On the Ontic Origin of Art: Can Art Tell Us Anything about God?

Abstract

Heidegger’s ontological differentiation and Derrida’s deconstruction of metaphysics rearranged the key players of the onto-stage, essence, being, existence, and entity (the being), which had an impact on the contemporary understanding of ontology. This paper focuses on the study of the origins of art, but also on the ontological matter to the extent to which it might be related to the matter of art. It appears that the origins of both ontology and art are at the core of this interaction. The ontological matter is connected to the issue of art in the way that questions: what if freedom, in a co-creative way, is that which is immutable and fundamental to being? What if the essence of being is the freedom of co-creating? Such an essence would always be capable of alteration (via co-creation) and transformation. It is important to note that the perception of form in art, as an experiment of the form, i.e., continuous movement and growth from the conventional to the unconventional, will also be examined. This artistic observation emphasizes the relational dynamics within a work of art, shifting the focus from its “objectivity” (an ontological perspective) to its inherent relational nature (an ontic perspective).

1. Introduction

The Croatian artist Boris Bućan gives the following brief commentary on the presence of God in art:

“I will say this: if after a few years you realize that God is not really helping you, it is better to get out of it. In my opinion, if there is no God in art—it is unbearable. And it’s obvious.”

(Bućan 2020)

Leonardo da Vinci claimed that painting was the great-grandson of nature and the cousin of God (Leonardo 1988, p. 4). He also asserted that painters could be thought of as the nephews of God because of art (Leonardo 1988, p. 9). This paper aims to discuss the ontic origin of art as a co-creative relationship between contingency (human) and the absolute (God). There are three thematic units in the text: in the first, we discuss how ontology and art are related; in the second, we discuss the form of a work of art and its ontological and ontic properties; and in the third, we discuss the relation between form and beauty (the unconventionality of beauty). These three units work together to form the methodological sequence that will demonstrate if art reveals something about God.

The first unit explores the relationship between ontological and artistic concerns. An artistic creation cannot be the subject of the “what-is-it” query, and therefore the ontology of subject and object—an ontology that aims to define what an artwork is in a way that epistemologically fixes such knowledge—does not answer the question about art. That is why we ask the question: is art an ontological or an ontic activity? An artist stands in relation to the immeasurable, transcendent, and eternal regarding a work of art; according to philosophical terms, it is thought to be toward the absolute and toward God in theological terms. He or she stands with a kind of playfulness toward the eternal. The position of the being toward the highest Being reveals itself as a being of freedom and relationship, i.e., as a creative being. Within such a relationship, a work of art emerges as an authorship based on the cooperation of contingency (human) and the absolute (God). As with the prophet, it is not a matter of God speaking to the artist on His behalf. The work of art is the fruit of the relationship between being and Being when the gift of authorship is given to the artist as a co-creator. If art has an ontic origin, it is impossible to observe art’s essence in a way that keeps it fixed in cognition. Instead, art stands in relationality, which implies being–work of art–Being, and as a result, it continuously defies definition and has infinite dynamics. According to this perspective, a work of art, which is the outgrowth of the interaction between contingency and absolute, continues the relational dynamics from its ontic and co-creative origins in its completion, i.e., in dialogic dimensions. Thus, the co-creative nature of the work is initially established as the vertical ontic action between the contingent (human) and the absolute (God), and it then continues in relational dynamics in the dialogical dispositions of the work of art. The manifested form–content first arises through relational dynamics in co-creation, and similar dynamics continue in the work’s reception, which suggests that a work of art has an ontic character both in its creation and in its impact. By addressing the question “What is a work of art?” many interpretations of a work of art have addressed the issue of the work’s essence. This question cannot be answered in a way that poses the ontological inquiry “What is it?” as the essence of a work of art. Emphasizing the ontic origins of art is crucial for this reason.

The second unit of the paper, which discusses the form of the work of art and its visibility, expands on the conclusions from the first unit. If art has an ontic origin, then it is endowed with an infinite dynamism that is ensured by both the participants and the form of the work of art. Dynamics based on the relationship between contingency and the absolute are present in the form of a work of art. Here, the term “form” refers to an artistic creation in any artistic medium. Such a form, which is the fruit of the relationship between the temporal and the eternal, is further open in its relational dynamics for dialogic aspects as the completion of the work of art (the word “completion” in this context should be regarded in a conditional meaning because there is no literal completion, given the work’s infinite dynamics). The form appears not only as visible but also in its (artistic) experiment as unconventional. It directs attention to the third unit, which explores the relationship between the form’s contemplative aspect and the question of what constitutes beauty.

The third unit of the paper discusses the connection between form and beauty, cumulating the conclusions from the first two parts: the work of art has an ontic origin (co-creation) and an ontic character (dialogical dispositions of the completion of the work of art); the form is given as being contemplative. In such a dynamic, beauty appears as an experiment of form, which makes beauty ever surprising and unconventional—the one that allows us access to the depths of the divine in its mystery.

In this paper, it is emphasized that the understanding of a work of art relates to the understanding of our entire existence. Because of this, we considered it important to discuss the relation between ontology and art in the first unit, since the mystery of art is connected to the mystery of our existence in the question: what if the fundamental essence of being is co-creative freedom? According to our experience of artistic creation, we are immersed in co-creation. That is why art, as the “already, but not yet” presence of God’s Kingdom, can tell us something about God.

In the introduction, we want to clarify the point of view that art is a co-creation between contingency and the absolute. If art has spiritual aspects and exceeds the limitations of the material world, then the question about the spirituality of art cannot be answered from the position of materialism. Either there is spirituality, and it arises from something that goes beyond the mere contingency of matter, or there is no spirituality, and, consequently, we can conclude that there is no art either. Either the work exceeds the level of the specificity of human communication and matter itself and transcends it and is therefore art, or there is no such thing as transcending, and in this case, a consistent materialist would have to draw the conclusion that there is no art, either, as Sedlmayr argued (Sedlmayr 2001, p. 259).

Consequently, the problem of the relation between subject and object is moved to the area of the relationship of contingency and the absolute, which means that there is no such thing as a “thing about itself” but a “thing for us”, and we are in a co-creative relationship with things. Therefore, the essence of a thing does not exist in advance, but it is obtained in the relationship between contingency and the absolute. As a relation of contingency and the absolute, the work of art appears as spiritual and as an infinite, processual dynamic.

The person cannot be disengaged from the creative process if the work of art appears to be a relationship between contingency and the absolute. This does not imply that the work of art is a matter of subjectivity because the absolute actively contributes to its co-creation. It is important to clarify our philosophical and theological stances at this point. Given that Christianity is our foundational tenet, we define the absolute as the Holy Trinity. That is why the relationship between contingency and the absolute means participation in the dynamics of the Trinity. For the creation of a work of art to truly be a co-creative event, it must contain creative elements and a novelty (new value, novum) in the work. So far, philosophy has not found an answer to the question of novum; novelty in a work of art always appears as a kind of mystery. That is why our approach is interdisciplinary and includes theology. We interpret the novelty of the work of art in analogy to the Trinity, where the Triune God in Christianity, although transcendent, still has a living economic relationship with us.

A work of art holds novelty as a new value and an infinite dynamism, and in searching for what such dynamism rests on, we are guided toward the dynamics of the Holy Trinity. Philosophy and theology, as different sciences, also differ in method. Philosophy can consider God, but only to the extent that reason permits. It encounters such limits not only in matters of God but also in matters of art. Theology can think beyond these limits. It must be underlined that faith, while it may not always be faith in God (although in this paper we are talking about such faith), is something that permeates the entire person and does not contradict reason. In this regard, Stjepan Kušar indicates two types of understanding: thinking understanding and touching understanding. The touching understanding, with the assistance of human spirit, reaches further in comprehending the incomprehensible than the thinking understanding does in grasping the understandable (Kušar 2001, p. 75). Since God is tangible in the spiritual sense, although not comprehensible, the human spirit, at this point, is not conscious of emptiness but of inexpressible content. Kušar points out that although God’s essence escapes the thinking understanding, one should nevertheless rise to God by touching understanding (Kušar 2001, p. 76). Since we cannot comprehend a piece of art with our thinking understanding, we must attempt to touch it with our touching understanding. The issue of creative work has been debated in the philosophy of art for hundreds of years, but no resolution for novum has been found. For this reason, we have entered an interdisciplinary intervention where theology is attempting to address the subject of human creativity. In the search for the answer to that question, we looked at the dogma of the Triune God, which acknowledges the possibility of a novelty (novum), as such. The term “novelty” (novum) pertains to the theological field of study (“Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5)). That is why we entered the field of theology here, to point out where novum, as such, is even possible considering that the philosophy of art does not give an answer to that question. According to the theological view, as man is the imago Dei, he has the ability to co-create. The novum is produced via this process, which is only possible in settings where co-creation and creation take place. It includes the Trinity’s dynamics. In this context, a brief explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity is needed.

