The Art of Love

Art is the impulse to replicate the mystery of woman and the beauty of the female principle. As the drive for creative expression, art is fundamentally a male-induced phenomenon and why the great masters of art have been predominantly male. Artistry, however, combines both male and female principles and is the essence of what the ancient Greeks intuited as ‘mimesis’, the fluidity of eternal ideas being imitated or physically reproduced in the sensory world. An example of art and artistry is clearly visible when comparing the hard structural art of medieval Christian churches with the sensual artistry in mosques and mosaics of the Islamic faith.

The quintessence of excellence every artist endeavours to capture (whether consciously or otherwise) is the passion and originality induced through the sacred sexual exchange between the male and female principles. Making love is the epitome of art. There’s nothing to compare with the impact of the beauty of love in the flesh. The artistry of love is the only practice on earth that is total and absorbing enough to unify the feeling of separation we all experience periodically in this divisive world. The sense of completion arises through the union of love, which connects the being to the radiant world of the spirit.

Great art, as has been cited by many over the ages, arises from the integrity of the artist to convey an aspect of truth through self-expression such as sculpture, painting, poetry or song. The art of love is unique, for it’s our stock as sensual beings of the earth. It’s not something we have to learn since the original state of being through which love enters existence is forever present, although imperceptible when emotional negativity upsets the harmony of life. Love is not an experience but the still point between the movements in time. This creative point imbues each life form with the sense of glory of the earth’s spiritual being. The passion of the divine creative process is art on its grandest scale and the inspiration behind every civilisation to aspire to as an idealised state of life on earth.

An artist of love embraces life, not unlike the way brushstrokes define the emergence of an idea upon the surface of a canvas. The artistry is the pause between actions, which is the recognition of the formless reality while the continuity of the world of movement continues its evolutionary path, oblivious to the source of its origins. Romance is the essence of love that elevates the living process beyond the often drab and wearisome trudge that is many people’s experience of life. To perceive, for example, the texture of a leaf, the setting sun or the light in the beloved’s eyes is an acknowledgement of the romance of life. When love is present, whatever is undertaken in the world is creatively inspired and works for the good of the whole.

As human beings, we are driven to create as a reciprocal impulse to the creative principle which is the source of all life. However, the flaw discovered by many artists (as well as those who become attached to the momentum of their creative pursuits) is that what begins as the pleasure of pure creative expression eventually turns to the mediocrity of repetition in the world. This is not unlike the alcoholic or drug addict who chases the europhia of the first drink or elation of the initial high, which of course never comes again. Finally, the art of love is negation of the need to exist. This is the meaning of the term ‘sacred art’.

Sacred art is the negation of both artist and viewer, each being fundamental to the other as a unity of creative expression. It’s the orgasmic fusion of life and death, and the convulsion of the atom as intelligence in matter. Only love made in the flesh can approach such intensity of beauty and original creative freedom. This is the divine art that destroys the personal element which sullies the work of any artist still attached to the glamour of the world. The formless love within the artist is the perfection that all art endeavours to replicate. To merge with this beauty is completion: the ‘knowledge without knowing’ of the sublime artistry of life. For this the artist must eventually put his brushes down, or put his instrument back in its case.