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What is spiritual art? What is the misunderstanding ?
Spiritual art: when a painting becomes a practice
Spiritual art is often misunderstood as art about spirituality. In reality, the most compelling spiritual artworks don’t illustrate beliefs; they create conditions: for attention, for stillness, for a quieter kind of seeing. They don’t demand interpretation. They invite presence.
That invitation is at the heart of Poggio Di Poggio’s minimalist, zen, wabi-sabi approach artworks that turn looking into an experience rather than a judgment. His pieces are built around simplicity and natural materials, yet they carry a depth that unfolds slowly, as your own pace changes.
The power of less
In spiritual art, “less” is not an aesthetic trend; it’s an ethic. Reducing noise, visual, conceptual, emotional, creates space for something subtler to appear: breath, light, texture, silence. Minimalism, when it’s sincere, doesn’t flatten meaning. It clears the path to it.
Wabi-sabi adds another layer, an acceptance of impermanence, irregularity, and the beauty of the imperfection. It asks you to meet the work as you meet life, with openness, without forcing it to become something else.
Why materials matter ?
Spiritual art tends to begin where the mind ends: in the body. In tactility. In the honest presence of materials. Poggio Di Poggio’s practice foregrounds that immediacy, simple, natural elements that don’t hide behind spectacle, offering a direct connection that feels accessible rather than elitist.
This is where viewers often notice a shift, you stop scanning for “what it means” and start sensing how it feels. The surface, the grain, the restraint—these become a language. And unlike language, it doesn’t argue. It resonates.
The square as a threshold
There’s also something quietly radical in his preference for square formats, a neutral field that avoids the cultural habits of portrait vs. landscape. The square doesn’t point you toward a horizon or a character. It holds you in the present. It’s a frame that says: “Stay here a moment.”
In that sense, the format isn’t just design, it’s a meditative device.
Spiritual art is rarely static. It changes with you, and with the room. Poggio Di Poggio explicitly treats his works as sensitive to the emotional and spiritual state of the observer, to the space they inhabit, and to the light that touches them, creating a living interplay rather than a fixed message.
It’s also why a studio visit matters. Photographs can show composition; they can’t show presence. Light, real light, reveals what the work actually does.
A studio in Bruges, made to slow down and experiment
There’s a particular harmony between this kind of art and its setting, a studio in the historic center of Bruges, where time already feels textured and layered.
If spiritual art is an encounter, not a product, then meeting it in person, quietly, without rush becomes part of the work.
If you’d like to experience the works in their true scale, texture, and changing light, schedule a private appointment to visit the studio in the historic center of Bruges. Reach out via the contact details to request your preferred date and time.
+32483581970 (Whatsapp)
Transcendence
Nature, Beauty, Art
Human beings have the capacity to transcend the ordinary and to transcend themselves.
Thus, they do not flee from the everyday; on the contrary, by elevating above it, they become luminous, drawing closer to truth and ultimate reality.
They illuminate themselves and illuminate the world.
The experience of the profound nature of nature and beauty is an external source of transcendence, but there is another source that does not depend on external factors: personal realization. The experience of the infinite, of the whole, of oneness, of impermanence, of non-separation, and of non-self.
This fulfillment is attainable by connecting one's mind to the body and then to the universe.
The practice of mindfulness, meditation, and the experience of the beauty of nature or art are the principal sources of transcendence.
Transcendence allows us to reduce suffering, illuminate reality, and clarify situations.
By elevating above our limitations, we shift our perspective, we gain a holistic view, and then we are able to let it go.
Charles Baudelaire
Elevation
Above the ponds, above the valleys, The mountains, the woods, the clouds, the seas, Beyond the sun, beyond the ethers, Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,
My spirit, you move with agility, And, like a strong swimmer who swoons in the wave, You furrow the deep, boundless infinity With a masculine and ineffable joy.
Fly far away from these morbid miasmas; Go, purify yourself in the higher air, And drink, like a pure and divine liquor, The bright fire that fills the limpid spaces.
Behind the boredom and the vast sorrows That weigh with their fog on our clouded existence, Happy is he who can, with a vigorous wing, Soar towards the fields of light and serenity;
He whose thoughts, like larks, Toward the morning skies take a free flight, — Who hovers over life, and understands without effort The language of flowers and of silent things!
Mark Rothko
The "Religious Experience"
Mark Rothko didn’t want you to just look at his paintings; he wanted you to have a transcendent encounter with them.
"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them, and if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point."
To Rothko, the canvas was a vessel for the "human drama." If a viewer didn't feel a sense of awe or even terror, he felt he had failed.
Wabi-sabi: Finding Beauty in Imperfection
Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a Japanese expression denoting an aesthetic concept and a spiritual mindset rooted in Zen Buddhist principles and Taoism.
The philosophy bridges two core principles: wabi (solitude, simplicity, melancholy, and asymmetry) and sabi (the passage of time, the decay of aging things, the patina of objects, and an appreciation for the weathered and worn). Wabi refers to the sense of fulfillment and humility experienced in the presence of natural phenomena, while sabi is the feeling evoked by objects that bear the visible marks of time or human craftsmanship. Notably, the character for sabi (寂) is engraved on the tomb of the writer Junichirō Tanizaki (1886-1965) at the Hōnen-in Temple in Kyoto.
The principles of wabi and sabi are ancient, appearing in Japanese literature as early as the 15th century alongside a third concept: yojō, or "sentimental echo."
A perfect illustration of wabi-sabi can be found in the aesthetic devotion to stones (dry gardens) or the art of bonsai. This ethos, which emerged in the 12th century, advocates for a return to simplicity and a peaceful sobriety that enriches one’s life, allowing us to recognize and feel the beauty in things that are imperfect, ephemeral, and modest.