Saint Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinity is based on a relationship; the Father gives birth to the Son, and therefore the Son is not the same with the Father nor the Father with the Son, and the Spirit is the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, who belong to the unity of the Triune God (Courth 1999, p. 147). It is about the three personalities of God, who is one essence (Courth 1999, p. 149). According to Augustine, the attribute of the Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites the Father and the Son, but he extends this definition to the history of salvation and describes the Holy Spirit as a gift from God given to mankind (Courth 1999, p. 152). The Spirit is an eternal gift, but it is given to us temporarily (Aurelije 2009, pp. 395–96). His teaching has an explicit historical salvation point of view, and the intra-trinitarian exchange of divine life extends toward creation (Courth 1999, p. 160).

According to Joseph Ratzinger, the specificity of man consists in the fact that God speaks to him, that he is God’s partner in dialogue, and this means that man is a being who is open to transcendence (Ratzinger 2007, p. 357). The man is a being who has yet to become complete (Ratzinger 2008, pp. 59–60). This completeness takes place in the interaction between the absolute and the contingent. Franz Courth also writes about this relationality:

“It follows from this: firstly, that God is no “Deus solitarius”, no immutable principle, no firmly established structure that stands in eternal immobility behind all beings; on the contrary, life, relationship, tradition, and love belong to his essence. But here, secondly, one must not think of that reality in relation to life, which is realized in the manner of an overflowing source; this lacks a personal moment, that is, a moment of freely given love. For this reason, it is inevitable that God’s surrender to creatures and the love that bestows salvation cannot be understood independently of God’s relationship to the world and its reality, which is in itself relational.”

(Courth 1999, p. 212).

Man, as a relational being and co-creator, is at the same time a being who is in the process of completion and is open to transcendence into a relationship with three divine persons. From this theologically understood relationality comes the possibility of novum in human creativity. We will make a digression here: the atheist artist moves closer to what they perceive as something immeasurable rather than God.

2. On Ontological and Ontic—Why Relational Dynamics?

Reduced to the simplest terms possible, ontology can be described as a branch of philosophy that studies the immutable and fundamental. Two significant interventions in the “core” of ontology in the 20th and 21st centuries rearranged the key players of the onto-stage like an image in a kaleidoscope: ontological difference by Heidegger’s and Derrida’s deconstruction of metaphysics in the critique of logocentrism. This made the already challenging problem more complicated and highlighted its persistence, delicacy, and enduring relevance. It concerns us to the extent to which it is permeated with the matter of art, and this permeation, as it will be shown, reaches to the very core of both art and ontology. It poses the following question: what if freedom is what is immutable and fundamental to being, and not in the way Sartre thought (Sartre 2006), but in a co-creative way? What if the fundamental essence of being is co-creative freedom? Such an essence would inherently imply the constant possibility of (co-creative) transformation. The reason why it is impossible to convey an artistic work’s essence in a way that fixes it epistemologically would then become more apparent. Additionally, we could use analogies to extrapolate truths about our reality from artistic creativity. We are referring here to Ivan Focht; the easiest method to comprehend what a being is and how it can exist, in Focht’s opinion, shows up during artistic creation (Focht 1972, pp. 43–44). If we could capture and fix this transition from nothingness to being, we would discover the mystery of art, but what we can designate in this process is when such a life appeared, not how (Focht 1972, p. 44). Before going further with this assertion, it is important to briefly discuss the relationship between the being (entity), existence, being (to be), and essence. We also need to consider whether being (to be), as indeterminable and unlimited, is free from essence and the relation between essence and freedom. With all due respect, we are unable to include in this article the perspectives of all philosophers who have addressed the problem of being; nonetheless, in light of the nature of our inquiry, we shall confine ourselves to Heidegger’s, Derrida’s, and Sartre’s interpretations. Heidegger’s interpretation of the being (to be) had a significant influence on the contemporary understanding of ontology. The understanding of being from the point of existence was a shift from idealistic conceptions that assert that essence is prior to existence. Heidegger places the being (to be) as revealing prior to the predication concerning being (entity) (Heidegger 1996b, pp. 276–80). According to Heidegger’s philosophy, Jacques Derrida poses the following question:

“In its most abstract form, the aporia we are discussing may be precisely this: Is revealing (Offenbarkeit) more original than revelation (Offenbarung), and therefore independent of any religion?”

(Derrida 2019, p. 492)

We shall highlight two crucial distinctions between revealing and revelation to indicate the problem with the relationship between ontic and ontological that we seek to address in this study. Speaking to someone else is not essential for revealing; it can stand on its own. It is alone within itself, and it reveals itself to itself in relation to what is hidden—that is, not revealed within itself. Therefore, in revealing, the ontological in the form of knowledge takes precedence over the ontic, essential over being, and, what is most significant for our topic, cognitive over creative. Revelation, on the other hand, is essentially revealed to someone; it is God’s speech to mankind, so in this case, the ontic has priority over the ontological (as we can see from the story of Abraham and Isaac, which Kierkegaard describes in the Breviary as a moral dilemma (Kierkegaard 1981)). As it relates to art, this means that the first approach, since it reveals the previously unknown, does not offer the possibility of creativity or co-creation and creating something new. That is why we emphasize another approach that offers the possibility of artistic creation, and it is connected not only with God’s speech to mankind but also with the human possibility to respond to God and to co-create. This approach is primarily concerned with a being whose fundamental feature is the ability and freedom to form relationships in which the possibility of fruitful co-creation is given.

According to Heidegger, in the philosophical standpoint that is primarily concerned with being as entity, the forgetting of being (to be) started as the forgetting of the distinction between being as existence and being as entity (Heidegger 1996a, p. 304). This distinction becomes an ontological difference between what emerges (being) and what is emerged (the being, entity). In metaphysics, the being (entity) is seen as a generality and in the highest (Heidegger 1996a, p. 308), so according to Heidegger, it is excluded from the experience of being (to be) (Heidegger 1996a, p. 97). Although Heidegger does not separate being (to be) from the being (entity), nor does he position it above the being (entity), in a way he still places it into the foundation of being (entity) (Heidegger 1996a, pp. 311–16). This implies that the indeterminate and unlimited being (to be) is fundamental and more extensive than the determinate and limited being (entity). Consequently, it means that existence precedes essence and that the being (entity) exists in some way and at the same time as indeterminate and unlimited (through being (to be)) and as determinate and limited (through beingness). We will consider whether it is possible to conclude that existence precedes essence because the being (entity) is free, instead of introducing a third term, being.

If being (to be) without a “bearer” (existence or entity) is unfeasible, it means that existence or entity is the foundation of being (to be) and that entity is not raised from existing, as such, but existing is due to what exists. It should be noticed that we do not assert that essence precedes existence but rather that existence exists because of the one who (or that) exists. Moreover, we present the hypothesis that the being (entity) is free and, as such, neither determined nor limited and that in this freedom the being co-creates its “essence” (the significance of the quotation marks around “essence” will be evident in the text that follows). Therefore, the essence does not precede existence and a free being does not need an indeterminate and unlimited existence due to the alleged determination and limitation of that being (entity). A free being can co-create its “essence” since it is free, and it has “essence” both in potential and actuality. “Essence”, clearly, can only refer to something substantial, and this is plausible if there is an absolute criterion for what is qualified as substantial. In our case, it is the absolute, the highest being, God. If there is no absolute, there is no guarantee of the ultimate criterion either, and then no “essence” is possible at all. In that case, Berdjajev’s assertions are accurate: either there is no truth and, as a result, one should stop with all philosophical claims, or the truth creatively liberates the being (Berdjajev 2014, p. 33).

According to certain interpretations, the Supreme Being’s revelation “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14) refers to pure existence as being (to be). But since the words “I am” and the words “who I am” do not actually speak of a type of existence without the associated beingness, from “I am” and “who I am” follows that it is a double affirmation of being (as a Being entity, not as an abstract, indeterminate, and unlimited existence). Such a free being is indeterminate and unlimited, which is confirmed in the words “I am who I am” as the declaration of its simultaneous actuality and potentiality. But if the being (entity) exists solely because a being (to be) is necessary as indeterminate and unlimited (while the being (entity) is non-necessary), then the highest Being is a consequence of being (to be) itself, and that Being is no longer necessary but contingent. This is what Sartre claims: that even God, if he exists, is contingent:

“But possibility can also appear to us as an ontological structure of the real: then it belongs to some beings as their possibility, it is the possibility that these beings are, that these beings have to be. In this case, being maintains its own possibilities in being, it is their foundation, and the necessity of being cannot be derived from its possibility. In a word, if He exists, God is contingent.”

