As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

C S Lewis

Wrestling With Angels

One of the greatest challenges for today’s Christian artist is the Christian audience. Two things the average Christian looks for in art, no mater what the medium: religious content that makes him feel better about himself and the world in which he lives, and any immorality about which he can complain. To exacerbate matters, the artist must also contend with a market place that demands mindless art: an art that requires no thought and no mature sensibilities to admire or enjoy.

In making a distinction between admiring and enjoying a work of art, I have already presented a problem. For many, what is enjoyed is obviously “admirable” or we wouldn’t enjoy it! What is not enjoyed is just as clearly not admirable. This sentimental approach to art can also be seen in the pews where people evaluate the minister’s sermon, not by its theological accuracy, but solely by how it made them feel.

When evaluating anything crafted by a human being, one of our primary questions is about whether or not it is well made. And to answer this question, we must know what it means to be “well made” in regard to the object being evaluated. For example, what properties or attributes must a painting or novel possess for us to say this is beautiful or admirable?

Albert Magnus thought that beauty is the “splendor of form shining on the proportioned parts of matter.” Aquinas wrote that “the beautiful” object is one that has integrity, proportion and clarity. Of course, as Jacques Maritain and J.F. Scanlan note in Art and Scholasticism With Other Essays, “Integrity and proportion have no absolute significance and must be understood solely in relation to the end of the work, which is to make a form shine on the matter.”

Our enjoyment of a work of art has no primary place in our evaluations. I know what makes an opera admirable, but I do not enjoy opera. I admire certain paintings of Picasso, but I do not enjoy Picasso. Conversely, I thoroughly enjoy the drawings of my grandchildren, but I would not classify these drawings as being “admirable.”

(For a thorough treatment of enjoyable beauty and admiral beauty, I recommend reading two chapters in Mortimer J. Adler’s, Six Great Ideas: Chapter 15 deals with Enjoyable Beauty; chapter 16 with Admirable Beauty.)

Four Standards of Judgment
In Francis Schaeffer’s little book, Art & the Bible, he suggests that there are four standards in judging art: 1) technical excellence; 2) validity; 3) intellectual content, the world view which comes through; and 4) the integration of content and vehicle. While I do not always agree with how Schaeffer applies these standards, I do think this is an excellent place to start.

Technical excellence. It is not fair for us to condemn a work of art merely because we do not like the artist, the subject matter or the worldview that comes through. “If the artist’s technical level is high, he is to be praised for this, even if we differ with his world view.”

Validity. When an artist is motivated by the desire for fame or fortune, or when he or she aims solely to please the audience, the work done lacks validity.

In Letters of Flannery O’Conner: The Habit of Being, O’Conner (a Christian) speaks to this point as she evaluates a book that a friend sent to her. “[Her book] is just propaganda and its being propaganda for the side of angels only makes it worse. The novel is an art from and when you use it for anything other than art, you pervert it. I didn’t make this up. I got it from St. Thomas (via Maritain) who allows that art is wholly concerned with the good of that which is made; it has no utilitarian end. If you do manage to use it successfully for social, religious, or other purposes, it is because you make it art first…”

Content. Here, for the Christian, is where we evaluate the worldview of the artist by the standards of a biblical worldview. Can an unbeliever produce a work of art that exhibits a Christian worldview? Certainly.

Again, from O’Conner’s Letters, “In the gospels it was the devils who first recognized Christ and the evangelists didn’t censor this information. They apparently thought it was a pretty good witness. It scandalizes us when we see the same thing in modern dress only because we have this defensive attitude toward the faith.”

Integration. In any great work of art there is a “correlation between the style and the content.” One of the illustrations Schaeffer gives here is T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland,” where the poetry fit “the nature of world as he saw it, namely, broken, unrelated, ruptured.” If you have read this poem, you will remember that Eliot used “fragments of language and images and allusions drawn haphazardly from all manner of literature, philosophy and religious writings from the ancients to the present.” The style of the poem, its form, fit the artist’s content.