The art of kintsugi, the practice of mending broken pottery with gold to highlight its fractures rather than concealing them, is deeply rooted in the wabi-sabi tradition. It invites us to admire the very imperfections of an object's cracks. Ancient tea bowls (chawan), weathered and restored through kintsugi, are especially prized; their gold-dusted scars transform flaws into a central, celebrated feature.
Stendhal syndrome
Stendhal syndrome
Also known as "Florence syndrome") is a rare psychosomatic condition that occurs when an individual is exposed to a high concentration of art, architecture, or objects of immense beauty
Origin and History
The Namesake: It is named after the 19th-century French author Marie-Henri Beyle, better known as Stendhal. In his 1817 travel diary, he described feeling a "sort of ecstasy" and heart palpitations after visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.
Common Symptoms
The syndrome manifests through a range of physical and mental reactions:
Physical: Rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), dizziness, shortness of breath, sweating, and fainting.
Psychological: Confusion, temporary loss of identity (depersonalization), hallucinations, and intense feelings of anxiety or euphoria.
I've experienced it 2 times, first time with Les Nymphéas (Claude Monet) at Le Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and the second time in Amsterdam at The Van Gogh museum with Amandier en fleurs.
Mark Rothko
Expressing the Infinite
He viewed art as a way to communicate things that words couldn't reach, specifically the "basic human emotions" that he tied directly to the spiritual.
"I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions, tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on."
"A painting is not a picture of an experience; it is an experience."
Vincent Van Gogh
Amandier en fleurs (1890)
& Stendhal syndrom
Vincent van Gogh didn’t just paint; he wrestled with the divine on canvas. His spirituality was a turbulent journey from traditional, rigid dogma to a deeply personal, pantheistic "religion of nature."
1. The Failed Preacher
Before he was an artist, Vincent wanted to be a martyr. The son of a Dutch Reformed pastor, he tried to follow in his father's footsteps.
The Borinage Incident: While serving as a lay preacher in a Belgian coal-mining district, he gave away all his possessions and lived in a shack to be "closer to the poor."
The Rejection: The church authorities were actually appalled by his extremism and dismissed him. This "failure" broke his ties with institutional religion but intensified his private search for the sacred.
2. Art as the New Ministry
When Vincent turned to art at age 27, he didn't leave his faith behind—he just changed his pulpit. He famously said, "To try to understand the real significance of what the great artists... tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God."
Sacred art today: from tradition to contemporary practice at Poggio Di Poggio's studio in Bruges (Belgium)
What makes an artwork sacred?
Not a halo, not a symbol, not a historical style. Sacredness is created when a work is set apart, placed in a context where people return to it for prayer, contemplation, grounding, or silence. In other words: sacred art is less about how it looks, and more about what it is for.
What is sacred art?
Sacred art is art that serves a spiritual or religious function. It supports ritual, devotion, remembrance, or communal worship. It can be figurative or abstract, ancient or contemporary. The defining element is its role: it becomes a focus for attention that carries meaning beyond aesthetics.
Sacred art in art history
For centuries, sacred art shaped the way communities experienced the invisible.
In churches, temples, and shrines, images and objects were not decorations. They organised space and time: guiding the gaze, marking thresholds, holding stories, and creating a place for prayer. Materials were chosen for more than beauty, gold, stone, pigments, incense, because sacred art was meant to endure, to resonate, and to belong to a shared practice.
Historically, sacred art was inseparable from architecture and ritual. It lived where people gathered, repeated gestures, and returned again and again.
Sacred art in contemporary art
Today, some artists pursue spirituality without doctrine. Yet sacred art has not disappeared, it has shifted.
In a culture saturated with images, certain contemporary works reclaim sacredness through pace. They refuse quick consumption and instead create conditions for duration: light-based environments, minimalist forms, material restraint, spaces of silence. Sacredness emerges not through spectacle, but through attention restored.
Contemporary sacred art often happens at the level of experience: it becomes a threshold, something you don’t just look at, but enter.
Poggio Di Poggio: "Why my work can become sacred for some collectors"
My work begins as spiritual: it is made to open an interior space of stillness, beauty, and connection, a transcendence. But some collectors describe the works as sacred once they live with them. That shift usually happens for three reasons:
1) The artwork functions as a space, not an object
The piece becomes a quiet room within the room, a presence that changes the atmosphere of a home.
2) It is set apart through use
Collectors place the work intentionally, protect it from visual noise, and return to it as a daily practice—reflection, meditation, prayer, or simply grounding. In that return, the work takes on a sacred role.
3) The making itself is ritualised
My process includes chanting Buddhist chants, burning incense, and working in meditative posture. I can’t measure what is transmitted, but I do believe the quality of attention present during creation leaves traces, in restraint, rhythm, and the calm the work can hold. For some collectors, that intention is tangible.
Sacredness, then, is not a label imposed from the outside. It is a relationship that forms over time, when an artwork becomes a stable point of return, a place for what matters.
Agnes Martin
Art & Beauty
Agnes Martin had a perspective on beauty that was almost monastic. She didn’t see beauty as something you look at, but as something you feel. To her, it was an internal state of grace rather than a physical attribute of an object.
"When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection."
For Agnes Martin, chasing beauty wasn't about aesthetics or "pretty" colors; it was a rigorous, almost radical pursuit of inner peace. Her grid paintings weren't meant to be "patterns"—they were meant to be environments where the viewer could experience a moment of pure, ego-less joy.
TS Eliot
Inspiring poem from "from Little Gidding"
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Giogio Morandi
Meditative art
Giorgio Morandi's relationship with the sacred was rooted in the meditative practice of painting than in traditional religious dogma.
