Has modern art sold its "soul" to the "market"?
When we look at **Michelangelo’s** late masterpieces—such as the *Rondanini Pietà*—the muscular perfection and physical idealism of his youth are nowhere to be found. The figures are elongated, frail, and unfinished (*non-finito*), as if dissolving into the stone. Why? Because in his twilight years, Michelangelo reached the profound realization that physical beauty could become a veil obscuring the truth of the soul. For him, art was a vessel to manifest the divine light of Christ.
The fascinating part is how deeply Michelangelo’s Renaissance worldview echoes the **Illuminationist philosophy (Hikmat al-Ishraq) of Sohrevardi** in the East.
The Thread of Neoplatonism
Michelangelo grew up in Florence under the influence of philosophers who revived Neoplatonic thought—the very same stream that, centuries earlier, nourished Sohrevardi’s intellect in the East. In this worldview, matter is pure darkness, and art is the process of "illuminating matter"—liberating the divine light trapped within stone and pigment. The artist here is not a mere commodity creator, but a conduit for the light.
This is the essence of "Art as Soul." A realm where the artwork is the raw incarnation of the artist's inner life, suffering, and intuition—not a decorative piece for a wall or an asset for financial investment.
In an era where art is evaluated by marketing metrics, social media algorithms, fleeting trends, and NFT markets, how much breathing room is left for "Art as Soul"?
Is insisting on authenticity, intuition, and an illuminationist approach in contemporary art an obsolete, romantic notion? Or is it that modern humanity, feeling increasingly disconnected, needs this "light in the dark" now more than ever?
As an artist, art enthusiast, or creative industry professional, how do you think we can balance the thin line between "market survival" and "preserving the spiritual authenticity of the artwork"?
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