If the object of art is no longer spiritual upliftment through the presentation of the beautiful, what purpose can it serve?
Today art seems to have been degraded by men to be only used as a means of individualistic self-expression or for propaganda. And when we view a work of this "art," we usually find ourselves contemplating the mundane, the mediocre, the sentimental, the perverted, or something so personal to the artist that it becomes unintelligible and completely lacking in any interest to us that we sit and think, and after minutes of brain-wracking, can still only ask ourselves the question, Why?
So Why Do Men Make Art? And Why Should They?
At college, I discovered that most art students have been brainwashed into truly believing that art is all about themselves–all about the individual. Expressing themselves is the only rule when it comes to making modern art, and the more technical rules are only supposedly learned for the purpose of breaking them.
In truth, art is meant to be a means of expression for the artist, in that, as we are God's own creatures, suggesting creation, art is the artist's privileged way of imitating the Divine Creator: 1) in the very act of creating, and 2) by the very fact that "art imitates nature." Nature, being created by God, is set up as an ideal for man's imitation because it fulfills in itself all the requirements which art, to be beautiful, must possess: integrity, or the right ordering of all its components to itself as a whole (unity); right proportion, or the fitting proportion of each part as it corresponds to another; and, finally, the radiance and splendor of form which it must possess.
Art is meant to express; it should be able to tell you something about the artists themselves, what they hold as true, how they perceive beauty and how well they can show that truth and beauty.
For the manner of action follows the disposition of the agent, and, as a man is, so are his works. Through the virtue of Art present in them, they in some way are their work before making it; they are coi formed to it, so as to be able to form it. (Jacques Maritain)
But that is not the "why" of art–or, at least, it should not be.
The banal, the mediocre, the downright hideous is often presented to us for our veneration now, and any criticism or resistance makes one liable to the charge of chauvinism, [modernism, liberalism, irreligion] or some other socially lethal label. (Ed Faust)
What Is the Ultimate Purpose of Art?
"Ad Maioram Dei Gloriam": we are to do all "for the greater glory of God." After that most obvious reason, art is supposed to, like everything, draw us closer to God through our contemplation of the beautiful. We must first think about the beauty we desire to make, and then use every effort to form that beauty. But how can we form anything beautiful that is not a reflection and derivation of the Divine Beauty? The great Renaissance painter and sculptor Michelangelo said,
Every beauty which is seen here below by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all come.
So, we cannot help but to be led to the contemplation of Him-Who-Is-Beauty-Itself when we make a beautiful work of art.
Art is in order that it may be beautiful. It is beautiful so that it may facilitate man's comprehension of the beauties of God and teach us Truth. "The world's visible beauty is a refection of its invisible beauty" (Hugh de St. Victor).
The purpose of art then is: 1) to glorify God; 2) to draw us to Him through the contemplation of the beautiful; 3) to show Him to us and teach us in a more human manner. The object of Art is the spiritual upliftment through the presentation of the beautiful. So the real question is, what is beauty?
St. Thomas Aquinas defines beauty as "id quod visum placet–that which, when seen, pleases." This answer seems to give us a rather subjective prospect, relative so far as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" goes. And yes, beauty is relative; relative to what you believe as true, relative to what you look with, and what you, by your education, spiritual state, and similar influences, are predisposed to see.
What do we look with?
Beauty is a quality of things which can only be perceived by a mind. It is, therefore, a reality of the intellectual and spiritual order. (Dr. Peter Chojnowski)
So, to find real beauty–which, if it is true beauty, will ultimately refer us back to God–we must think. Man's "chief power of knowing is his reason or his intellect" (Fr. Pègues, O.P.), and this makes sense to us rational creatures. Art is in order to be beautiful, and it is that we may better know God as He is. In order to know, we have no choice but to use our intellects. Ergo, it follows that to perceive beauty, we must see with our minds, and not necessarily with our emotions or feelings, as many well-intentioned but misunderstanding Catholics of today seem to.
This use of our minds to contemplate beauty in art and to know seems to point to a definite relation between Beauty and Truth. "But, of course!" we exclaim, "God is both!" And in fact, the triad of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty are so related as to cause them to be called the "Transcendental Trinity," and by Hilaire Belloc as "inseparable." Then art is meant to convey Truth?
The Catholic artist endeavors to catch a glimpse of the world as it is known by the Eternal Word in all of its potentiality, both in the natural and supernatural orders. (Ed Faust)
"To know truth is to know things as they are" (Fr. Pègues, O.P.). What is more "as things are" than the way God sees them? But how can we, of imperfect and finite understanding, portray the thought of the Infinite?
Since the beginning, we have used symbols to help the human mind fathom "the unsearchable riches of God." Dr. David Fontana, in his work The Secret Language of Symbols, describes a symbol as representing "some deep and intuitive wisdom that eludes direct expression," and later as an "expression of some deep, inner power of which we are aware, but cannot fully encapsulate in words." Early Christian art uses the simple triangle to better explain the unity and equality of the Three Persons in One; a mystery, yes, but with the help of such symbolic imagery, we have much more we can think about.
Gold is a symbolic color universally representing the Divine Life of God. Why? It is the most precious of metals, the most luminous, untarnishable, and durable. That's a lot to meditate on right there.
Simple colors, line schemes, and actual realistic representations like these, known as symbols, direct the mind towards the contemplation of higher and deeper things, hidden truths, which mere realisms can fail to do. However, images utilizing these symbols are to be understood with the mind, as we reasoned above. And these, icons being the best and most obvious examples of good, true, and therefore beautiful symbolic art, can be rather distasteful to certain people's sensibilities. But when they are, we have to ask if we are really seeing with the right instrument. Is it your mind or your senses that dislikes these hard truths?
Something must be realized. The truth is beautiful, but not necessarily "pretty." When you see an icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, she may not be your idea of pretty or comely. But nevertheless, she is beautiful, because she is true, and this truth is represented in her icon. If you saw a picture of the martyrdom of Edmund Campion and others who died in brave defense of the truth during the Protestant Reformation, I assure you, if the image were true, it would not be "pretty"; it would be grotesque. Their racked, broken bodies being disemboweled and cut in pieces would be a long shot away from making you feel good. But that would be a gloriously beautiful scene precisely because of the truth it would depict. The truth isn't always pretty, and pretty isn't always true!
Disney teaches us to "look with our hearts" and let them decide. But please, look with your soul!
Miss Quain graduated from St. Joseph's Academy in 2006. She enjoys reading and has garnered experience in art through the Academy's art program and conversations around the family's dining room table. The recent pastors of St. Joseph's in Richmond, Michigan, have all been interested in the arts. This article was originally titled "Oculis Animae" and is used with permission from the girls' school newsletter Os Aquilae. It is available for a donation by contacting St. Joseph's Academy, 28049 School Section Road, Richmond, MI 48062.
Sources
Dr. Peter Chojnowski. "The Splendor of Form: Catholic Aesthetics," The Angelus, July 1996.
Edwin Faust. "Losing Our Marbles."
David Fontana, Ph.D. The Secret Language of Symbols: A Visual Key to Symbols and Their Meaning. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994.
Jacques Maritain. Art and Scholasticism, 3rd edition. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.
Fr. John Oesterle, T.O.P. "Art and the Moral Order."
Fr. Thomas Pègues, O.P. Catechism of the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas. Burns, Oats, & Washbourne, 1931.