(Sartre 2006, p. 118)

Still, it is logically unsustainable for existence to exist if there is no one who exists, i.e., being cannot be purely existential without a “bearer”. Therefore, pure being cannot be a necessity either, from which beings (entities) arise as non-necessary, as will be explained shortly. If being (to be) emerges from the highest Being, then it originates from “I am” and “who I am” (where “I am” and “who I am” are the double affirmations of Being). However, if it were the case that the possibility of the being (entity) arose from being (to be) as indeterminate and unlimited (therefore, as abstract existence), then all beings, including the ultimate Being, would be just a kind of appearance of the always and already existing being. The being would then appear as unhidden from itself (Heidegger 1996a, p. 312). Being (abstract existence as such) as a condition implies that it can exist without a “bearer”, which is logically unsustainable (much like the notion that concepts or ideas can exist outside of beings). It also implies that the being (entity) cannot be freely created because a priori abstract existence, as such, is its permanent and already existing condition. If indeterminate and unlimited being is already the foundation of every individuation, and at the same time transcends it in its abstraction, it paradoxically means that the creation of a free individual is not possible. In that case, the being was not created ex nihilo, that is, from nothing, which is absolute potency. Since creation ex nihilo has absolute potency, it is the only way to create a free individual. But if the being was not created ex nihilo, it would have to be considered as “becoming” from the “substrate” or “nucleus” of existence. It follows that an individual would somehow be present in that “substrate” (albeit not necessarily realized as a being) because it arose from existence as such. Therefore, it is an aporia in which indeterminate and unlimited being is infeasible as a kind of abstract existential. It is only plausible for something to be indeterminate and unlimited if it is either a non-existent nothing (in which case it cannot even be thought of as indeterminate and unlimited because it does not exist), or if it is the freedom of the Being or beings.

Due to the definition of being (to be) that transcends the being (entity), and which is its foundation, occurs the understanding of being (to be) as what is as opposed to what is not. From such a defined being (to be), the being (entity) is determined as what is, by what it is. So, in determined and limited being (entity) resides indeterminate and unlimited being (to be). Still, being (to be) cannot be an indeterminate and unlimited existence in the place between nothing and something as the foundation of the being (entity) because there is simply nowhere to exist between nothing and something, and a gradual transition from nothing to something is not feasible either. Due to the infeasibility of using pure existence as a mediator, a free being ought to be created out of nothing (ex nihilo), or it is not a free being. In creation ex nihilo, there is a single leap from non-existence to existence rather than a gradient transition between what is not and what is. The creative act is consequently an action that creates something out of nothing since there is no possibility for nothing to progressively transform into something since this gradualness (becoming to be) would already be something. A single leap as an act of creation is what makes the difference between what is and what is not. There is also a free “leap” in human creativity, which is the specificity of the creative act, with the difference that contingency does not create ex nihilo but freely uses the given matter. A work of art is characterized by its freedom and relationship with the immeasurable, eternal, and transcendent (God). This is also the reason why the ontic origin of art is a contentious issue and why its essence cannot be epistemologically determined.

Moreover, if being (to be) may only exist if someone or something exists, it does not necessarily follow that essence comes before existence and that the essence is the fundamental determination of the being (entity). Previously, we have asserted that freedom is the essential characteristic of existence. The highest Being is, due to its freedom, neither determinate nor limited. Similarly, when we talk about a human, can we do so without presuming freedom (as opposed to, say, how instincts might drive behavior in an animal)? The essence of being is not something that can be known beforehand if such an essence entails freedom. Namely, if the essence of being is freedom, such being is not closed in its limitations and determinations—that is, in its affirmations—but is open and relational. As being is constitutively open, it performs and accomplishes itself in this openness, which we only afterward recognize as “essence”. The essence does not previously exist somewhere in the being: it is co-created. If there was no highest, i.e., absolute, Being (God), then the concept of essence would not be possible either. The only alternative in that case is what Derrida refers to as writing as the differance of the book of life (Derrida 2007, p. 82). It would be the original phantasm in which the world existed without error, truth, or origin, and since nothing exists in an original way, everything is equally original, so such a viewpoint avoids the issue of essence (Ćuzulan 1988 in: Derrida 1988, pp. 292–99).

The essence of what we are discussing here just partially describes the being (entity) as a backward glance and because of that it may affirm that a group of realized “essences” “defines” it as an individual. An essence of the being (entity) can be observed a posteriori, after it has been realized, still, because beings are free, and they cannot declare for the future that they will be defined by something particular from their (non-existent) a priori. The being, being free, has an a posteriori observable “essence” rather than an a priori determined one. The future of a being is unknown and indeterminate since its essence is co-creative freedom. Thus, the conflict between the ontological and the existentialist was prevented at the outset. This contradiction may have arisen because of existentialists’ exclusion of the absolute from the process of revealing being, which makes it impossible to reach the essence, or, on the other hand, because the ontological point of view assumes that essence is the fixed result of a fundamental determination, which eliminates freedom and co-creation. The relational dynamic this study illustrates “holds” the essence in the relation of contingency and the absolute, which is also the relation of freedom that affects us as co-participants of the Trinity. Going forward, we will explicate that the existential and ontological conflict, from which one cannot reach the “essence” that the ontology of the work of art asks about, enables the viewing of art from its ontic origin. Our perspective changes from being ontological to being ontic if one that exists is the prerequisite for being (to be) and essence.

Therefore, the work of art can be comprehended in the dimension that suggests active engagement rather than in the way that it is perceived as an “object”. These relations result in an infinite dynamic in a work of art. The form of the work of art goes through a kind of experimentation during the creative process, which further exposes us as audience members to the unconventionality and wonder of beauty and brings us to contemplation. To the extent that the artistic form in its experiment shows us the unconventionality of beauty, making us contemplative, it also shows us the “already, but not yet” presence of God’s Kingdom. In the second and third units of this article, we will discuss this.

3. Visibility and Manifestation of the Form

As stated, we are interested in the ontological matter to the extent to which it affects and permeates the field of art, and this permeation goes back to the foundations of both ontology and art. If the immutability of the being’s essence is co-creative freedom, it means that co-creative transformation is always certain to occur. In its transformation, the form of the work of art undergoes an experiment in which it “develops” and grows from the known to the unknown and from the conventional to the unconventional. We will put this to the test using the examples of some artists whose works are distinct from one another in terms of both period and style. In its experiment, the form encourages us to be more accepting and to develop our capacity for contemplation, which makes it simultaneously beautiful, strange, and miraculous. In such growth and astonishment, which is also admiration, the “already, but not yet” condition of the Kingdom of God can be anticipated. More will be said about this in the third section. In this part, we examine the concept of form visibility and its manifestation.

In the preceding section, we discussed the relation between being (to be) and the being (entity) as well as the belief that knowledge about essence relies on the assumption that it is definite and permanent. Still, dynamic features of that knowledge are already apparent in the fact that it cannot be observed without contextualizing. The most recent physics study appears to have come close to this, and it includes the subject that stands in relation to the “object” of observation. Antonio Zeilinger’s experiments and measurements—for which he was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize—challenged the beliefs of materialist philosophers regarding the so-called hidden variables in the physics of the microcosm (Dorešić 2023, p. 8) by showing that the universe is probabilistic rather than fundamentally deterministic:

“In other words, before the measurement, the experimental results in the mathematical formalism imply that there is no physical particle. Their measurement causes the collapse of the wave function, the mathematical probability, and only then the discovery of a physical particle, but nothing physically existed before the measurement. […] The collapse of the wave function and the existence of physical particles must obviously depend on the observer, and not on some unknown hidden variables somewhere in nature. According to the most convincing evidence so far, there is no objective reality beyond what we observe. Observation is what makes reality.”

