Art often proves a subject difficult to pin down—the butterfly refusing to be caught in a net or pinned to the board. It flutters about the room, bumping against lamps and windows. Its would-be captors stare at it and query, “What is it?”
“Why does it matter?” another person asks.
Again: “What makes for good art?”
Such questions stymie. I doubt my ability to answer them adequately, but I will attempt to offer some points for initial consideration and contemplation. However, I must first confess a bias: I believe art matters for and in the church.
Art as Reflection
Reaching that conclusion involves a couple of parts. The first component examines the initial question, “What is art?”
The question, though, may not be the genuine one. Lying beneath its surface is a quest for what makes for good art. Many people might name artistic endeavors: writing, music, dance, painting, et cetera. What they lack is an explanation for why the art works.
It’s a justifiably difficult question to answer. Art is entirely subjective. What I love another person may hate. I tend to side with Neil Gaiman’s perspective of the subject.
I wanted books, and made no distinction between good books and bad, only between the ones I loved, the ones that spoke to my soul, and the ones I merely liked.[1]
His thoughts bring little clarity to the matter, although they might help defend one’s reading preferences. However, he raises an interesting idea: “the ones that spoke to my soul.” Some of his later essays complement the concept; he speaks of the “redemptive nature of stories,” as well as their “reflections.” Good art, in Gaiman’s estimation, moves the soul and reflects the reader and the world.
Art is Art
Madeleine L’Engle also writes on the subject of “good” art, albeit with a sense of frustration. She, like other believing artists, sometimes encounters a philosophy that says Christian art should be ethereal and without pain or suffering. She says:
Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it’s bad art, it’s bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it’s good art—and there the questions start coming, questions which it would be simpler to evade.[2]
L’Engle doesn’t “evade” them; in fact, she offers the following insight a few pages later.
In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace.
L’Engle, like Gaiman, thinks of art as a sort of a reflection. She differs from him, though, in speaking of two mirrors. One mirror shows what is, “the terrible things we are asked to endure”; the other reminds viewers, readers, and hearers of what was and what will be, the garden and the new heaven and earth.
Art as Service
Her thoughts tie into something Tim Keller says in his foreword to Makoto Fujimara’s Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture.
The music in our services is always excellent, but occasionally we have a musical offering that is so superb and affecting that everyone listening is stunned into silence and moved to tears. And guess what? It is not members rather than visitors, or Christians rather than non-Christians, who are touched. Everyone is brought together; everyone is included. Interestingly, this happens only when the art is skillful and well done. When the music is mediocre or bad, my members may be edified a bit if they know and love the musician personally, but visitors and strangers are bored and excluded by the experience.[3]
Keller, too, talks of a “reflective” nature. He also brings forth the thought that art — good art — is for service. It never benefits the artist alone. It welcomes and embraces all.
Good art? Good art reflects, not only the dark but also the light. It records humanity, even if humanity viewed through a fantasy or science fiction lens. It roots itself in truth but not truth of the wholly cynical kind.
Genuine truth always includes grace because Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, 17). Grace and truth come as a pair; they cannot and should not be separated. By integrating them, art attains new heights. It moves beyond the personal experiences of the artist and becomes something capable of blessing others.
The Original Artist
The second part of the argument considers art’s origins. Art isn’t some lofty invention of man; it finds its foundations in the original Artist, God. In the beginning, he created. He made art. His medium might have been words, but words spring from thoughts. God’s thoughts were so crystal-clear that when he spoke, they came to life.
Sun and moon and stars, plants and trees, creepy-crawly creatures and birds, bats and alligators, everything! God spoke them into existence, looked at them, and said they were “good.” Why the qualifier? Because the work was good. It originated from God who is good and perfect in all his ways, the God who forever reigns as the supreme Artist.
However, God’s handiwork changes when he creates mankind. He tells Jesus and the Holy Spirit, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). The next chapter shares the details of that making. God doesn’t speak man into existence; instead, he forms man “of dust from the ground” and breathes life into the lifeless body (Genesis 2:7). God takes dirt and carefully sculpts it into a living, breathing being (Psalm 139).
People often get this aspect of God’s character, if only intuitively or incompletely. They see majestic, snow-capped mountains, a vibrant sunset, a stunning painting, or a little girl grabbing her daddy’s hand, and their hearts pause. They admire the creation before them, wondering at its glorious artistry. For a moment, their hearts and minds open to beauty. They become aware of another element at work, a design unfolding, an order within the everyday chaos.
The Image-Bearer
The third aspect concerning art and the church builds upon a sort of geometry proof. First, if God, the original Artist, made man in his image, then man is God’s image-bearer. Second, if man is God’s image-bearer, then man is an artist. He has been imprinted with a desire to create, no matter the realm.
Art, after all, doesn’t belong solely to artists. People find it everywhere, in both Christian and secular circles. Man attempts to solve the refugee crisis or homelessness. Another aims to build a product that improves senior living. Still another writes or draws or constructs bridges. I may not be able to accomplish all, or any, of those things, but I witness the work and recognize the artistry undergirding it.
All those efforts rely on art. The projects and issues crave it because art — good art, that is — improves the end result. Art pushes the work to stretch further, to be more than the artist or engineer thinks it can be.
Art drives the artist, too. People who care about art necessarily focus on craft. They spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime pursuing their “art,” be it pottery or physics. They do so, not because glory is to be found in the art, though glory sometimes does come in the form of a better-paying job or an award, but because their art benefits others. It delivers a message, offers comfort, or ensures safe passage.
Art and Faith
For the believing artist, the one who may or may not work in the church, art serves yet another purpose. It — when the art is “skillful and well done” — glorifies the God who integrated art and beauty into his image-bearers. Believing artists create and design because God created and designed. They continue creating because they seek to echo the original Image and desire to make good art that magnifies God and reveals grace and truth.
Such art…such art reaches people, inside and outside the church, in ways that a sermon or Bible verse may not. It speaks to people’s hearts and minds. It prompts a sense of awe, perhaps even an awareness of the sacred. When those moments occur, opportunities for conversation and community arise. Art becomes an invitation, asking believers and unbelievers alike to ponder, wonder, and seek answers.
[1] Gaiman, Neil. “Telling Lies for a Living…And Why We Do It: The Newberry Medal Speech, 2009.” The View from the Cheap Seats. Harper. 2016.
[2] L’Engle, Madeleine. “Cosmos from Chaos.” Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. Farrar. 1980.
[3] Keller, Tim. “Foreword.” Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture. NavPress. 2009.
Image: gnuckx (Creative Commons)