Freedom of the Creative Spirit in Jacques Maritain

Abstract

This research aims to be a theoretical reflection on the themes of art and beauty, but also a practical guide to the potential uses of the artistic medium, informed by ethics, as a tool for personal and social growth. This essay is structured around the figure of Maritain and, in part, his wife Raïssa Oumançoff, who made their lives a work of friendship and the pursuit of beauty and truth, through an ethical-aesthetic journey in which creative intuition and the freedom of the creative spirit become fundamental in the ethical choice of artists' "work." This research seeks to highlight how Maritain's aesthetics, despite the limited studies on the subject, occupies a central and fundamental place in the French philosopher's thought. An aesthetic, therefore, accompanied by ethics as the development of freedom born from an intertwining of intelligence and will for the artist's creative development and pursuit of responsibility. From these premises arises an art that becomes an educational driver in society.