(Dorešić 2023, p. 8)

Since the subject is involved in the construction of reality, a subject–object interaction, in which the subject becomes aware of objective reality, is not in question here. The artistic creative process functions in a similar manner. It is an occurrence where form shifts from the known to the unknown. This is an experiment of form in which art as an anthropological activity specifies the emergence of man (contingency) toward the immeasurable, eternal, and transcendent. Art cannot be understood as an objective reality observed by the subject. As an anthropological activity, art is specified as the maneuvering of the person (contingency) toward the absolute. What happens in a work of art is somehow (not in a material sense) incompatible with decay. As such, it is the relation of a non-necessary human being to the absolute, eternal Being, God. Shifting the point of view from the ontological to the ontic is a requirement in art because it is not possible to know the essence of a work of art in a cognitive way since it maintains infinite dynamics. Consequently, it cannot be fixed in an epistemic sense. Ontic activity implies infinite depths of relationships, so such dynamics enable movement through the relation of contingency and the absolute in the embodiment of a work of art. Relationality, which implies being–work of art–Being, eludes the determination of essence. It is co-creative and dialogic, and its truth stands as a relationship of contingency and the absolute materialized in a work of art that holds and preserves infinite dynamics as its essence. If the essence of a work of art cannot be as determinate as knowledge due to its dynamic features, the ontology of a subject and object then, as expected, does not offer an answer to the mystery of art. How does phenomenology deal with this problem? Since in phenomenology, there is a kind of limited research on the phenomenon as such, it also remains blind to the dynamics of contingency and the absolute in the embodied work of art. Due to the limitations of its methodology, which only considers effects (phenomenological observation of essence) rather than causes (ontic), the question of what constitutes art remains unanswered by phenomenology as well. Luigi Pareyson, being aware of this phenomenological limitation, refers to a spiral (rather than circular) movement in hermeneutics. Before turning to Pareyson’s point of view, we will first discuss a few issues connected to the mystery and content of the artistic work.

The form and its metaphysical significance are fundamental concepts in Ivan Focht’s philosophy as well. The easiest method to comprehend what a being is and how it can exist, in Focht’s opinion, shows up during the artistic creation (Focht 1972, pp. 43–44). If we could capture and fix this transition from nothingness to being, we would discover the mystery of art, but what we can designate in this process is when such a life appeared, not how. (Focht 1972, p. 44). According to Focht, the mystery of art is also in relations (rather than in contents); an investigation of a work of art can reveal a variety of aspects, but they are all bound together by an internal structure and serve the same purpose, which is relationships (Focht 1972, pp. 46–47). It is established through form as an ontic interaction between subject and aesthetic object (Focht 1972, p. 48). As stated by Focht, the form refers to the relations between material elements; the spiritual aspect of a work of art creates its sense of being as a living thing, which depends on the form as a relation between those elements. As Focht said, the artistic work’s spiritual realm cannot be revealed in the background of the artistic work’s explicit content, nor in the form in which each layer of that content is shaped, nor in the form that unites all layers, nor in the specific unity of content and form, but in the spiritual relationship in which the artist has incorporated certain elements. He claims that this dimension is ontically real because the relations between the material bearers are genuine, not just something that is depicted in the work. There is nothing left to be found behind the spiritual plan, so for him, the reason for being hesitant before the mystery of art lies in the identification of the subject-presentation plan with the spiritual one (Focht 1972, p. 61). Roman Ingarden, on the other hand, believes that the works of human spiritual culture do not find such a firm support in material things that they could exist without the help of human action and human consciousness. It is an intentional understanding of reality. According to him, man’s creative power is limited and is not capable of creating works that would be autonomous in their existence or independent of our consciousness (Ingarden 2012, pp. 19–20). Tomislav Škrbić points out that one of the important differences between Focht’s and Ingarden’s understanding of art is that for Focht, the metaphysical is realistically present in the work, while for Ingarden, the way the metaphysical is present in the work is intentional. Škrbić says that for Ingarden (Ingarden 2006, p. 269) metaphysical qualities are not an integral part of the presented object but are only evoked with the presented object as if they were real (Škrbić 2015, p. 83), holding that Ingarden makes a methodological mistake by separating the ideal and the real, thus implying the idea of the ontic heteronomy of the work of art (Škrbić 2015, p. 121). In this sense, Mikele Dufrenne believes that Ingarden, by emphasizing the meanings and thus protecting the objectivity of the aesthetic object, at the same time separates it from the observed and places it in the sphere of the ideal being. But also, if we want to be fair to the reality of the aesthetic object, then it is not enough to emphasize its meaning; it should be pointed out that it carries this meaning in itself in order to present it to the perceiver. Dufrenne’s objection to Ingarden is that he ignores the autonomic nature of art (Dufrenne 1972, p. 387). Let us also recall Conrad Fiedler’s support for the autonomy of art. Fiedler indicates that the philosopher will want to invent the concept of art in such a way as to fit or bring it into connection with his own philosophy (Fiedler 1978, p. 24) but that this is a question of philosophical understanding, not artistic knowledge (Fiedler 1978, p. 25). He claims that an understanding of art can be grasped only in terms of art (Fiedler 1978, p. 27) and that a true understanding of a work of art is only possible if it is based on an artistic understanding of the world (Fiedler 1978, p. 259).

For Geiger Moritz, aesthetics using the phenomenological method is the best way to analyze aesthetic objects (Mzyk 2018, p. 72). Geiger criticizes Kant’s point of view on the valuation of a work of art that is connected with pleasure; according to Geiger, aesthetic value cannot be treated as a product of aesthetic pleasure but as its source (Mzyk 2018, p. 75). For him, aesthetic value and anti-value have the metaphysical status of phenomena and do not exist as connections between aesthetic values and the material foundations of the work of art; they occur as representations that offer themselves to the viewer (Mzyk 2018, p. 79).

In order to understand an object’s essence, phenomenological approaches often use eidetic analysis through the intentional consciousness of the subject but do not go to the ontic origin of art in the sense of relationality. In this regard, we referred to Pareyson’s exceeding phenomenology in our assertion that phenomenology does not provide an answer to the question of art because it does not look beyond the phenomenon itself into its causes. Art, therefore, remains a mystery. According to Theodor Adorno, the mystery of art is in its relationship to truth, because when asked whether something is true in the work of art, it responds in a way that frees itself from the form of a discursive answer. Since art, devoid of judgment, does not provide an answer to such a question, it remains enigmatic, and the content of truth, according to Adorno, can only be obtained through philosophical reflection, which, according to him, justifies aesthetics (Adorno 1979, pp. 221–22). But Ivan Dodlek, in dealing with the dialogic dispositions of the work of art, refers to the inexpressibility of the truth that the work of art brings into appearance, so the truth appears as elusive as concrete. He warns about the specific experience of the mysterious in art and that the irrational cannot be stopped by rationalistic philosophizing, and both must be overcome by the special logic of art that makes it a unique phenomenon (Dodlek 2016, p. 250). Dodlek points to the importance of Adorno’s views on the openness and incompleteness of the work, as well as its processual and dynamic character. At the same time, he warns against the reduction of artistic truth to something that can be said, which, in polarization between subject and object, cannot realize intersubjective moments of communication (Dodlek 2016, p. 260), pointing out that in Adorno’s theory, the objectifying functions of language arise from the polarity of subject and object (Dodlek 2016, p. 261). The work of art, precisely by transcending the knowledge of reality as the knowledge of what exists, points to the existence of something that is more than what happens in reality, and art is only affirmed in this way as the realm of freedom (Dodlek 2016, p. 254).

According to Focht, the metaphysical, for instance, in music, is rooted in the relations between the components: the music’s basic structure and the substance that gives it its ontological weight. The two tones do not represent anything in a symbolic way, but outline the dimensions of a transcendent world, thus, in his opinion, the human spirit manifests itself on matter itself (Focht 1972, p. 71). A work of art is not its (ontological) essence as something knowable but rather a “set” of relations as something elusive through the occurrence of the interactions that comprise the piece of art, according to Focht’s conception of matter as ontic. What could make these relations so unique that they transform the material parts into a spiritual reality? It seems that the interplay of material relations alone is unable to explain the spiritual dimension of a work of art. The logic of matter and its relations is insufficient to provide an answer to this question. In Focht’s opinion, a work of art is valuable not for its subjective value but because it can be the “prime form” of an objective ideal, where the possibility of the essence already exists and is independent of our consciousness. To come into existence, a value must be manifested in reality, i.e., in the history of the objectified spirit (Focht 1972, p. 95). The question of the relationship between existence and essence is now brought up once more. If there is a “prime form” of objectivity, it means there is no creation at all. The discovery of ideal “prime forms” would then be the only thing that could occur. But if a work of art preserves infinite dynamics in the simultaneity of matter–form–content through the relationship of being–work of art–Being, such a dynamic can only and precisely be given by the ontic recursive profundity (the relationship between being and Being), i.e., by its ontic origin.

We shall contend that the essence of the work of art derives from the resources of the interaction between contingency and the absolute and from the possibility of their communication. It is not a matter of dividing things into objective and subjective categories but rather of communicating between the vertical (absolute–contingent) and horizontal (contingent–contingent) axes. Without this, no essence or truth is possible. The existence of the absolute, without which everything would be reduced to a vast number of subjective interactions, is the ontological underpinning, which is actually ontic. This means that the essence of the work of art is established as a relationship between the absolute and the contingency, so here the division into subject and object is somehow postponed because we cannot remove either the act of the subject or the act of the absolute from the essence of the work of art. It is about how the three “factors”—the co-creator, the absolute, and the work of art as an “object”—constantly interact.