As you can see, evaluating a work of art is primarily an intellectual exercise, not an emotional one. Sadly, however, much of the criticism we hear and read from Christians tells us little more than the fact that they didn’t enjoy the artwork. There is little if any criteria for the judgments made: merely a visceral reaction.

All this being said, I don’t go to museums, read books or listen to music so as to evaluate the art. I do so because I simply want to enjoy the art. After all, art is not an abstraction; it is an experience. After the enjoyment, I begin asking myself why. If I didn’t enjoy it, I also ask myself why. And with great art, the meaning continues to expand, long after your first encounter.

Wrestling With an Angel
Serious artists seek to express or portray reality as they have experienced it with what talent they have been given. They are only limited by the depth and breadth of their experience. Accordingly, I want to vicariously “experience” something of what the artist is sharing with me; which, of course, requires that I get inside the head and heart of the artist, asking myself what it is he or she is seeking to “say.”

Initially, we should not approach art with a critical mind but with an aesthetic attitude: one that seeks to experience the work of art on its own terms. For as soon as we begin critiquing the art, we are no longer experiencing it. And if we cut short our experience, how do we know exactly what it is we are criticizing?

How can we evaluate a particular work of art if we do not know what the artist is seeking to share with us? Admittedly, this is sometimes difficult, but this should make us even more cautious in our assertions. Can I condemn an artist for not expressing something he or she has no intention of expressing? Can I fairly ridicule a novelist because I would have told the story differently? And if what the artist wanted to do was raise questions, can I justly complain that they didn’t give any answers?

As a writer, I sometimes have people tell me that I should have added other points to my essays. The challenge many of these people fail to appreciate is that one only has so many words allotted to him in an article. Artists have limitations regarding the dimensions of the canvas, the size of the stage, or the length of the symphony. And if any of these productions have been commissioned, they only have so much time before the work must be ready for showing.

No artist says everything he or she wants to say in a single work. Why would they want to? It would be like a minister seeking to tell us everything he believes in a single sermon. This is why we should be very careful about pronouncing “final judgments” on an artist because of a single work. As Schaeffer pointed out, it is the body of their work that will tell us about the true skill and worldview of an artist.

Given these limitations within which an artist must work, I believe we should add a degree of respectful empathy to any judgments we make about his art. Producing art is often painful. It is like Jacob wrestling with the angel. “I won’t let go—no matter how painful the process—until I produce what I see, what I hear, what I feel.” The process can be maddening and it often leaves artists with a “limp” in their personalities! Do you always say with perfect clarity what you intended to say? Have you ever walked away from a conversation and then later think to yourself, “O, I should have said this or not said that”? Artists do this with most every work they have ever created.

For most serious artists, producing a work of art is like delivering a baby. How would you feel if someone looked at your child and said, “Ugh, how ugly”? Even if the baby does have two heads and scales all over its body, have a little heart! (I stole this illustration from someone else but do not remember from whom!)

Few people take the time to educate themselves as to the nature and principles of various art forms. (Sadly, this doesn’t stop them from critiquing the art or the artist.) The attitude seems to be, “Either you have a taste for that sort of thing or not.” But if beauty and truth come from God, are we wise to approach the subject in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion? If the Master Artist has gifted people with the vision and skill to reflect something of Him and of His world, shouldn’t we learn to understandingly admire these creations?

For the artist, producing the work of art took hundreds or even thousands of hours of “wrestling with an angel.” We should at least take more than a few minutes of time wrestling to understand what he has produced, before pronouncing the angel with whom he wrestled was Lucifer.

Copyright 2005, Monte E Wilson

An Aesthetic Habit of Mind

Habits are interior growths of spontaneous life,
vital developments which make the soul better in
a given sphere and fill it full of vigorous sap.
Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism

Years ago, my friend Colonel Doner and I were in St. Petersburg, Russia, on business. One day, our host, Father Sorokin of the Russian Orthodox Church, arranged a tour: the tour group included various ministers and heads of charities from the U.S. who were also in the city. It was an amazing experience: both because of the art we were able to see, and because of the Philistines who accompanied us.

