed -
not a fixed, haunted object,
but a continuous, dangerous materia.
beautifully said
Amazing & wonderful! If this is the start of a longer piece (it seems so, to me), then the English poet John Clare & the English painter Richard Dadd might also be worth checking out.
thank you so much! not sure if i will expand this but possibly. though i’m excited to look into them either way. ❤️