I love painting fellow artists. I'm particularly interested in the prophet-painter Mani. He taught his universal philosophy via pictures and welcomed the illiterate, as well as having progressive views on women and slaves, and he was a vegetarian. His teachings were all-encompassing and he took ideas from Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism and his word spread from Turkey to China, all across Central Asia along the Silk Road. And of course, he was ahead of his time as mystics often are; he was killed and his religion died out with him. Or did it? If your religion dies, does the God of your religion die also?
We painters all are his devotees!
I recall years ago in India, we went to an ashram devoted to the guru of Dr L. Subramaniam, the great South Indian violinist and national treasure who is an old friend and colleague we were working with for a project. All along the walls of the ashram were portraits of the great composers and musicians of the world, such as Rabindranath Tagore and JS Bach. We realized that we were all devotees!