His spirituality can be understood through three main lenses: his personal philosophy, the "monk-like" persona attributed to him, and the metaphysical nature of his work.
1. Art for Art’s Sake
Morandi was explicit about his distance from organized religion in the context of his work. He famously stated:
"[I am a] believer in Art for Art's sake rather than in Art for the sake of religion, of social justice or national glory. Nothing is more alien to me than an art which sets out to serve other purposes than those implied in the work of Art in itself."
2. The "Monk of Bologna" Myth
Morandi’s lifestyle contributed to a popular image of him as a reclusive, secular monk.
Simple Life: He lived almost his entire life in a modest apartment in Bologna with his three sisters, using his bedroom as his studio.
Ascetic Routine: His process was one of extreme discipline and repetition, often spending weeks rearranging a few bottles to find the exact "rightness" of composition and light.
Philosophical Interests: He was a reader of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, whose thoughts on the vastness of the universe versus the power of human thought mirrored Morandi’s own focus on finding the infinite within the small.
3. Metaphysical and Meditative Art
Morandi’s work retained a mystical quality that many viewers describe as spiritual.
Temporal Suspension: His paintings often feel "outside of time," stripped of narrative or symbols.
Silent Contemplation: His use of light and muted, dusty tones (influenced by early masters like Giotto and Piero della Francesca) creates an atmosphere of "quietude" that many critics liken to a state of prayer or Zen-like meditation.
THE WABI SABI GRID
The Grid | The Weave | The Matrix
The Structure of the Void
A grid can be formed by regular lines that intersect vertically and horizontally, the primary example being the weave of a textile.
In this context, the grid becomes a material surface with an intrinsic role: first, as protection (clothing, a blanket), and second, as a support or matrix from which something emerges (a painter’s canvas, a tapestry).
"When I represent a grid or a weave, I am creating a space, a container, that allows form and content to arise. I am offering the observer the freedom and the opportunity to deposit something within it, or not". poggio di poggio
Wabi sabi approch is the return to authenticity, simplicity, and stillness, allowing imperfections and irregularities to exist, and even viewing them as subjects of beauty. It evokes the passage of time, impermanence, and serenity.
Originally, this was the feeling Zen monks experienced while observing nature, the seasons, and the weathering of time on material things.
The aim of spaces such as dry stone gardens and tea houses, and of objects such as ceramics and floral arrangements, is specifically to evoke a wabi-sabi sensibility.
Transcendence and liberation from the material world come from the observation of nature and its profound reality. It can also stem from the observation of an object becoming a subject. This is the very foundation of my work.
poggio di poggio 25/06/2024
Odilon Redon
The Great Awakening (The Spiritual Bloom)
Around the 1890s, Odilon Redon had a profound spiritual shift and "discovered" color. He moved into radiant pastels and oils, creating floral arrangements and mythological scenes that look like they are vibrating with light.
Eastern Influence: He became deeply interested in Theosophy, Hinduism, and Buddhism. His later works often feature the Buddha or Christ, not as dogmatic figures, but as symbols of "the divine germ" inside all matter.
Floral Portals: His famous flower paintings aren't traditional still lifes. He viewed flowers as "silent presences" and portals to another world. He often painted them from memory to strip away the "logic of the eye" and replace it with the "logic of the soul."
J.M.W. Turner: "The Sun is God"
The Divine in the elements and the sublime in light
(1775–1851)
Turner treated light as a manifestation of the Sublime, a spiritual state.
1. The Practice: Total Immersion
Turner’s "meditative practice" wasn't sitting on a cushion; it was a form of physical devotion to nature. * The Legend of the Mast: The most famous story (perhaps apocryphal, but spiritually true to his method) is of Turner having himself lashed to the mast of a ship during a storm for four hours so he could "experience" the chaos before painting it.
Direct Observation: He spent decades traveling with a sketchbook, practicing a type of "active seeing" where he attempted to capture the vibration of air, mist, and light rather than the solid objects within them.
2. From Matter to Spirit (The Late Style)
As Turner aged, his paintings became increasingly abstract, a move that baffled his Victorian contemporaries but resonates deeply with modern spiritual seekers.
Dissolving the World
In his later works, like Rain, Steam, and Speed or his "Vortex" paintings, the physical world (trains, ships, buildings) literally dissolves into light.
"The Sun is God"
These were reportedly Turner’s dying words. To him, the sun wasn't just a star; it was the ultimate spiritual source. His practice was a lifelong attempt to stare directly into that "divine eye" without blinking.
Mark Rothko & J.M.W. Turner
The Field vs The Vortex
Mark Rothko famously acknowledged his debt to J.M.W. Turner. Both artists used color as a physical weight.
The Field vs The Vortex, while Rothko uses stacked rectangles to create a sense of "enveloping" the viewer, Turner used the vortex. He painted in circles and swirls to pull the viewer into the center of the canvas, aiming for a "transcendental" experience where you lose your sense of self in the atmosphere.
The Silent Language of Beauty: 7 Zen Principles to Transform Your Life
How to create Zen ?
In a world that often feels loud, cluttered, and obsessed with "more," the Japanese Zen aesthetic offers a refreshing alternative. It’s not just about home decor or minimalist wardrobes; it is a profound way of perceiving the relationship between objects, nature, and ourselves.
These seven principles, known as Zen Aesthetics, provide a blueprint for finding beauty in the understated and the imperfect. Here is how they shape the world—and how they might change yours.
1. Kanso (Simplicity)
Kanso is the art of eliminating clutter. It’s not about emptiness, but about clarity. By removing the non-essential, you allow the true essence of an object or space to speak.
