The Quadrangle of Creation

Table of contents

• The four divisions of the creative process
• Center
• The palette of Emotions
• The paintbrush of intellect
• The scalpel of Criticism
• Governing motion
• Consolidating the Divisions
• The general cycle
• “Resting in the true nature of the artwork”
• Breakdown
• Explaining the artwork

The four divisions of the creative process

Center

Inspiration derives from concentration, which is in turn, spiritual introversion and collection of the mind’s energy into the point of assembly – the object of concentration. Inspiration cannot flow out of a chaotic, dulled and impulse-awash frame of mind. Inspiration gives birth to an idea or an insight and then subsides. The center is open towards the infinite, the source and origin of all the governing and creative forces. Also, additional emphasis was applied to the center, for this retreat towards the source of creativity is only a fractional appearance or a side effect of a spiritual process, which constitutes the essence and nature of art in general and the purpose of life itself.

The palette of Emotions

Symbolizes a spontaneous outburst of the colors and hues of instincts and desires. Emotion replaces inspiration, molds the newborn idea into a raw work of art by applying to it a unique style and character, exhausts itself and subsides.

Forms and directs the colors of emotions, updates and refines the work, alters, adds or subtracts according to different associations and perceptions which are accumulated in the memory and guide the thought patterns. I believe that rationalist people will subconsciously tend to emphasize the intellectual phase of the creative process, as I do, while as more impulsive or sentimental people will tend to emphasize the emotional phase of the creative process.
In the level of composition, this phase is open towards the head.

The scalpel of Criticism

As this very one is, puts the work in its totality, into all depths and including all facets, to the test. The analyzing or discriminatory criticism is a mental state of deepened introvert thinking, which does not resemble the usual extrovert thought patterns, which are fueled by past blind conditioning. Critical thinking is an expression and reflection of resting within a natural and inactive state of mind and it includes heightened alertness to the deeper thought mechanisms. The guiding line of the critical thinking is a conscious instruction to focus on the object of thought, and in this case the logical-rational structure and/or the content-formative cohesiveness of the artwork. Nevertheless, ignorance might taint such an analysis, for only a very fine line separates self criticism which derives from objective and compassionate self-observation from self-hatred and fear.

Governing motion

States of non-linear movement between the different phases of the creative process, or a counter-flow of the diagram may probably occur as well. At the end of the creative process there is an opening towards other works of art or perhaps towards the freedom from the creative process all together, who knows….

Consolidating the Divisions

The general cycle

Usually, out of a meditative state occurs in my mind’s eye a thematic verbal idea, which a moment later wears a general visual formation which contains the main work’s elements, their functions and characteristics, along with the architecture of the composition. After the implementation of these basics, which also includes alternate movements between the emotional, intellectual and critical phases of the creative process, I retreat to meditate on the current state of the work. In this meditative state of mind, the spiritual awareness penetrates deeper into the theme of the specific artwork and elaborates it, and so forth.

You might say that this process resembles the acquaintance with a stranger on the train or with a new city – the creative process is the acquaintance with something which already exists in its totality of infinite nuances – revealed, implied and secretive – within the depths of my sub-conscious, just as any other phenomenon of nature. Only I decide when is it that I no longer have patience or interest to further deepen my familiarity with the subject, or on the other hand discover that my acquaintance with the subject has utilized itself to the fullest and that the time has come to move on.

“Resting in the true nature of the artwork”

This would perhaps be the most adequate description to the stage in which occurs the deepening into the acquaintance with the artwork. The motivation of the mind is towards the state of meditation, but since fragments of it are unwillingly occupied with the artwork, a natural side effect occurs, which involves reflexive random appearances of ideological, thematic and formative branching, relating to the current work’s situation.

Breakdown

If so, the creative process begins with spiritual introversion and from there it flows through the phases which I described until the analysis and dissection of the work*. These different phases pass by and merge into each other in an infinite dynamics and within intervals ranging from a single moment to months. In each such rotation deepens the awareness of the artist into his work in the emotional, logical and content-related aspects and illuminates flaws and failures in the structure of composition, in the formation of its different elements and in the color scheme, as well as in the credibility and accuracy of all those in terms of serving the purpose of conveying a certain message.

Thus the work increasingly consolidates into a purified, homogeneous, harmonious and precise entity, which serves the intention of the artist in each and every criteria he placed himself and reflects his conscious spiritual awareness to all depths and facets. That is how, I think, the work becomes spontaneous yet not coincidental. An artistic creation is the realization of the creator’s naturally abstract mind contents, into the level of a visual display and is therefore, a narrowed form of Creation. There cannot be a Creation without complete spiritual awareness to the created.

Explaining the artwork

Generally, every explanation of the work which is beyond the definition of the primal idea at its basis, finds its way to that work only during the catharsis pauses, following each conclusion stage during the creative process. The explanation is subject to the work and not vice versa, although this rule also has its exceptions.

It’s also possible, that an artwork will grow so complex as to exceed the capacity of my own mind, as it so happened in such cases as Ceci n`est pas findigart and Know Thyself, the Infographic Art way.