This is the way that also opens up the dialogical moment of the work of art, its completion in communication—the visibility of its form. We will thus return to Pareyson since his treatment of form leads to the conclusion that it can be made dialogical through observation. Vani Roščić points out that in his ontology of freedom, Pareyson dedicates himself to the themes of freedom, God, and suffering to bring hermeneutics out of monotony and fruitlessness. According to Roščić, Pareyson deals with problems that other philosophers in the field of hermeneutics did not cover because of the philosophical system from which they could not get out. Pareyson’s relationship to the form requires and seeks interpretation because form is by nature open and communicative and invites interpretation, seeks to be understood—the form of a work of art, according to Pareyson, can be a declaration of being (Roščić 2007, pp. 398–401). If being is observed ontically, it can be said that it is “declared” in relational dynamics in the way of co-creation as a relation of contingency and the absolute in a work of art. Therefore, the declaration of being in artistic creation cannot be seen as a revelation of God but rather as a specific anthropological activity in which contingency enters a relationship with the absolute and in co-creation creates a piece as the result of this participation. It is a gift of authorship that God has given to humankind. Thus, the form cannot be a proclamation of being in a way that God is proclaimed through a work of art but rather a relationship in which the joint participation of God and human, their co-creation, brings about a piece of art. Through the experimentation with form enabled by this relation, the concept of beauty develops and grows in the freedom of co-creation.

Since the origin of a work of art is ontic, such origin arouses, offers, and builds observation as contemplation and contemplation as interaction, which will be discussed in the following paragraphs. It will be demonstrated why, in order to approach the “essence” of a work of art, it is important to understand that the ontic happening is placed before the (ontological) cognition of “essence”, which makes the comprehension dynamic and creative rather than static. It is also placed before the aspect of revealing the truth (as aletheia), since the essence is creative and co-creative in its ontic origin, rather than just eventful. A “request” occurs in a completed work of art since a form is an invitation to co-shaping and dialogue; the form is further communicated in the reception of a work of art.

We agree with Pareyson on aesthetics being a way of confronting the entire philosophical problem (Roščić 2007, p. 399). This is what the first unit of this paper, which addresses the question of the ontology or onticity of a work of art, aimed to clarify. We can see a glimpse of the freedom that co-creation affords us in the mystery of art, which is also the mystery of our entire existence. This freedom allows us to be more open to the “already, but not yet” of God’s Kingdom. It refers to the question of whether we, as free beings, discover, create, or co-create our own essence. From the experiences of artistic creation, we see that it is not only a work of art but that the entire human existence is immersed in co-creation in freedom and in relation to the eternal and immeasurable, the absolute. What does the form of the work of art tell us about it?

Being the main and privileged object of the hermeneutic interaction, as seen by Pareyson, the form does not have an objectifying character, but it takes shape as a defined and completed reality that keeps and expresses infinity within itself. His hermeneutics radically expand the boundaries, and unlike Heidegger and Gadamer, he does not reduce it only to language (Roščić 2007, p. 400). Pareyson bases his aesthetics on a theory of formativeness where the designation of form is contemplativeness (Pareyson 2008, p. 16). Freedom is attributed to formativeness and that freedom establishes the possibility of some pure forming in art with only one rule that functions as a stand-alone rule of the creative act and must be discovered throughout the artistic process (success is a criterion in and of itself here) (Pareyson 2008, pp. 64–65). An artist can only discover and create form through acting and producing (Pareyson 2008, p. 69). Observation of the work of art as the completion of the interpretation process consists in seeing the form as a form with pleasure necessarily connected to it (Pareyson 2008, p. 206). According to Pareyson, the form is watchable insofar as it is a form; the very fact that it is a form grounds its watchability, and in fact, it is that watchability; it seeks and demands to be watched and observed. This demand and imposition is not some kind of resoluteness because a form is presented in the process of interpretation, and, in the final match, it appears only to the observation that knows how to form it and therefore see it. That is why we cannot talk about the objectivity or the subjectivity of beauty; it is captivating only for the one who knows how to see it (Pareyson 2008, p. 208). The infinite character of the form, together with the perspective of the plurality of persons who interpret it, establishes the structural multiplicity of countless interpretations of one and the same form, so in this sense, the interpretive process is transformed into a never-ending task (Roščić 2007, p. 401).

Pareyson’s hermeneutic approach moves toward building a philosophical comprehension of inexhaustible and absolute truth (Roščić 2007, p. 397). The progression of his concepts across time goes from the study of existentialism and historical aspects of different aesthetics to thinking about the problem of the relationship between truth and philosophy (Roščić 2007, p. 398). Vani Roščić asks whether the idea of form could be affected conceptually by an instance of truth. According to Pareyson, the ultimate truth—the truth of being—is what the interpretation inevitably seeks to convey (Roščić 2007, p. 401). If truth is a relationship between the absolute and the relative, i.e., contingent, then the interpretation of form aims at such a truth. If the artistic form is created due to the interaction between contingency and the absolute, then the objective of the form’s interpretation is the ultimate truth—that of co-creation—because such a form preserves the relationship between contingency and the absolute in its infinite dynamics. Therefore, the starting point and the hermeneutic reach of the work of art are both ontic: co-creation as the origin (the relationship between being and Being), while the “destination” (the outcome of the relationship between the absolute and contingency as a form that communicates through observation) is dialogic and consequently also ontic. In this sense, we refer to Dodlek’s observation that Adorno, wanting to turn down Hegel’s demand for absoluteness, meant that the work of art was approached as an experiment and a game. With this, Dodlek wants to point out the immanent dynamism in openness and the process character of the work of art, where the process character of the work of art is released in contemplative immersion and, so to speak, becomes something moving in itself (Dodlek 2016, p. 247). From its process characteristic of expression as its dynamics, it becomes possible that it will repeatedly enter the movement, placing it in a position of permanent development and subsequent life (Dodlek 2016, pp. 248–49). This will further guide us to the contemplativeness of the form and the unconventionality of the beauty in the interaction between being–work of art–Being in the third section of the text.

4. Form as the Unconventional Beauty in the Dynamics of Creativity

This paper aims to demonstrate the relationship between art and religion. In this sense, we mentioned how the ˝already, but not yet˝ condition of God’s Kingdom can be anticipated by art as an ontic, co-creative experience. Artistic co-creation is, in a way, entering this condition where one grows in freedom. The culmination of this event is not the knowledge of the being but rather the increase in the depths of God’s love in co-creation.

In the introduction, we referred to Leonardo da Vinci’s claim that artists are the nephews of God (Leonardo 1988, p. 9) and Boris Bućan’s opinion on the existence of God in art (Bućan 2020). Can we see if Bućan’s artwork tells us anything about God? Bućan is a painter by formal education but is best recognized for his vivid posters, notably those for theater plays. In each individual case, Bućan concentrates on searching for the essence of the message, which can be interpreted symbolically (Kritovac 1972, p. 94). But while some people recognize him exclusively within the framework of applied art, Tonko Maroević points to the autonomy of his actions, which allowed him to avoid the restrictions of application and pursue the message’s simplicity and effectiveness instead, creating new, i.e., meta-artistic, connotations (Maroević 1982, p. 21). In the constant development of the ludic component, Maroević considers Bućan o be the achiever of a new value in playfulness that exceeds the category of applied art and covers the area of “minimal” art, “essentialism”, and “new abstraction” (Maroević 1982, p. 22). Playfulness, clear imagery, conciseness, and, above all, continuous modification and progress are characteristics of Bućan’s work. He bridges the boundary between the mediums and elevates applied art to the level of pure art (Figure 1).