The Hermitage consists of six buildings that were the home of the tsars. One of my favorite paintings on display there is by Leonardo da Vinci: his Madonna and Child (little Madonna). One of the houses contains over 300,000 items that reflect 1,000 years of Russian history. Here you will find everything from famous icons of the 14th century, to the carriages and clothing of Peter the Great, to portraits of Catherine the Great. Faberge’s models of the Imperial regalia, as well as many of his other creations are also housed here.

Upon our return, Father Sorokin gathered us together and wanted to know about our experience. One young man stood and asked, “Why don’t you guys just sell all that art and feed the poor?” I guess this explained why these men rushed through the museum as if they feared contracting some exotic Russian disease. Visibly shaken, our host could barely gather his thoughts, so I decided to help him out.

“First of all, you could start a war with Georgia or Ukraine, as each State believes some of this art is rightfully theirs. Second, do you remember what Jesus said about the poor, how they would always be with us? Well, the poor will always be with us but there was only one Leonardo da Vinci, one Faberge!”

What goes into the mind of someone who looks at a great work of art and immediately thinks about what you could do with it?

A Habit of Mind
All of us have a “habit of mind.” There is a certain quality of the mind that determines how we look at the world. Some people have an aesthetic quality about their mind, where they can stare at an object for hours and hours, allowing the values embodied in the object to wash over their souls. Others have a more utilitarian habit of mind, where they look at the world around them with two questions in mind: What is this, and how can it be of use to me?

St. Augustine refers to these two mindsets when he makes a distinction between the use of a thing (uti) and the communing with the thing (frui), noting that these are the two basic attitudes toward the good. It is appropriate to look at a computer and ask about its usefulness (uti). However, when looking at a work of art, it is appropriate to commune (frui) with the object.

A person’s habit of mind directs his or her awareness to the world around him. As it is impossible to pay attention to all the information that is bombarding our five senses at any given moment, our attention must be selective. What directs our focus and guides our behavior is our unique perspective (habit of mind) of the world that, in turn, gives us unique purposes and goals in life.

Our unique habit of mind guides our responses to all the various stimuli we encounter: it keeps us acting in harmony with our immediate and long-term goals. “I will look at this—I will not look at that. I will say yes to this—I will say no to the other.”

When I am driving down the road, there are cars all around me, the radio is playing, someone in the car is talking, and there are pedestrians, birds flying overhead, buildings and billboards to see on every block. If I intend to arrive at my destination safe, sound and with no police seeking to pull me over, or ambulances rushing to an accident that I caused, I must focus my mind on the immediate goal of arriving safely. I select what to look for and what to ignore.

As I live my life, I intend to be useful. I am committed to making a difference in the world. As I gradually decide how specifically I am going to do this, I begin to perceive the world around me according to my long-term goals and purposes. “This will serve my ends, that will not.” Furthermore, just as driving a car becomes second nature to me, and allows me to “unconsciously” pay attention to all that I need to focus upon, so does my purpose in life become second nature. Without even being aware of it, my responses to the world around me are dictated by my long-term goals in life.

The practical habit of mind is most helpful in the world of commerce, rarely wise in the world of relationships, and never appropriate in the world of art. Art was not created to be practical. Therefore, we are never to approach a work of art and ask, “Of what use are you to me or others?”

The aesthetic habit of mind does not look at objects of art with any ulterior purpose. It looks so as to see and experience. In fact, serious artists do not create art with a view to anything other than the work to be done, and seeing to it that the work is well made. “Art operates for the good of the work done…and everything which diverts it from that end adulterates and diminishes it.” (Maritain) There is no utilitarian purpose for creating art, and none for communing with it.

Contemplating Art
An aesthetic mindset contemplates a work of art: it communes with it, seeking to penetrate the surface of what is seen, so as to experience the “truth” that it incarnates. As the late John Peale Bishop said, “You can’t say Cezanne painted apples and a tablecloth and have said what Cezanne painted.” To get at the truth of Cezanne, we must get beyond the details and allow the artist’s work to penetrate our hearts.