Think: A clean desk where only your notebook and a single pen remain. It isn't "plain", it’s focused.
2. Fukinsei (Asymmetry)
Nature is rarely perfectly symmetrical, and Zen embraces this. Fukinsei suggests that balance can be found in irregularity. In design, this often means leaving a space "incomplete" to invite the viewer’s imagination to participate.
3. Shizen (Naturalness)
This principle is about the absence of pretense. Shizen is "art without artifice." It avoids the overly engineered or the obviously "man-made." It’s about raw materials—wood, stone, and water—behaving as they naturally do, rather than being forced into rigid, plastic shapes.
4. Seijaku (Tranquility)
Seijaku is the "active calm." It represents the silence you feel in a Japanese garden even when the wind is blowing. In our daily lives, it’s the ability to find a meditative stillness amidst the chaos. It’s the feeling of a "reset" button for the soul.
5. Shibui (Subtle Beauty)
Shibui is the opposite of "flashy." It describes objects that are simple on the surface but reveal complex textures or depths over time. It is a beauty that doesn't demand your attention but earns it through restraint and quality.
Example: A handmade ceramic mug that feels better in your hand the more you use it.
6. Datsuzoku (Transcendence)
Datsuzoku is a break from the routine. it’s that "aha!" moment when you step outside of conventional thinking. It represents originality and freedom from habit. When an artist uses a traditional medium in a completely unexpected way, they are practicing Datsuzoku.
7. Yugen (Subtle Grace)
Yugen is perhaps the most "Zen" of all. It is the beauty of the unseen. It’s the shadow on the wall, the mist over a lake, or a poem that says more in its silence than its words. It suggests that the most profound truths are those that are hinted at, rather than shouted.
The most powerful things are often the most quiet
Marcus Aurelius
7 lessons from his private journal "Meditations"
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor who practiced Stoicism, recording his private thoughts on discipline and virtue in his journal, Meditations. He believed that while we cannot control external events, we possess absolute power over our own perception and reactions. His philosophy emphasizes living with justice and purpose, treating every moment as a duty to the "common good." He advocated for Amor Fati, the total acceptance of one's fate, viewing every obstacle as an opportunity for growth. Ultimately, his teachings serve as a timeless guide on how to maintain a "Citadel" of inner peace amidst a chaotic and unpredictable world.
1. The Power of Perception
You have the power to control your mind, even if you cannot control external events. Your reality is shaped by your opinions and how you choose to interpret what happens to you.
"Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been."
2. The Dichotomy of Control
Waste no energy on things outside your influence—such as fame, the past, or others' actions. Focus exclusively on your own thoughts, choices, and actions, which are the only things truly within your power.
3. Living in the Present Moment
The past is gone and the future is uncertain. The only time you truly possess is the present moment; live it with full attention and intention.
4. The Obstacle is the Way
Challenges are not roadblocks but opportunities to practice virtue. By shifting your perspective, you can turn any "bad" situation into a chance to grow in patience, courage, or resourcefulness.
5. Amor Fati (Love of Fate)
Instead of merely tolerating what happens, accept and even embrace your destiny. Trust that everything that occurs is part of the natural order of the universe and is necessary for the whole.
6. Duty to the Common Good
As social beings, humans are designed to help one another. Every action should be performed with justice and contribute to the well-being of the "human hive".
7. Memento Mori (Mindfulness of Mortality)
Regularly reflect on the fact that you will die. This is not meant to be morbid, but to act as a tool for prioritization, helping you discard trivial vanities and live more virtuously right now.
Raoul de Keyser
Radical humility and the poetry of the ordinary
Raoul De Keyser (1930–2012) was a Belgian painter celebrated for his "radical modesty" and his ability to find profound depth in the mundane. Based his entire life in the small town of Deinze, he balanced a career as a civil servant and sports journalist while quietly developing a unique, tactile style of abstraction. He gained significant international recognition only later in life, following a breakthrough appearance at Documenta IX in 1992. His work is characterized by small-scale canvases that hover between everyday reality, such as the lines of a soccer pitch, and pure, poetic form. Today, he is revered as a "painter’s painter" whose subtle, hesitant brushwork continues to influence contemporary art worldwide.
1. The "Silent" and the "Imperceptible"
Fellow artists often describe De Keyser's work as reaching a state of profound quietude. Artist Chris Ofili famously remarked that De Keyser's paintings exist in "the silent, the imperceptible"—places few artists "dare to go." This silence is not a lack of content but a deliberate reduction that invites a meditative state in the viewer.
2. Radical Humility and "No Vanity"
Critics and peers, such as Harold Ancart, have noted that De Keyser’s work possesses a rare lack of vanity. By focusing on mundane, everyday subjects—such as the chalk lines of a soccer field or the corner of a room—and stripping them of ego, he achieves a form of "painterly asceticism." This focus on the "essentials" of the medium creates an aura of authenticity and presence that many observers describe as spiritual or "soulful."
3. Presence and "Aura"
Despite their small scale and seemingly casual execution, his canvases are often noted for their "aura of awe."
The Last Wall: His final series, completed shortly before his death, is often viewed through a lens of mortality and transition.
Spatial Friction: His work is described as having a "wariness" about the space it occupies, acting more like "satellites in space" than traditional window-like paintings. This "controlled turmoil" creates a sense of independence from the physical world.
4. Visualizing the Invisible
De Keyser was a member of the Nieuwe Visie (New Vision) movement, which sought to "revalue everyday reality." His process involved:
Simplification: Reducing the visual landscape to its simplest elements to express its "simplified essence."
Poetic Alliance: Blurring the lines between reality and abstraction to "visualize the invisible," similar to how a poet expresses the inexpressible.