According to Leonardo da Vinci, the divine quality of the painter’s science is that the painter’s spirit transforms into a sort of divine spirit with the freedom to speak to future generations about the diverse aspects of all different sorts of living and non-living entities (Leonardo 1988, p. 36). Still, it is not the artist’s accomplishment whose colors generate the marvel of beauty; rather, it is the accomplishment of the one who created the colors (Leonardo 1988, p. 53). Here, we will briefly mention a few theories about creative genius. According to Kant, genius is an innate mental ability, a talent, a natural gift that gives art a rule (Kant 1975, p. 191). For Schelling, God himself is an artist, and the world is his work of art, while a genius artist has something divine in him (Focht 1959, p. 60). Novalis believed that genius was poetic and that it always functioned poetically (Novalis 1998, p. 38). We do not consider artistic genius as something that might persist without a relationship with the absolute because we understand artistic creativity as a relationship between contingency and the absolute. It is about the fact that contingency receives the gift of creativity in co-creation, in a relationship with the absolute. There are three key moments in this relationship: the artist’s initial stretching toward the absolute (ecstasy), inspiration, and the concrete work of art as the result of the relationship between contingency and the absolute. Creative endeavors are free, and it is in this freedom that they come closest to the absolute. Leonardo da Vinci believes that there are no rules where there is freedom (Leonardo 1988, p. 53). Similar remarks are made by St. Paul in an appeal to the Jews who adhered to the Old Testament and rejected Christ as God, where St. Paul says that the Lord is a spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:14–18). In response to the complaints of those who do not understand what it is about, Leonardo da Vinci wrote the following with the unbounded curiosity that characterizes creative endeavors:

“And these are the ones who blame the painters for studying things on holidays that concern the true insight with all forms of the work of nature and who diligently try to gain knowledge about them as much as possible. But those who object should remain silent, because this is the way to get to know the creator of so many wonderful things, and it is the way to love such a great creator, because, truly, great love is born from great knowledge of the loved thing, and if you do not know it, you will be able to love it slightly or not at all. But if you love it because of the good you expect from it, and not because of its highest virtue, you act like a dog that wags its tail and rejoices in rising to the one who can give him a bone, but if you knew the virtue of that man, you would love him much more if that quality worked in his advantage.”

(Leonardo 1988, p. 40)

The unconventionality manifested in this passage through the work being done during holidays occurs due to rapturous contemplation that is focused on the Creator with astonishment and delight. It allows one to see the creation’s beauty without prejudice as an observation that is entirely present in the observed and which experiences that everything observed is present in them, but not in a way that limits the otherness of the other and freedom. Therefore, even though this radical otherness and inalienability, which belongs to every person, stands as heterogeneity in the unconquerable freedom of every being, the one in front of it is still able to accept it for what it is and to see that kind of otherness and freedom as something of immeasurable value. This is because the other cannot ever be “me” due to the infiniteness of individuality. Moreover, the otherness of the other asks to be accepted exactly as such, as well as to be tolerated to separate freely at any time. But an accepting perspective and a loving perspective are not the same. In contrast to the first, which only tolerates the other’s differences, the second shows that despite being different, one can nonetheless experience spiritual unity with the other in embracing their otherness. The most liberating experience comes from accepting the infinite otherness of the other, which heightens and increases the individuality and mystery of one’s own being. This type of comprehension, which can be expressed as a joyful inner exclamation, a sigh, and a eulogy, must be what Leonardo da Vinci is referring to. While studying nature, he interacts with the Creator of many wonderful things that he admires (as a co-creator himself), gets to know him, and grows to love him in consequence. This kind of observation is never one-sided; instead, it develops recursively into a loving insight and through loving it grows to include an even more unconventional insight. In the miraculous transformation of seeing, it is a kind of fascination where subject and object are brought closer to the point where there is no longer a distance between them, and the boundaries lose their power to separate them, though the otherness of the other is not eliminated. Such a relationship is one of joyful correlation and inspiration.

According to Pareyson, the rapture of inspiration seems to devalue any conscious search because sincere attention does not mean staring but keeping itself open and available for complete and deep assent (Pareyson 2008, p. 93). It is a reception that is both active and productive (Pareyson 2008, p. 92). When it comes to observing a work of art, the completion of the interpretation process consists in seeing the form as a form (Pareyson 2008, p. 205), and pleasure is necessarily associated with such observation (Pareyson 2008, p. 206). Seeing something beautiful involves having an open mind to new experiences. If the matter of beauty is a matter of attentiveness to form, which in art is not mere formalism because it is an experiment of form, then both the form and the comprehension of beauty experience a constant movement in that experiment, from the conventional to the unconventional, to the otherness of the form; namely, to wonderment and admiration. Since it is not about the ontology of subject and object, relationality is discernible in the matter of form (the beauty), so it cannot be set as a fixed objectivity, an ideal “prime form” or an (artistic) canon, considering that it is an experiment of form that takes place in the relationship of contingency and absolute and considering that it requires observation, and in observation, it communicates, completes, and co-shapes. It is a process in which the being–work of art–Being first participates in the co-creative act, and then the co-shaping continues in the reception of a work after being completed.

Ivan Dodlek depicts the reception that the work’s completion takes place in as a dialogic figure (Dodlek 2016). He sees artistic creativity as the potential for the transformation of perception, the transformation of the lives of individuals and communities, and the eschatological character of art. Aesthetic perception, carrying within itself the potential of creative liberation, is a different kind of perception than an ordinary observation in the sense of transforming the ordinary observation by shifting the attention from utilitarian to contemplative–existential and disinterested perception, in which the possibility of observing the deeper features of human existence opens up (Dodlek 2019, p. 765). In relation to the discussion on reception as the completion of works of art, Leonardo da Vinci believed, according to some of his biographers, that none of his works were finished because it seemed to him that his hand could not have achieved the perfection of art as he had imagined it (Vasari, in: Leonardo 1988, p. 317). This perception of Leonardo da Vinci is certainly caused by his profound relationship with the divine, but we would say that it does not exactly correspond with the reception of his works as uncompleted. For the one who creates and enters a co-creative relation, what may appear complete, formed, and recognizable—and what is essentially a completed work since there is nothing left to add to or take away from it—is never completed because in that relation there is no completion of the process. Leonardo da Vinci left the figure of Christ incomplete at the Last Supper in the chapel of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan (Figure 2) because he thought it could not express the celestial holiness it needed (Vasari in: Leonardo 1988, p. 320). He claimed that he was unable to comprehend the beauty and elegance of the incarnate divinity through thinking or imagination and did not want to search for the image of Christ on Earth (Vasari in: Leonardo 1988, p. 321). He searched for divine beauty using themes from the world, which make it abundantly evident that he tried to create a certain atmosphere of mysticism in the medium of painting and was successful in doing so. Because he dealt with such representations of the mysticism of earthly beauty and each piece of art required years of effort to complete it, it is reasonable that he hesitated in front of God’s face who created all of this, leaving that part of the fresco incomplete.

But this is not a common practice in art. For example, a Croatian artist Željko Kipke wrote the following in response to Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Christ in the movie Passion:

“It is about the forced aesthetics of butchery, which was occasionally transformed into a cinematic surrogate of enformal painting. I remained indifferent, just like in front of other American products that are abundant with the bodies of victims and their tormentors. Every now and then someone stumbles on Christ without realizing that this story is like a live fish—it is slippery and elusive, so it slips away the moment you believe you have it in your hands.”

(Kipke 2005, p. 53)

The word “apophatic” in theology refers to the elusiveness of God’s face, but even though God’s face cannot be fully embraced, it can be touched in some way (cataphatic). Through the drama of Elijah’s ascent and God’s passage, Dodlek and Malović reflect on beauty as a dimension of the transparency of the Logos. This transparency is manifested “in the whisper of the light and gentle breeze of the beauty of contemplative aesthetics” (Dodlek and Malović 2023, p. 235). Since contemplation shifts the focus from one’s own reality to that which is external to oneself, it is essential for such reality to be attractive to self-forgetfulness; it represents an insight that is inclined toward transcendence (Good, True, Beautiful, One, God) (Dodlek and Malović 2023, p. 246). In this context, contemplation is considered as an aesthetic perception of beauty, and in such an unbiased and unsentimental observation, there is nothing but what is seen—the perfection of forms that invite open-minded contemplation (Dodlek and Malović 2023, p. 247);

“The whisper of the beauty of contemplative aesthetics slowly and gently directs the gaze of each individual self (artist and recipient) towards the truth of the only possible survival achievable within selfless openness to the unifying we. Such beauty, in the end, is actually the whisper of a light and gentle breeze of love.”

