Does art need to have a sacred dimension to be art at all? What are the sources of inspiration?
In this dialogue, which is the 102nd in the series, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, explore how meaning and beauty, truth and connection might be manifested in the arts.
What is the role of reverence and empathy, place and intelligence? Conversely, what is lost when art loses a reference beyond the human and mechanical world?
If art energizes the human spirit, encourages awareness, and revitalises symbols, how might it speak to us today of what it is be human and to live in a more than human world?
The conversation took place in The Garrison Chapel, Chelsea, and was organised by The King’s Foundation.
References
The Hidden Geometry of Flowers: Living Rhythms, Form and Number (Floris Books, 2011) by Keith Critchlow (1933–2020) who also founded the Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts Programme at the Royal College of Art, which became the Prince's (now King's) School of Traditional Arts.
Davis, R., Hatch, M., Hoare, S. et al. (2025), "Earliest evidence of making fire," Nature, doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09855-6, published on Wednesday, December 10, 2025.
Piero della Francesca (c. 1415–1492), De quinque corporibus regularibus (On the Five Regular Solids), his treatise on the Platonic solids, written alongside his work on perspective (De prospectiva pingendi). The Resurrection fresco discussed is in the Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, the town’s former town hall, where it remains in situ.
William Blake (1757–1827), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1790), source of the line “Without Contraries is no progression.” See also his color print Newton (1795, Tate) and the figure of the Spectre in his later prophetic works.
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Rupert Sheldrake
