What Is Soul? & Does Every Artist Have It?

My dictionary has, for its first definition of "artist": "A person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination."

When I check the root meanings for "soul" I find this first: "spiritual and emotional part of a person" plus "animate existence"; then there are a bunch of languages sources in a row, tracing its history to this interesting meaning: "of uncertain origin".

No doubt the soul has always been a bit hard to nail down but it seems to appear that folks with "sensitivity and imagination" are clearly tuned into the difficult to describe qualities of soul.

I read a guest post from Haley Whitehall on Elle Beauregard's blog called, On The Soul of An Artist.

Haley says: "Even when they are feeling the least creative, artists have something in common—they look at the world differently. They see the world as a place to express themselves….Writers can take English classes and artists can learn from professionals how to paint. People can learn the skills but if they do not have the soul of an artist nothing original will come of it. They will not look at the world differently."

To me, that last sentence is extremely telling: "They will not look at the world differently."

I wrote a comment to Haley about her post which said:

I think the distinction between "education, training, and talent" and "the way of perceiving life" is critical when deciding if one is a true creative artist.

I do think there's a discernible difference between talent and creativity. A talented person can follow a pattern of making art and produce some extremely valuable work. A creative person will infuse any talent they have with the Soul that makes it much more than valuable work…

What are your thoughts and feelings?

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Tagged: artist, artist's soul, creativity, Elle Beauregard, Haley Whitehall, soul, soul of an artist, writer