Artistic Experience as Religious Experience

 A long-standing question among art researchers and philosophers is whether the creation of an artwork by an artist has an instrumental aspect, serving as a means to express truth or reality, or whether art is a manifestation and disclosure of the artist's personal, private, and inner experience, where the creation of the artwork is primarily a creative act without an instrumental or utilitarian purpose. It is as if the artist speaks through the artwork, revealing their inner feelings, emotions, and desires; only subsequently can the artwork take on an instrumental role. Based on this, the fundamental question of this article is that if we consider the artwork to stem from the artist's inner experience, and that there is a logical and existential connection between the artist and their work, then not everyone can create a sublime artwork. This is because the artwork gushes forth from the depth and inner self of the artist, who must possess the necessary expertise, capability, individual creativity, and freedom to undertake artistic invention, innovation, and creativity. Without these, one can never create a deep and sublime work. On the other hand, the article's claim is that artistic experience is akin to religious experience. Some religious scholars believe that religion, more than merely being a set of beliefs and convictions, is a type of inner and personal experience concerning religious concepts, to the extent that from their viewpoint, religion  is  the religious experience. Even if we do not subscribe to the ideas of these scholars and do not reduce religion to religious experience, we can still say that religious experience is a kind of personal and private encounter with God and other religious concepts, and the best aspect of religion is for a human to have an individual experience of God and other religious beliefs. This article strives to prove that artistic experience is close to religious experience, and both are endowed with vitality and liveliness. Furthermore, the existential and causal relationship between the artwork and the artist is comparable to the relationship between the religious person and their religious experience.