Hokusai
Art: a spiritual quest to capture the "true" essence of the universe
Hokusai (1760–1849) was a Japanese artist and master of ukiyo-e woodblock printing, best known for his world-famous series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.
Hokusai's art was deeply rooted in his personal faith, primarily Nichiren Buddhism, and a profound respect for Shinto animism. For Hokusai, art was a spiritual quest to capture the "true" essence of the universe, believing that reaching the age of 100 would allow him to bring every line and dot to life.
Sacred Mountains and Immortality
Hokusai's obsession with Mount Fuji was not merely artistic but spiritual, viewing the mountain as a "sacred source of life" and a symbol of immortality.
The Elixir of Life: He drew on legends like The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where the goddess left an elixir of immortality on Fuji's peak, linking the mountain to his own hope for longevity.
Stationary vs. Fleeting: In works like The Great Wave, Fuji represents an "eternal constant" or spiritual anchor amidst the chaotic, fleeting "floating world" (ukiyo) of the surging sea.
Devotion to the North Star
His chosen name, Hokusai ("North Studio"), reflects his deep reverence for Myōken, a Buddhist deity and personification of the North Star.
Divine Guidance: Practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism, like Hokusai, worshipped Myōken as a guardian who provides direction in life's course.
The Big Dipper: He frequently visited temples dedicated to Myōken and included symbols like the Manji (a reverse swastika representing "ten thousand things" or the cosmos) in his later signatures.
Shinto Elements and Natural Spirits
Hokusai's work often illustrates the Shinto belief that kami (spirits) reside in all natural phenomena.
Amida Falls: In his waterfall series, the Amida Falls are composed to resemble the head of the Amida Buddha, merging a natural wonder with sacred iconography.
Sacred Geometry: He analyzed Shinto torii gates using the principles of the I Ching (Book of Changes), viewing the pillars as representations of Yin and Yang and the five elements.
The Supernatural and Final Transcendence
In his later years, Hokusai explored the boundary between the physical and spirit worlds.
Ghost Stories (Hyaku Monogatari): This series explored Buddhist concepts of karma and obsession, depicting vengeful spirits like the Lanterne of Oiwa.
Tiger in the Snow: Painted in his final months, this work features a joyful tiger ascending toward the heavens, often interpreted as a spiritual self-portrait signaling his readiness for the afterlife.
The mysterious world of Poggio Di Poggio
Odyssey Paintings & Poems_Catalogue (2023)
Poggio Di Poggio is known for his mysterious paintings.
Based on mindful observation of the interactions between inner and outer realms, viewers are called to do the same and navigate from a personal representation of nature, life and beauty, to their own.
Inspired by 19th-century European Romanticism and the timeless asian Shan Shui, these evocative landscapes are echoing the human emotions and feelings. Each artwork serves as a portrait of the human soul, reflecting its complexities and nuances. The swirling mists, towering peaks, lush forests, flowing waters guide the viewer into a space where introspection and meditation are not just invited but inevitable.
The boundaries between reality, memory and fantasy, are mysteriously blurred, stretching the limits of space and time.Thus, in a sacred manner, the viewer reconnect to oneself and the world.
Poggio Di Poggio’s painting blends Eastern and Western culture, standing as a testament to the spiritual nature of the universe.
Main influences: Claude Monet, Hokusai, William Turner, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Peter Doig, Rinus Van de Velde
Poggio Di Poggio is a French-Belgian artist of italian origins, he currently lives and works in Bruges (Belgium) and in Sanremo (Italy).
Technique:
Recycled paper and cardboard on canvas
Acrylic paint, pastel, spray paint
#painting #landscape #seascape #contemporaryart #contemporayartist #romanticism #abstract #spiritual #spiritualart #zenart #wabisabi #shansui #art #belgianartist #frenchartist #italianartist #artcollector #artlover
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What is the difference between a spiritual artwork and an artwork?
Spiritual art, decoration and design
A spiritual artwork can be decorative in the sense that it may also be visually pleasing and live beautifully in a space. But its core purpose isn’t decoration: it creates an interior space of attention, inviting stillness, depth, and inner connection to the viewer.
Therefore, there is no problem or shame choosing a spiritual artwork to decorate and furnish its interior, In this case, it is the aesthetic value, the beauty of a work, that is chosen.
A purely decorative object, on the other hand, is primarily designed to produce an immediate aesthetic effect. It doesn’t ask for presence, duration, or transformation, so it may be beautiful, but it doesn’t operate spiritually, Its sole function is to be aesthetic; if it has a useful function, then we speak of design.
When does a work of spiritual art stop being a personal experience and become sacred for a group of people or a community?
When does spiritual art become sacred art?
People often use spiritual and sacred as if they were interchangeable. Yet, in art history and in lived practice, they describe two different statuses. A work can feel spiritual in a living room, a gallery, or a studio—without ever becoming sacred. Sacredness is not primarily a style. It is a social, spatial, and ritual transformation.
Spiritual art: a quality of experience
Spiritual art is defined by what it opens in the viewer: a sense of stillness, depth, inner connection, or transcendence. It may be abstract, minimalist, material-driven, or light-based. Its strength lies in attention: the work creates conditions in which the viewer can slow down and encounter something beyond the immediate noise of daily life.
In that sense, spirituality is often phenomenological: it concerns perception, presence, and the interior life.
Sacred art: a status conferred by function
Sacred art, by contrast, is defined less by what it evokes and more by what it is for. Sacredness is not simply how holy it looks, but whether a work is set apart within a religious or belief framework, used in prayer, worship, ritual, or communal devotion.
