On the role of the sacred in artistic creation: the dynamics of relationships

The article deals with the comprehending of the ontological connection of artistic creativity with the sacred and highlighted the problematic nodes of the relationship between the aesthetic and the sacred, which took shape historically in the experience of world culture and, more specifically, poetic creativity. The work analyzes the dynamics of the relationship between the beautiful and the sacred in European culture from Antiquity to the present day. The article describes the changes in the role of the sacred in the artistic and creative act, the transformation of the status of the creative subject, its legitimacy and powers, which took place during the change of cultural and historical eras and the associated artistic and poetic self-awareness. The growing isolation of art from religion leads to its rupture with its sacred source and the problematic nature of the author’s ability to act as a subject experiencing the “cumulative experience of humanity” (T. Kasatkina). However, such a need and aspirations persist in the creative act, which in turn problematizes the very meaning of the artistic act for the creator, which entails the problem of comprehending the meaning of the work of art by the recipient. In the modern science of literature, there are two approaches to the relationship between the sacred and the beautiful in creativity: aesthetic and religious-axiological. Representatives of the first approach strive to see in the work an instant sensory image of the fullness of being, localized in aesthetic contemplation. Representatives of the second approach think of the creative act as an event that is not completely autonomized from the event of being-life (M. Bakhtin), i.e. as possessing ontological seriousness and placing its meaning outside the sphere of sensory contemplation, in being. At the same time, the quality of this event is endowed with a super meaning, it has the character of a kind of sacred rite. In the first case, the autonomy of art is emphasized, and in the second, its relationship with its sacred source.