"I'll tell you a secret as a gift. Only with your heart can you truly see important things that are invisible to the eye." This is a line spoken by the fox to the little prince in the movie "The Little Prince," adapted from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel. There are things in this world that human eyes cannot see, such as radio waves and emotions.
When you look with your eyes, everyone sees the same thing. But when you look with your heart, things will be different. Scientists, for example, see the world with their hearts. Newton discovered gravity, and Einstein discovered the curvature of spacetime. Yet they both explained the same physical phenomenon. Artists, too, see the world with their hearts. Monet and Van Gogh each presented something unique on their canvases, but they shared a commonality—a subjectivity based on the object. The painting "Water Lilies" by Monet, shown below, was created after his vision deteriorated. When he relied less on his eyes and could only paint based on his feelings and memories, a miracle happened. Did anyone see the scene depicted in Van Gogh's "Starry Night" with their eyes? He painted what he imagined in his heart, not what he saw with his eyes. In a way, the eyes can blind the heart. Physicist M.T. Keshe said, "In today's world, human beings, who rely on what they see with their eyes, are like a kaleidoscope, confusing their own eyes and unable to see the true nature of creation. All living beings! Close your eyes and see your material existence! See the true nature of existence in all realms of the universe!" Painter Edvard Munch said, "Nature is not just everything you can see with your eyes, it also includes the inner images that can only be seen with the soul." "True works of art come from the inner world of human beings."
Monet's Water Lilies
Van Gogh's Starry Night
Munch's The Scream
The three paintings above, from top to bottom, show a trend. The content depicted in the paintings becomes further removed from the external appearance of the object and closer to the inner feelings of the subject (the person). This is also the direction of development in art (including literature). The main focus of literary and artistic works lies in the inner world of human beings. Reflecting and constructing the spiritual world of human beings is the strength and mission of literature and art. In the past, the depiction and reflection of the external world in literature and art can be seen as a warm-up and training. Once mature, it will inevitably enter its area of expertise—the inner spiritual world of human beings. The external material world is left to be studied by science, as it is currently the domain in which science excels.
For scientific research, those who prefer to rely on their eyes are suitable for experimental science, while those who prefer to look with their hearts are suitable for theoretical science. In artistic creation, those who prefer to rely on their eyes are suitable for realism, while those who prefer to look with their hearts are suitable for expressive art (here referring to depicting the images in one's heart, not the concept of "expressive" in Chinese painting). According to MBTI personality psychology, those who prefer to rely on their eyes are generally S (sensing) types, while those who prefer to look with their hearts are generally N (intuitive) types.
Whether in scientific research or artistic creation, the future belongs to those who look with their hearts. Most scientific experiments are conducted under the guidance of theory, which is suitable for researchers who prefer to look with their hearts. In artistic creation, realism used to be one of the traditions in the West, but now it seems to have reached its limit. The world seen with the eyes is the same, and it becomes repetitive to keep painting it. On the other hand, the world seen with the heart is different for everyone. We need creators who look at the world with their hearts to bring new things from different perspectives and feelings.