A spiritual artwork can therefore be profoundly moving and still remain non-sacred. Sacredness begins when the artwork enters a specific ecology: a tradition, a community, a practice, a belief and often a dedicated space.
The moment of transition: from private resonance to shared rite
A spiritual artwork becomes sacred when it is received as more than art, when it becomes a site of religious or belief attention. That shift can happen through several overlapping forces:
Function: the work is used as an aid to prayer, contemplation, or ritual, not occasionally, but as part of an ongoing practice.
Context: it is placed in a space defined as sacred (a chapel, church, temple, shrine), or a space treated with comparable reverence by a community.
Communal recognition: a group accepts it as sacred—gathering around it, returning to it, and treating it as something “set apart.”
Ritual designation: it is blessed, consecrated, or formally installed in a way that changes its status from artwork to devotional focus.
Doctrinal anchoring: it aligns with a tradition’s iconography or theology, sometimes explicitly (icons), sometimes through symbolic resonance.
None of these elements requires the artwork to be figurative, traditional, or old. Sacredness is not a period style; it is a relationship.
Why this distinction matters today?
In contemporary culture, many artworks aim for spiritual depth outside institutional religion. They offer silence without doctrine, presence without dogma. That is valuableand it should not be forced into the category of sacred art.
At the same time, sacred art reminds us of something modern viewing habits often forget: meaning can be collective, practiced, repeated, and carried by ritual. Sacredness is not only felt; it is maintained.
A simple way to remember it
Spiritual art creates an interior space of attention.
Sacred art is spiritual art that has been set apart by religious or belief use, context, and communal recognition.
What is sacred geometry, and why does it appear so often in spiritual art?
Sacred geometry is the idea that certain geometric forms and ratios, circles, triangles, spirals, symmetry, proportional systems, express an underlying order of reality. In spiritual contexts, geometry becomes more than math: it’s treated as a visual language for harmony, unity, and the relationship between the visible and the invisible.
It appears so often in spiritual art for a few reasons:
Universality: Geometry crosses cultures and religions. A circle, a square or spiral can carry meaning without requiring a specific doctrine.
Embodied resonance: Repetition, symmetry, and proportion can create a felt sense of balance and calm, viewers often experience it physically, not just intellectually.
Symbolic depth: Forms like the mandala, the spiral, or intersecting circles are read as metaphors for wholeness, cycles, expansion, and interconnectedness.
A bridge between science and mysticism: Sacred geometry sits at the meeting point of structure and mystery, it suggests that order and transcendence can coexist.
A tool for contemplation: Many of these patterns slow down the gaze. They’re designed to be entered visually, like a meditative space rather than an image to consume quickly.
In short: sacred geometry persists because it helps art feel like a place of alignment—where beauty, order, and inner attention converge.
What is the golden ratio, and how is it actually used in art and architecture ?
The Golden Ratio: between myth, method, and meaningful proportion
The golden ratio—φ (phi) ≈ 1.618 is one of the most famous numbers in the history of aesthetics. It is often introduced with an aura of mystery: a “secret code” of beauty, supposedly embedded in masterpieces, temples, shells, and galaxies. Yet its real importance for artists and architects is both more modest and more interesting: the golden ratio is not a guarantee of beauty, but a compositional method, a way of organising relationships between parts and whole so that an image or a building can feel coherent, calm, and alive.
What it is, in simple terms
A proportion is “golden” when a whole relates to its larger part in the same way that the larger part relates to the smaller. In practice, that proportion is about 1 : 1.618. When a rectangle follows this ratio, it is called a golden rectangle. If you remove a square from a golden rectangle, the remaining rectangle has the same proportions, an elegant property that makes it a natural tool for self-similar composition.
Closely linked is the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …). As the numbers increase, the ratio between consecutive Fibonacci numbers approaches φ. This relationship helped make the golden ratio attractive to artists and designers: it suggests growth, rhythm, and continuity rather than static symmetry.
The golden ratio in visual art: a guide for attention
In visual art, the golden ratio is most often used as a placement strategy. It offers an alternative to rigid centering and a refinement of simple “rule-of-thirds” thinking.
Common uses include:
Golden rectangles for format
Choosing a canvas or panel proportion close to 1:1.618. This can create a frame that feels neither too square (static) nor too elongated (dramatic), but quietly dynamic.
Golden division for focal points
Placing a key element, face, hand, horizon, object cluster, near the point that lies at roughly 61.8% of the width or height. The effect is subtle: the composition feels intentional without appearing obviously designed.
Nested proportioning
Structuring the image by repeating related rectangles or subdivisions, so secondary elements echo the geometry of the whole. This can produce a sense of internal harmony.
Spiral-like movement
Designers sometimes use a “golden spiral” overlay to choreograph the viewer’s gaze. Whether or not one uses the spiral strictly, the broader idea is important: the picture becomes a path for attention, not a flat display.
What matters here is not the number itself but the result: the golden ratio can help a work feel like it has breathing room, a rhythm of emphasis and rest.
The golden ratio in architecture: proportional coherence
Architecture is, by necessity, a discipline of proportion. Buildings succeed or fail partly by how convincingly their parts relate to the whole: façade to volume, opening to wall, column spacing to bay, room dimension to circulation.
The golden ratio has been used—or claimed—at several scales:
Façade proportioning
Establishing relationships between overall height and width, or between central and lateral sections of a façade, to create legibility and balance.
Hierarchies of elements
Scaling components—windows, doors, bays, panels—so the building reads clearly from a distance and retains refinement up close. Proportion becomes a kind of architectural grammar.
Spatial calm
In some contemporary design, φ is used as a planning heuristic for room dimensions or thresholds, not as dogma but as a quiet regulator that can prevent arbitrary sizing.