(Dodlek and Malović 2023, p. 249)

Here, we will briefly detour to describe what we understand by the word “beauty”. The attitude toward beauty changes over time, and often the greatest resistance to the term “beauty” comes from artists. This is understandable considering that artists have a non-traditional sense of what beauty is, and as a result, they have consistently pushed against the traditional interpretation of the concept of beauty. According to Brian Hearne, if God is beauty that is both timeless and contemporary, then this beauty may manifest in unsettling or upsetting ways, or even in ways that seem to threaten the way we typically view life. This is precisely why beauty serves as a revolutionary liberator (Hearne 1990, p. 12). This is the point of view that we also represent in this article. Hearne continues by pointing out that beauty is ultimately only a tool that guides us closer to the source; it is a connection, not a thing, and the Trinity outlines such a relationship (Hearne 1990, pp. 13–14). But at this point, we can ask: how is it possible that everything God created is not equally beautiful? This question can be answered in the following ways: did God create equally beautiful phenomena, or does beauty result from how we view phenomena? The third option is that beauty is a contingency-driven descent into the depths of the absolute, expanding human sensitivity to consider what he previously did not see as beautiful but now does. Therefore, such beauty may seem unknowable, non-canonical, unsettling, or even dangerous. The idea that harmony is lovely frequently surfaces in our everyday experience of beauty. We think that such a comprehension of beauty emerges from the division of the transcendentals (Good, Truth, Beauty). When just harmonies appear to be beautiful, the other two transcendentals of True and Good may be absent, leaving the beauty without depth. When doing this research, we did not separate the transcendentals of True, Good, and Beauty. What is beautiful should be true and good in some way, but this does not mean that only harmony can be beautiful. And what is seen as incongruous or even ugly in the eye’s perception can very well be true and good, which means that it must also be able to be seen as beautiful. That is the depth of beauty. This is about expressing the absolute through humanly devised concepts of true, good, and beautiful, forgetting that these concepts arise only in our relationship to the absolute but do not condition it. It is incorrect to put them before the absolute itself and before our relationship with the absolute. It means what Hearne says: if God is beauty that is both timeless and contemporary, then this means that beauty can manifest itself in unorthodox and unsettling ways, and even in ways that seem dangerous to our current understanding of life. This is the reason beauty is a revolutionary liberator (Hearne 1990, p. 12). The question of beauty in art is therefore not a mere formalism but rather an experiment in form where both the form and the idea of beauty experience a constant transformation and growth from the conventional to the unconventional. Or, if we choose to put it that way, from harmonious to disturbing, from conservative to revolutionary, from prejudice to an open mind.

The perfection of forms that invite open-minded contemplation can be related to what Pareyson refers to as the vigilance of form. The anthropological creative act-decision causes the form (i.e., beauty) in art to endure an experiment where the sight opens to the newness and experiences a shift from the known to the unknown, from the conventional to the unconventional, allowing the mystery, tremendousness, profundity, and wonderment of the divine to show the (unconventional) beauty and fascination through co-creation. It is not a manifestation of God himself but the occurrence of co-creation in the common co-participation of contingency and the absolute.

To better illustrate what we mean when we say that the artistic form in creation undergoes a constant experiment in which it is transformed and that this moves the idea of beauty from the conventional to the unconventional, i.e., that the concept of beauty experiences expansion and growth and that beauty is surprising, we will compare Leonardo da Vinci with an apparently diametrically opposed painter, Anselm Kiefer (Figure 3). With this, we want to emphasize that the depths and tremendous power of the deity are part of the beauty as well. Therefore, is Kiefer’s art about beauty, and if so, how? According to art historian Vinko Srhoj, Kiefer believed that a painting was a continuous process that had no clear ending (Srhoj 2023, p. 50). It seems that Leonardo felt the same way about the unfinished nature of his works of art. But what differentiates them is actually that Kiefer sees this thing as a failure, with nothingness already present at the beginning of the work (Srhoj 2023, p. 50). He includes worn-out material in his painting process: carbonized dry straw, ash, and sand—actually those materials that are the remains of collateral damage from war destruction; Kiefer constantly refers to the residue of destroyed matter, desolation, and decay (Srhoj 2023, p. 52). Srhoj believes that his work is imbued with a tragic–romantic combination of a condition where there is no beauty without sadness and where tragic scenes carry something sensual in them (Srhoj 2023, p. 53). However, Kiefer does not plunge us into hopelessness:

“His paintings are ultimately scenes beyond the tragedy of existence, a kind of post-apocalyptic situation of returning the Earth to the chaos of the universe, which will continue to spin without man and without nature, even without the Earth, which in his order no longer plays the exclusive role of life and everything rather, as Kiefer’s paintings show, it begins to resemble the space wasteland that has always surrounded it.”

(Srhoj 2023, p. 55)

We can observe how the aging world alters its perception of beauty by contrasting Kiefer’s ambivalence toward it with Leonardo’s attitude toward it. A world that, due to global media networking and the destruction of world wars, had to become more aware of its own wickedness. As a result of shifting the focus from good to evil, it appears that the world is likewise one that sinks more and more into evil and less and less into good. But despite this, in Kiefer’s paintings, a kind of hope “shines”. It may seem that Leonardo da Vinci, if we were to observe only this line of temporality, was able to enjoy the fullness of beauty in the time of the High Renaissance and that today’s man can only see beauty as a glimmer of hope, moving through the embers of his own non-deeds. But we cannot truly claim that Leonardo was not equally aware of the mortality of all life (besides, he dissected both animals and people) and that, despite this, he could not experience beauty in its fullness. If beauty comes as a glimpse of hope, it does so fully because beauty is never partial. It is always whole. This can be discerned in Kiefer’s paintings because, despite the motif, the painting shines with hope, and that is what makes it beautiful in its wholeness. Such a kind of beauty can perhaps be compared to the transformation of the faces of people who suffer; it is neither a conventional nor a Renaissance kind of beauty. This corresponds to our claim that beauty expands and grows in the relationship between contingency and the absolute.

Kiefer also deconstructed the historical painting subgenre. It does so in such a way that, despite the fact that Kiefer depicted the terrain of his native country in the shape of historical landscapes, Noga Stiassny claims that his landscapes are both post-historical and pre-historic.

“In other words, he proposes deconstructing the tradition of representation and searching for a new construction instead.”

(Stiassny 2015, p. 51).

His relationship to nature is different from that of historical painting. According to Stiassny, Kiefer sees nature as a silent eyewitness who saw the horrors and actions but remained speechless. From the 1980s onwards, Kiefer attached materials such as straw, lead, hair, and sand, and these materials underwent processes of oxidation during exhibitions; his works were in a constant state of oxidation, exposed to the effects of time (Stiassny 2015, p. 50). The materials that Kiefer uses are therefore very contingent; they literally disintegrate even while they are in the process of being exhibited, thus indicating the dynamics of a relationship’s co-contingency and the absolute: contingency in their perishability and the absolute in their glimmer of hope. Hope does not refer to the present but is instead aimed at transcendence since hope is hope because it aspires to a transcendence of some sort (not necessarily a religious transcendence but transcendence as overstepping in general) and wishes for it. This method of painting is consistent with Kiefer’s assertion that paintings lack a clear ending, which is also one of the ways he deconstructs the historical painting subgenre.

His expressionist perspective on painting is another method by which he deconstructs it. As Stiassny notes, Kiefer uses a painting technique that employs rough and vicious brush strokes, jagged lines, and acute angles to suggest violence. But this is not, as Stiassny points out, similar to American Expressionism, in which color played a significant role (Stiassny 2015, p. 44). Kiefer created a hybrid artistic language that deconstructs the different aesthetic fads and trends that were prevalent in abstract art (Stiassny 2015, p. 45).

We will now juxtapose Kiefer’s paintings to those of Mark Rothko and Gustav Gnamuš in order to show how different types of painting can be observed through the relationship of contingency and the absolute, which shifts our perception of beauty from the realm of the conventional to the realm of the unconventional. Rothko and Gnamuš both belong to the tradition of abstract painting, as opposed to the paintings by the two authors before. We shall have to discuss the relationship between the spiritual and the abstract in art in order to try to understand the unconventionality and surprising component of beauty. Worringer points to the importance of the abstract, which has been present in art since prehistoric times. According to Worringer, the inclination toward imitation has nothing to do with art (Worringer 1997, p. 11). He considers the desire to imitate in connection with empathy and emphasizes that the tendency to abstraction appears as the opposite pole of the desire for compassion (Worringer 1997, p. 14). The desire for compassion contains a happy pantheistic relationship of closeness between people and the world, while abstraction is a reaction to the disturbing phenomena of the external world and, in a religious sense, is connected with the transcendence of these phenomena; this state he designates as a miraculous fear of space that is the root of artistic creativity (Worringer 1997, p. 15). Let us return for a moment to the creative leap that we mentioned when we talked about the relationship between the ontic and the ontological in art. This creative leap is actually the abstractness of the creative act that occurs both in the creative act itself and also in the completed work as the depth of its relational essence. However, how can this abstraction be scientifically relevant if it cannot be conceptually encompassed? It is relevant precisely as witnesses of an artistic spiritual experience in which the essence of the being is an ontic, not an ontological, event. It concerns a mode of “cognition” that does not treat otherness as an object and instead approaches it with a touching understanding. Here, we are directed to the fullness of being, which is not a substance but a relation (as we already discussed with reference to the Trinity’s theological moment). In abstraction, the content does not determine the form, but the “physicality” of the structure is revealed in dynamism and freedom. And if the work of art is shown in its transcendence, this kind of abstraction eludes the question “What is a work of art?” It shows that what we find in the work of art as abstraction goes beyond the concept and leans into a relationship. The abstract principle in the creative act refers to a free leap from “nothing” to something, where there can be no gradation between “nothing” and something because every gradation means that leap itself. Abstractness appears in the creative act as a leap from “nothing” to something but also later in the completed work as the depths of the relationship between the contingent and the absolute. Let us now return to Rothko in terms of abstract art.

