Sometimes, a way of understanding or a kind of personal research seems to flow independently according to its own rules and tends therefore to be ignored and even forgotten by others who are not entirely connected with the same. Then those who are in it can sometimes flatter themselves with this elitist attitude. The elitist understanding of art is a case in point, especially when allied to issues of creativity. At stake is a kind of idea, or a whole philosophy, which came to power two centuries ago around the French as well as with the Industrial Revolution, and which has held its influence so far. What now?
Fundamentally art has more to do with a simple prayer than anything else or, speaking in terms of communication, a single message with no fixed address. Something very simple which should be open to us all. Naturally, some of us are better 'toolmakers' in producing such messages. And yet with certain people there is such a desperate need for communication that they just do it anyway. In any case, contrary to received opinion, there is no single theory which really characterises creativity or the artist.
Therefore, when art as such is just another language of communication, what about language in general? The Swiss linguist and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) proposed the system or connection between concept and expression, signifiant and signifié , in an individual pattern as well as in various more or less grouped patterns in various languages. Something of the same is to be found in Tibetan Buddhist psychology, where they talk about an inner and an outer sense system, and that psychology is what takes place between the two. We are all born with what they call the outer sense system, eyes and ears, so that even a new born baby can see and listen. But then we have to learn how to build up our inner sense system, our own concepts, to see what it is. This in fact is not really 'seeing', but only perceiving our own concepts, or illusions as they say.
So far there should only be two ways to go. Either to build up new and more valuable concepts, as for instance a more profound, more detailed and more direct picture of God. This is what we all know to have been done in the Greek Orthodox Church with the so called iconographic art, but also among the Tibetans. In both cases, there is a most elaborate system of details, proportions, forms, colours and mathematical formulas. Nothing is left to inspiration, but only to concentration upon what is already there.
The other way is to look for the absolute non conceptual thought, i.e. the void. Meditation on the void, as also seen among the Tibetans, although Zen Buddhism maybe represents a more well-known form: nothing but the white surface. However, despite the fact that we may find people working with these most profound methods of understanding, we would probably hesitate to call either of these two art, partly because it is not in our tradition to do so.
What we have been doing, at least since the end of the Middle Ages, is rather like neither/nor. Something like exploring this in between. Between concept and expression. Neither carefully dealing with the precious concept or image in order to obtain the most profound impression of the ultimate, nor fading away into pure nothing. This is a method of understanding which has proved its efficiency through the centuries, also for the both-and. But still, seen as it is, a method of understanding, it is not too far away from what again the Tibetans call the third, the yogi, or the wild way to go, and therefore to indicate that it is a method that has always caused, and will always cause problems for its practitioners.
Returning to the idea with art seen as a prayer the question is, always, about where to put the dialogue. Is 'God' as the major question, or 'me and God', or 'God in other people'. Those questions can be formulated differently, but basically seen who do we turn ourselves to, or, where do we have our needs for communication? We are not the same like for instance hundred years ago, and therefore, naturally, we have to formulate our own questions for a dialogue.
What I mean to say, i.e., to turn it in to a more personal form. Working in a today's context, as an artist, is first of all to turn things in to a dialogue with other people. It is no longer so important just to put ones own personal signature on the various things, or that after all the whole work somehow is this signature more in a search for the real aim, the communication and the dialogue.
Maybe to say that there are two parts of the same creativeness. One thing is, the creation of a certain product, still to remember the word 'toolmaker'. Yet another thing is, what sort of echo do I get?
Said, maybe as a kind of personal confession, opposite now hundred years ago, to put the balance more away from the artist and in to other people, as well as previously in the understanding of 'God'. Art is now, like always, an instrument, a language of communication in order to activate also a creativeness in other people, their language and their communication.