Practical people approach art with a demand that it move them, teach them, shock them or edify them. These people have already decided what art must “do” for them: how specifically it can be useful to them. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), author of Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and other such classics, comments on these people, suggesting they may not be looking deeply enough.

"(A)nd if the [artists] conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the fullness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked or charmed, must run thus: My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there, according to your deserts, encouragement, consolation, fear, charm, all you demand—and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask." (Quoted by Flannery O’Conner in Mystery and Manners.)

Art is not an abstraction to identify or figure out; it is an experience. Therefore, in contemplating a work of art, we must be open to it, giving it a chance to move us on its own terms.

I am not suggesting that we should stand passively before a work of art. In contemplation, we are fully aware of and awake to what the artist has produced. Contemplation includes the cognitive: it is utterly conscious of being affected by the values within the work it is experiencing. When I contemplate the artwork before me, I absorb its truth, goodness and beauty.

Think of contemplating a passage of Scripture. As we reflect on what was written, we do not demand it tell us what we want to hear. We are, rather, receptive to what the author offers to our perception. In much the same way, we should have a sympathetic mindset to the art we are contemplating, allowing it to show us what it will.

Contemplation is not analytical. While there is a place for and even need for analyzing art, it is post-contemplation! As soon as we begin critiquing and analyzing, we have ceased contemplating, and the experience is over; at least for the time being. The challenge for us is to refrain from anything that would restrict the full experience of the work of art until we have penetrated and communed with the thing (Augustine), so as to actually know what it is we are analyzing.

John Dryden said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” If you wish to expand as a human being, utilizing more and more of your God-given capacities, you must take on new habits: habits that, in turn, will re-make you. Merely because you have yet to develop an aesthetic habit of mind, doesn’t mean, “God didn’t make me that way.” It simply means you have yet to begin establishing a habit of mind that will allow you to see and experience more of God’s reflected beauty in the world of art.

Copyright, 2005, Monte E Wilson

When Art is a Mirror

Most Christians have matured beyond the knee jerk rejection of any art that does not have a Cross firmly planted in the middle of whatever medium is being utilized. However, many are still troubled by art that reflects darkness, tragedy or sin in a realistic manner. It doesn’t seem to occur to these people that God didn’t have quite the same scruples, as the Bible contains stories of rape, illicit sexual relations, treachery, and battles with high body counts.

As creatures made in the image of God, creativity is our birthright, even our mandate. Understanding the purposes and functions of art is paramount to any intelligent analysis of its value. Historically, art has been a mirror that reflects societal values, religious beliefs, personal fears and passions, as well as sometimes just being a tool for propaganda. Unfortunately, at times “Christian art” is only propaganda, containing none of the artistic elements that would give it any standing in a civilized society.

Sometimes I wonder if part of the problem is with King James English. For us Americans, an individual with a British accent is immediately perceived as being quite intelligent, even sophisticated. If President Bush and Prime Minister Blair gave identical speeches, Americans would “ho-hum” the President, and applaud the intelligence of the Prime Minister. The King James English of scriptures has the same effect on stories of violence and sex: it just all sounds so proper!

“But Monte, the Bible does not use graphic language and imagery in its description of violence or sex.” Go back and read the battles where God told Israel to kill everything that breathed: cows, ducks, sheep, men, women and children. When such scenes are depicted in a movie, then, why do we start criticizing “the graphic nature of the violence”? Or what about Song of Solomon? Why is it that when comparable love scenes are flashed on the Big Screen or written into a novel, they are ipso facto deemed inappropriate?

As I see it, the problem is not with violence or sex, per say. The problem is contextual. Is the artistic mirror reflecting what life is in our society, or what it can be? Both are legitimate arenas of exploration for an artist. But as educated viewers, we must look at the context in which an idea is presented in order to understand its meaning.