Rothko (Figure 4) points out that large paintings traditionally served a very grandiose and pompous purpose, reminding us that he too creates large works but for quite opposite purposes: ”…precisely because I was to be very intimate and human” (Crow 2005, p. 25). He aspires to experience what it is like to be within the picture (Crow 2005, p. 26). Greenberg highlights Rothko’s monochromes for the chapel in Houston as an example of contemplative painting (Šuvaković 2007, p. 101), while William S. Rubin, a former chief curator at MoMA, claims that Rothko’s color rectangles dematerialize in pure light in his paintings (Kedmey 2017). According to Rothko, the concept of beauty can be challenging to understand because the word is used with all sorts of esoteric connotations, and to him, the perception of beauty is an emotional experience. He is not thinking here solely about the sentimentalism or sensuality of human emotionalism, but rather about some sort of exaltation that is transmitted to us via our emotional system. Rothko asserts that beauty adheres to the demands of the spirit to reassert its elusive nature (Rothko 2004, p. 62).

“Our definition of beauty, then, is a certain type of emotional exaltation which is the result of stimulation by certain qualities common to all great works of art. To apply this definition to our notions of plasticity, we may say that the sum total of all plasticity in a painting must be the potentiality for the evocation of a sense of beauty.”

(Rothko 2004, p. 63).

According to Rothko, studies of balance and proportion look only at a small section of the process and are therefore essentially useless. However, they are useless because neither the world of mathematics nor the world of words and sounds are interchangeable with the plastic elements through which beauty is achieved. They only display abstract relationships, the realization of which can produce sublime beauty. For him, seeing beauty entails engaging in abstraction through a particular agency (Rothko 2004, p. 64). This somehow reflects the infiniteness of reality (Rothko 2004, p. 65). Once more, the relation between the absolute and contingency is evident here, with the absolute being reflected in abstraction by the particularity of contingency.

When discussing abstraction, we will also bring up the Slovenian artist Gustav Gnamuš (Figure 5), who draws inspiration from Rothko’s heritage but alternates it in some manner with a kind of postmodern imbalance. Rothko’s abstract paintings belong to the tradition of modernism, both in terms of atmosphere and compositional balance. Although close to Rothko’s sensibility, Gnamuš brings a kind of postmodernist imbalance to his abstract compositions. If we place Rothko as a kind of modernist conventionality in relation to Gnamuš, this imbalance in Gnamuš’s painting is another example of moving toward unconventionality. In order to demonstrate the various ways in which the unconventionality of beauty manifests itself, we have here referenced the works of four quite different painters, in period and style. Leonardo’s paintings shine with mystical beauty; Kiefer’s shine with hope in the face of destruction; and Rothko’s and Gnamuš’s shine from within, simply transcending the matter of painting.

It is important to say that these works are regarded as exemplary. We could consider whether or not some of the works by Damien Hirst, Duane Hanson, or Maurizio Cattelan had this type of unconventional beauty, but it would go beyond the proportions of the article.

Let us recall that before discussing the connection between form, contemplation, and beauty, it was concluded that being (to be) cannot stand as a “gradual” transition from “nothing” to being (entity). As there can be no “gradual” transition from nothing to something, being (entity) does not emerge from being (to be) but arises ex nihilo. The indeterminate and unlimited being (entity) does not stand in being (to be) as a foundation but in the possibility of freedom as the essence of being. This changed the perspective from ontological to ontic. It means that ontic activity implies infinite depths of relations, and that kind of relationality eludes the determination of essence as knowledge.

It has therefore been asserted that the origin of art is ontic, and through interpretation it acquires its, so to speak, ontological–ontic “aspects”. Because of this, the essence of a work of art cannot be fixed in knowledge but rather exists in the relationship of being–work of art–Being, sustaining the relational and infinite dynamics in the reception of the work. Such an activity is characterized by contemplativeness; that is, the observation and visibility of form. In the comprehending of form (beauty), this makes a continuous shift from the conventional to the unconventional as the otherness of the form in its experiment, which freely offers itself to observation. In this way, art “tells” us something about God. This shift can be observed as a growth of beauty, a falling into the profundity of the absolute, which, if the form were ontological and not an ontic “category”, would not be feasible. Because beauty, as the observation of form, has an ontic origin, its objectification is not possible, while its continuous growth and enlargement, which is shown in the open-minded contemplation of (unconventional) beauty, is possible. In it, contingency interacts with the absolute in a way that allows the divine’s profundities to open. Therefore, beauty is always unconventional and surprising.

5. Conclusions

This paper aimed to demonstrate the relationship between art and religion and sought to explore the extent to which ontological matter permeates the essence of the work of art. Such permeation has been shown to reach both the ontology and the origins of art.

In this paper, we discussed the question: can art tell us anything about God? We do not discuss the question of what art can tell us about God; that question would go beyond the scope and proportions of this article. The scope of this paper was elaborated using three methodological units. The following list of steps functions as an algorithm:

• If art is an ontic event occurring between the absolute and the contingent, then;
• Art, unavoidably, by its form;
• Reveals something to us about God.

The conclusion is that through its forms and co-creation between contingency and the absolute, art reveals something about God. This study did not explore what exactly art reveals about God. If there is no absolute as a guarantee of the ultimate criterion, all of our norms must be based on some criterion that has been contingently formed. But such norms do not oblige us to the truth if they are formed contingently. In that case, we will agree with Berdjajev: either there is no truth at all, and consequently, all philosophical statements should be stopped, or truth creatively liberates and gives meaning to being (Berdjajev 2014, p. 33).

The absolute and the ultimate criterion are indivisible, but as we went on to clarify, we are actually discussing the Trinity’s dynamics. At this point, we have concluded that if the immutable essence (referring to both ontology and art) is co-creative freedom, then the only “determination” is co-creative transformation and growth. In this transformation, the form in the work of art undergoes an experiment in which it “develops” and grows from the known to the unknown, from the conventional to the unconventional. We tested this on two examples of paintings that are distant in time and style: Leonardo da Vinci’s and Anselm Kiefer’s. It has been shown that, in its experiment, the artistic form leads us to openness and growth in contemplativeness. We see beauty by contemplatively immersing ourselves in the visibility of the form that grows in its experiment and is grounded in the resources of the relationship between contingency and the absolute. This makes the form beautiful, strange, and miraculous. Throughout, the “already, but not yet” of the Kingdom of God is anticipated.

We have examined the relationship between essence, being (to be), and the being (entity) in the context of art. It has been demonstrated that the observability of (artistic) forms is not in their objectivity, but in a relationship between contingency and the absolute, which consequently leads to infinite dynamics of the work of art. The dispute between ontological and existentialist has revealed that being is not determined and limited if its essence is freedom. It makes it possible for a being to realize its own, conditionally speaking, “essence”, which is only post hoc perceived as such.

A work of art is artistic only as a form and it stands as such in the relationality that takes place between contingency and the absolute through the artistic form’s visibility and manifestation (form is seen here as the possibility of artistic expression in any artistic medium). The conclusion is that the origin and “specification” of art is ontic, as co-creation between contingency and the absolute. We have been discussing contemplation, contemplativeness, and the perceiving of form in its experiment, i.e., continuous movement and growth from the conventional to the unconventional. With this kind of observation, we have been talking about a relationship rather than “objectivity”, the ontic rather than the ontological.

Does art have to say anything about God, then? We identified certain directions in which our results move in relation to the question of whether art may reveal something about God. When philosophy inquires into the novelty (novum) of a piece of art, reality and metaphysics cannot be reconciled. The answer appears as a mystery that can be interpreted in analogy to the Trinity—God, who is able to reach us in a variety of ways, including via art. As a co-creative, contemplative, and ontic occurrence, it could shed light on the “already, but not yet” presence of God’s Kingdom. The freedom of co-creation anticipates this condition as a co-creative occurrence in which one grows in freedom and contemplation of form as unconventional beauty, the culmination of which is not “essence” as knowledge, nor simply the revelation of the truth (aletheia), but the expansion of the depths of God’s love in co-creation.