However, it is crucial to be historically careful: many popular claims about famous monuments being “built on the golden ratio” are difficult to verify. Traditional architecture often relied on simple whole-number ratios (1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 3:4) and modular systems. The golden ratio is part of the story, but not the only protagonist.
Myth versus method: what the golden ratio can and cannot do
The golden ratio is often marketed as a universal law of beauty. That is an overstatement. Beauty is cultural, contextual, and deeply tied to meaning, material, and experience. A golden rectangle can still be boring; a non-golden composition can be breathtaking.
So why does φ retain its appeal?
Because it provides something artists and architects always need: a way to choose relationships rather than guess them. It is a decision, making tool, a proportional option that tends to feel organic, neither perfectly symmetrical nor chaotically irregular.
A contemporary perspective: the golden ratio as restraint
In today’s visual culture, saturated with images optimised for speed and impact, proportion becomes a form of ethics. The golden ratio can support a slower kind of seeing: it helps structure an artwork or a space so that attention moves with ease, pauses naturally, and returns. Used with sensitivity, it contributes not to spectacle but to clarity.
In that sense, the golden ratio is most valuable when it is almost invisible, when it doesn’t announce itself as a trick, but quietly underpins the experience. It is not a magic key to greatness. It is a form of restraint, and restraint, in art and architecture, is often where meaning begins.
why golden ration is irrelevant in making a spiritual artwork?
Spiritual impact isn’t a proportional trick. A work becomes spiritual through the quality of experience it opens: presence, silence, inner connection. Those effects come from light, material, restraint, rhythm, and the viewer’s duration with the work, not from a specific numeric ratio.
It can encourage the wrong goal. The golden ratio tends to pull artists toward correct composition and visual harmony. Spiritual art often needs something different: emptiness, tension, humility, irregularity (wabi-sabi), or the unfinished, qualities that don’t obey a formula.
It risks turning the work into an object. When φ is treated as a rule, the artwork can become a designed product optimized for pleasing balance. Spiritual art is closer to a space than an object: it’s meant to be entered, not solved.
Meaning can’t be guaranteed by structure. You can build a perfectly golden image that feels empty, and a non-golden work that feels profoundly sacred. The spiritual register depends on attention and resonance, not geometry.
Where the golden ratio can help is practical: it may support calm visual order so the viewer isn’t distracted. But it’s never the source of spirituality at best, it’s a quiet scaffold.
Does the golden ratio really occur in nature, and if so, where and in what way?
The golden ratio in nature: pattern, perception, and a persistent myth
The golden ratio—φ (phi) ≈ 1.618, is often presented as nature’s favourite number: a hidden blueprint behind shells, flowers, storms, even galaxies. The story is seductive because it promises a single, elegant key to the world’s beauty. The reality is more nuanced and far more interesting.
What people mean when they say “golden ratio in nature”
In nature, we rarely find perfect mathematical ratios. What we do find are growth patterns shaped by efficiency: how to pack seeds, how to distribute leaves, how to expand without wasting space or blocking light. These patterns often resemble the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, …). As the sequence grows, the ratio between consecutive numbers approaches the golden ratio.
So when people point to the golden ratio in nature, they’re usually noticing a relationship between:
spiral growth, and Fibonacci-like counts or arrangements, rather than a precise 1.618 measurement.
Where the pattern really shows up
Some of the most convincing examples are not “magical,” but practical:
Sunflower seed heads
Seeds arrange in interlocking spirals, often with spiral counts that are consecutive Fibonacci numbers. This is a highly efficient packing strategy.
Pinecones and pineapples
The scales form spirals that frequently match Fibonacci counts. Again, it’s about compact, stable growth.
Leaf arrangement (phyllotaxis)
Many plants distribute leaves around a stem at angles that reduce overlap and maximise light exposure. This can produce spiral patterns associated with Fibonacci relationships.
Romanesco broccoli
Its self-similar, repeating cones visually echo spiral growth. It’s a striking example of how simple growth rules can yield complex beauty.
The spiral misconception and why it persists:
The most popular image is the “golden spiral” placed neatly on top of a nautilus shell. But real shells vary widely, often following other mathematical curves more closely. Nature is not a geometry textbook. It is flexible, adaptive, and full of variation.
And yet the golden ratio persists in our imagination because it names something we genuinely experience: ordered growth. It gives language to the feeling that complexity can arise from simple rules, and that beauty can be structural, not superficial.
A better way to say it
Instead of claiming “nature uses the golden ratio,” it’s more accurate to say:
Nature often produces spirals and proportional relationships that approach the golden ratio because those patterns can be efficient, for packing, for stability, for exposure to light, for growth without collision.
Why this matters for art and design
Artists and architects have long looked to nature not to copy it, but to learn from its logic. The golden ratio, whether exact or approximate, became a symbol of that logic: a bridge between pattern and intuition, between measurement and wonder.
In the end, the golden ratio in nature is less a fixed secret code and more a reminder: beauty often emerges when growth follows principles of balance, economy, and rhythm.
Why for some collectors, my spiritual artworks become sacred artworks?
How can an artwork become sacred in someone’s home?
I describe my work as spiritual because it is created to offer an experience: a space of stillness, beauty, and inner connection. It is not conceived as an illustration of doctrine, nor as an object meant to say something loudly. Its primary language is quieter, material, light, proportion, texture, restraint. The intention is simple: to make room for presence and create transcendence.
And yet, something interesting happens once the works leave the studio. Some collectors tell me they experience them as sacred.
At first glance, that might sound like a misunderstanding. But historically, and humanly, it makes sense. Sacredness is not only a matter of iconography. It is often a matter of use, setting, and recognition.