Violence
There is a difference between the violence in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando. Contextually, it is impossible to truly appreciate the sacrifices for freedom that William Wallace and his fellow Scots made in Braveheart, if we do not understand the sort of violent battles they were willing to undertake. However, in the movie Commando, the violence is utterly gratuitous.

In Clint Eastwood’s classic western, Unforgiven, the violence of gunplay is masterfully displayed so as to show the viewer how such violence corrupts the soul. The gunplay was not romanticized. The chief characters—Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman—are portrayed as neither black nor white (heroically good v. diabolically evil) but as various shades of grey and black. The best of us wrestle with darkness; the worst of us still have sparks of light.

In visual art, Edward Munch’s famous painting The Scream is an excellent example of art that reflects pain. The contorted face of the emotionally tortured face is in the foreground while the world seems to swirl in turmoil all around him. It is a brilliant portrayal of psychological pain that is not reserved only for non-Christians.

The Spanish artist Goya painted graphic images of violence in paintings like The Third of May. This painting was executed after Napoleon’s men slaughtered unarmed Spaniards in the streets: the artist said that he painted it so that men would remember and never allow something like this to happen again. Likewise Picasso’s famous painting Guernica shows the horrible results of a Nazi bombing training raid on an innocent village.

But consider what happens when the artist’s mirror is too narrow.

In Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, we are given an allegory of boxing with themes of hope, steadfastness, sacrifice and redemption. Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hillary Swank) would rather fail at boxing than get to the end of her life, never having tried. And while she is seeking to fulfill her dream, she refuses to take any handouts but insists upon paying her own way. However—

Toward the end of this movie, one of the characters has an accident that leaves them a quadriplegic who cannot even breathe without a ventilator. After days of soul searching, a friend pulls the plug on the victim. Of course, the Christian community is up in arms because of Eastwood’s depiction of euthanasia in an “understandable” and empathetic light.

On one hand, I applaud Eastwood’s courage in confronting the issue of euthanasia. This was no “I want your life insurance so I can buy a new house” presentation, but one that displays a deep sense of love and pity. On the other hand, as a Christian, I believe the story line and artistic value of the movie was weakened by the fact that, while we get a glimpse of the consequences of such a choice, we do not get a full picture of the aftermath of this decision in the life of the “compassionate” individual.

Franky Schaeffer once said that he had what he thought was a great story line for a movie. The story would open with a young high school girl confessing to her parents that she had become pregnant. The father immediately directs his daughter to get an abortion. Later, the father is in an automobile accident and left on life-support systems.

As the daughter considers her dad’s predicament, she easily decides to pull the plug on him: not because she hated him, but because he had taught her that some lives are not worth living. The movie would end with this scene. No one gets “saved,” the daughter is not seen weeping over her decision. Here, the logical consequence of abortion is euthanasia.

The problem for the artist and the audience is not the violence of battles, gunplay, boxing or abortion and euthanasia: the problem is the context of that violence. Do we get to see “the whole picture,” or are we left with a skewered or even perverted view of reality?

Art forms that depict violence are not the only challenge for Christians. Probably a far more troubling issue is the depiction of all things sexual. Take Tom Wolfe’s, I am Charlotte Simmons, for example.

Sex
I am Charlotte Simmons is a story about college sports, fraternities and sororities, keggers, and sex: all told through the eyes of Charlotte, a bright, beautiful and young freshman lady who was unprepared for life at fictional Dupont University. The language and imagery is graphic, i.e., x-rated.

With his masterful eye for detail, Wolfe has held up a mirror before college life, and it is not a pretty picture. This is college life as it is.

The question for some Christians is this: is this really art or is it pornography? However, again, the issue is context. Is the language and sex gratuitous or is it necessary to the story? If the language and sex were diluted or even deleted, would we get a clear picture of what is happening within the culture of our Universities? Would we see, hear and feel exactly what is going on in this context? I suggest that the answer is, no, we would not.

