Yasmina Sbihi has a credo: the contemplative conception of art, which holds that artistic creation resides in harmony, proportion and right measure, following the order of the cosmos conceived as a whole unified by…
Yasmina Sbihi has a credo: the contemplative conception of art, which holds that artistic creation resides in harmony, proportion and right measure, following the order of the cosmos conceived as a whole unified by the law of numbers as much as by the laws of quantum physics. Here is a first instalment of her convictions, drawn from her book.
In the spiritual conception, artistic creation emanates from the soul in communion with the harmonic unity of the Cosmos. In the conception of beauty, inner sensory perception is apprehended by our senses and reaches us — beyond the intellect — as a sublime elevation, a progressive, transcendent aesthetic experience. In the mystical conception of Beauty, tied to the spiritual path that binds the Beautiful to Love, the Beautiful (one of the Names of God) is Love… and Love is at the origin of every form of beauty.
It is an approach in which the vision of the heart (al-baṣīra) takes precedence over sensory vision (al-baṣar). It brings together all the faculties and grants access to the manifold beauty of creation — a manifestation of Divine Beauty.
This credo is of a universal order. Indeed Kandinsky, in his book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” concludes that “the artist is the priest of beauty” — its prophet and servant, who initiates us into the mystery of the transcendence of beauty and invites us to cross, in wonder, that bridge which both separates and connects earth and sky. The world needs beauty so as not to sink into despair. You are the guardians of the world’s beauty.”
As for Patrice Éon, he writes: “Inspiration — and what flows from it, artistic or creative activity — is the fruit of a communication that links the Universal Order to the individual who lets himself be fleetingly penetrated by what transcends him. The open mind of the artist, receptive to these messages, then attempts, sometimes for a whole lifetime and with the means at his disposal, to put into words, forms, colours and music the instant of beauty, eternity and infinity to which he has had access. With nostalgia, he seeks to translate — in a language perceptible to our five senses, within a finite space and time — the flash of infinity and eternity to which he had access so fleetingly and unpredictably…”
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