Spiritual is what the work invites
A spiritual artwork invites a particular state of attention. It slows time. It encourages duration. It asks the viewer to approach differently: not to consume the image, but to enter it. In that sense, the work functions less as a decorative object and more as a perceptual space, one that can hold calm, silence, and emotional clarity.
That remains true whether the work hangs in a gallery, a home, or a quiet corner of an office. The work offers; the viewer receives.
Sacred is what a relationship makes possible
Sacredness begins when a work is set apart. Not necessarily by a church, not necessarily through official ritual, but through a lived relationship that changes how the work is treated.
For some collectors, the work becomes sacred because it is integrated into daily life as a form of practice. They return to it the way one returns to a place: not for entertainment, but for grounding.
In other words, a work becomes sacred when it stops being art on a wall and becomes a threshold, a point of orientation in the home.
How collectors consecrate a work without calling it that
Many collectors do something that resembles consecration, even if they never use the word:
They place the work intentionally in a quiet zone, a place for morning coffee, reading, meditation, reflection, or prayer.
They protect it from noise: not only physical noise, but visual overload. It becomes a counter-image to screens and distraction.
They create a ritual of return: looking at it at certain moments, using it to breathe, reset, and reconnect.
They treat it with a particular respect—not as luxury décor, but as something that holds meaning beyond taste.
This is not about superstition or mystique. It’s about attention. Sacredness often arises when attention becomes deliberate.
The home as the new chapel
In contemporary life, many people no longer have regular access to communal sacred spaces, or they no longer feel at home in them. The search for stillness doesn’t disappear; it relocates. For some, the home becomes the primary site for quiet, reflection, and restoration.
Within that context, certain artworks take on a role that was once held by devotional images: they anchor a space, organise time, and offer a sense of presence. A collector may not label this religious, yet the function can be analogous: the artwork becomes a stabilising point, a silent companion, a place to return to.
A work can be sacred for one person and not for another
This is important: sacredness is not a permanent label attached to an object. It is relational. The same work can be experienced as: purely aesthetic by one viewer, deeply spiritual by another, and sacred by someone who integrates it into a lived practice.
Some collectors also connect the work’s sacred quality to how it is made.
My studio practice is not only technical; it is ritualised. I chant Buddhist chants, burn incense, and work from a state of quiet concentration—often seated in lotus position—so that the act of making becomes a form of meditation. I can’t “measure” what is transmitted, but I do believe that the quality of attention present during creation leaves traces: in the rhythm of decisions, in restraint, in the surface, in the atmosphere the work holds. For certain collectors, that intention is palpable—less as a message, more as a calm presence that continues to live with the artwork.
What I take from this as an artist
If a collector experiences one of my works as sacred, I don’t see it as a rebranding of my intention. I see it as the work completing a journey: from studio to life.
Because ultimately, the aim of spiritual art is not to impress. It is to serve. And when a work begins to serve someone as a daily source of quiet strength, when it becomes set apart, returned to, protected from noise it may naturally cross the threshold into the sacred.
Not because it declares itself holy, but because it makes space for what matters.
Poggio Di Poggio
4 spiritual artistic sites to visit
The Rothko Chapel
(Houston, USA)
The sanctuary of the soul
It houses 14 massive, dark-hued paintings by Mark Rothko.
At first glance, the canvases look black. As your eyes adjust, deep purples, maroons, and textures emerge. It is art designed specifically for introspection.
The Experience: It’s a silent space. There are no religious icons, only the interaction between the viewer, the light, and the deep, absorbing color.
The Matisse Chapel
(Vence, France)
La Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, is a profound spiritual landmark where the artist Henri Matisse spent the final years of his life designing every detail as a gesture of gratitude.
Designed and decorated between 1947 and 1951, the chapel was Matisse's way of thanking a nurse who cared for him during his recovery from cancer and later became a Dominican nun. He famously referred to this small, unassuming building as his "masterpiece," a culmination of a lifetime of artistic and spiritual search.
The space is defined by three sets of stained-glass windows in shades of blue, green, and yellow, which flood the white marble floors and walls with a kaleidoscopic light that changes throughout the day.
The walls feature three large ceramic murals—Saint Dominic, the Virgin and Child, and the Stations of the Cross—drawn with simple, evocative black lines that emphasize spiritual essence over physical detail.
Beyond the architecture and windows, Matisse designed the altar, the crucifix, and even the colorful liturgical vestments used by the priests.
Agnes Martin Gallery
at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos
The Space and Collection
The gallery is an octagonal room featuring an oculus that disperses soft, natural light. Martin, a longtime Taos resident, helped design the space to ensure it provided a "safe haven" for reflection.
The permanent collection features seven untitled acrylic-on-linen paintings (each 152 cm square) created in 1993–1994. In 2000, Martin assigned them subtitles that read like an abbreviated poem: Lovely Life, Love, Friendship, Perfect Day, Ordinary Happiness, Innocence, and Playing.
At the center of the room are four yellow wood benches designed by minimalist artist Donald Judd, a close friend of Martin, inviting visitors to sit for extended contemplation.
The museum also houses Tundra, the last of Martin's signature "grid" paintings, gifted by the Daniel W. Dietrich II Foundation.
Church of the Light
by Tadao Ando
(Ibaraki, Japan)
A masterclass in Zen-influenced Christian architecture located near Osaka.
A stark, raw concrete box where the only ornament is light itself.
It uses the same "less is more" philosophy found in Matisse’s work. The focal point is a cross-shaped slit cut into the concrete wall behind the altar. Sunlight pours through the vacuum, casting a glowing cross of light onto the floor. It’s a space designed to make you feel the void.
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