Actually, one of the areas where Wolfe exceeds expectations—mine, anyway—is how powerfully he shows us the consequences of choices. This is especially the case in the deflowering of Charlotte (which takes a full chapter). The sex here is not beautiful, it is not romantic: there is absolutely nothing noble or good about what happens. It is gross and ugly. And the consequences for Charlotte psychologically, relationally and academically are tragic.

I have repeatedly recommended Charlotte Simmons to high school teachers and parents whose children are about to go away to college. “You want to see what your students/children are going to be facing? Then read I am Charlotte Simmons.” The mirror of Charlotte’s story reflects this part of American culture as it is.

Even if you believe Wolfe has gone too far, the point here is that we cannot categorically assert that all things sexual are taboo for an artist. Life in this world includes sex. Sometimes the sex is pure, beautiful and filled with love. Other times the sex is dirty, ugly and self-centered. Both are legitimate expressions for an artist.

Art does not merely produce pastoral poetry, or paint idyllic scenery, or score majestic symphonies. Sometimes life is not beautiful but ugly and tragic. Art can help us see and even to feel the full impact of both the beautiful and the ugly.

As an individual, I find far more enjoyment in art that reveals life as it can be. I love stories of heroic struggle where the hero maintains his or her virtue and discovers the Holy Grail. As I see it, however, when we shun, or at least shy away from art that confronts us with painful or troubling realities, we are not being holy: we are rejecting a truth that can set us free.

“They Lied to Me!”
I have a friend who was raised Pentecostal. For him, movies were as evil as drinking, dancing or playing pinochle. When he became a minister, it was, for him, doubly so. For years, he refused to see any movie, believing it would taint his soul and destroy his reputation.

As time went on, he began to wonder about the distinction between “all movies” and “some movies.” Finally, he decided he would find out for himself, and decided to go to the movies. Still being concerned for his reputation, he dressed in an overcoat and put on a hat that he could pull down low across his forehead.

When the movie began, he said that his heart was beating so hard he could barely hear the movie. However, after a while he settled down and began, at first, to cautiously enjoy the movie, and then gradually to actually become enthralled. And then it happened: when Julie Andrews began singing The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music, he could take it no more. He jumped up in his seat on the last row of the theatre and yelled, “They lied to me!”

It is not always easy to distinguish between biblical standards of holiness and those imposed upon us by our religious cultures. Tragically, for many of us, the standards were set by weaker brethren and Pharisees, rather than by the more mature members of our communities. This is especially true in regards to the art we judge as good or bad, holy or sinful.

I am not suggesting that if you have no desire to see Unforgiven or read I am Charlotte Simmons you are a Pharisee or are somehow artistically challenged. I do believe, however, that, like my Pentecostal friend, many of us have been lied to. Moreover, that lie is keeping us from a world filled with meaningful insights that can provoke, enrich and enliven us as humans.

The tragedy for my friend was not merely that he was lied to, but that it took him so long to go and judge for himself, so as to strengthen his own standards and beliefs. How many of us would rather remain deaf, dumb and blind, rather than having to judge for ourselves the meaning of a particular work of art, so that we never have to face the fact that we may have been lied to?

Jesus did not come to earth to only experience the good and the beautiful: He came and embraced the full range of human experience. Yes, He experienced the joy and beauty of life (life as it can be), but He also embraced pain and suffering (life as it is): all of which made His death on our behalf even more poignant.

In his book, Art & the Bible, Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Christianity is not just involved with ‘salvation’ but with the total man in the total world.” Art reflects the entire gamut of the human experience: joy and suffering, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. To restrict the artist’s focus to only one side of life would be the same as counseling Jesus to only embrace the good and the beautiful.

Obviously this is a very complex issue, but it is a subject that we evangelical Christians need to wrestle with. Not merely so as to decide what works of art are “permissible” for a Christian to enjoy but more importantly to more fully investigate the very nature of Christianity itself. For, if we say that Christianity only speaks to or embraces what is “uplifting” or “affirming,” I suggest that what we are advocating is not the Christian life but the lies of Romanticism.

Copyright 2005, Monte E Wilson