Art And All That, Part III

Housekeeping

My apologies, respected readers.  It has been brought to my attention that my tone in previous posts on this subject has been somewhat patronizing.   In my effort to engage you and to be cool, and make this blog a fun place where we can kid around and be silly as well as meditate soberly, I erred too far toward the silly.  Forgive me, and be assured that you will no longer find a patronizing attitude within the posts here.

That bit of housekeeping done, allow me to continue answering Stephen’s question. 

“My only curiosity is, what have you learned from all those experiences that confirms your beliefs, especially about Art and all that?”

Another belief that I have about Art is that it is important to God.  Not only is it important because He invented it, and because He uses it, but because He gifted humans with artistic abilities.

Four of my favorite people in scripture are fellows whose names you may not recognize.  Bezalel, Jeduthun, Heman and Asaph were especially gifted by God for art!  Bezalel was gifted in crafts and artistic pursuits as well as architecture for the building of the tabernacle along with Oholiab.  Jeduthun, Heman and Asaph were especially gifted in music and were ordained as part of the Levitical priesthood to serve in that capacity.
Exodus 31:2ff quotes God’s commissioning of Bezalel:

    “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs…to work in every craft.

Now Bezalel is pretty special.  Scripture says he was filled with the Spirit of God to work in EVERY craft.  Mostly these days we find that artists are truly gifted in one or two mediums, seldom in many.  That phrase “devise artistic designs” is an interesting one.  I noticed when checking it out that the word “artistic” isn’t actually in the manuscript.  I am always suspicious when this happens, wondering if someone has put their own spin on the translation.  So I looked up the reason for this word addition.  Here is the result:

The expression is לַחְשֹׁב מַחֲשָׁבֹת (lakhshov makhashavot, “to devise devices”). The infinitive emphasizes that Bezalel will be able to design or plan works that are artistic or skillful. He will think thoughts or devise the plans, and then he will execute them in silver or stone or whatever other material he uses. (from notes on the NET Bible)

Art is so important to God that He not only invented it and uses it Himself, but He has endowed his image-bearers with the skills and abilities to perform it.
 
Yet another belief about art which my experiences have confirmed is the following:  Art requires sacrifice.  Often it requires great sacrifice—the most beautiful art usually requires the greatest sacrifice.  Whether that sacrifice is measured in hours spent in the practice room or ruined canvas or useless pottery cracked in the furnace; whether it consists of great humiliation or cost in materials or time, beautiful art costs something.  I am reminded of David's exclamation:

      But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing. (1 Chron. 21:24)

I confess to a certain amount of annoyance and frustration at that which is termed “Christian” art.  Too often it is second rate—since when have you seen a Christian movie, for instance, that had the quality of a Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Up?  Think back to the last time you heard someone perform music at church.  Was it a performance that required a firm self-reminder that it is the heart that matters and not the skill of the performer?  Or was it truly excellent, drawing your thoughts toward God, providing a glimpse of the eternal and space for your spirit to meditate upon the greatness of your Redeemer?  Have you recently seen a lot of church buildings where attention was given to artistic sensibilities, or have most of them been of the large, warehouse type?

Something stinks, and I propose that it might be that baby (art) we, the Church, threw out with the bathwater.


I can certainly understand how it happened.  Somehow we began to think that art was superfluous to what we do when we meet together as the Body of Christ, and to what we do when we evangelize.  Certainly we should never make the sacrifice of proper Godward worship or the salvation of a lost soul to get great art—that would be blasphemous.  But have we, in a too-wide swing toward pragmatism, forgotten that the sacrifice required for great art is also a picture of the sacrifice required for God’s greatest work of art—the redemption of a lost world through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ?
 
Or was it rather legalism that made us fear the power and influence of art?  Did we decide that God would give us more points if we got rid of anything that might tempt us to an appreciation of beauty—beauty that He created?

Regardless of the reason for it, Christianity has lost great swathes of ground to secular art.  And that brings me to another thing that I have recently begun to ponder concerning what I believe and what my experiences have taught me.  But I’ll leave that for next time!

By the way...I borrowed the phrase "thinky things" from the Scita>Scienda blog you see on my blogroll.  I hope that's alright with you, Cat!

Thinky Things

Please do comment and let me know your thoughts.  In case you need something to spark an idea for a comment, here are some suggestions:

1.     What in your experience confirms that art is important to God, powerful, and requires great sacrifice?
2.    How did we, the Church, come to throw the art baby out with the bathwater?