What Does ART Have to Do With the Spiritual Life?
William A. Dryness
FOR THE
CHRISTIAN ALL OF LIFE is meant to glorify God. This
fact has been used both
to encourage and to discourage the use of art by
Christians. Historically, of course,
Christianity (and religion in general) has provided
the most important motivation and
sources for the development of art.
THE CHURCH
AND ART
After the
conversion of Constantine in 312, the church became
the primary patron of
the arts, especially in the building and decorating
of churches. During the Middle Ages, in
addition to architecture, drama, sculpture, music and
painting were all developed
vigorously for purposes of worship and instruction.
Painting in particular was stimulated
by an important change in the church's liturgy. In
the thirteenth century the priest began
to face the congregation as he performed the
Eucharist. This necessitated moving the
table forward from the back wall of the sanctuary,
thus leaving an empty space that
soon was filled with beautiful altar pieces. Drama as
we know it today likewise had its
birth in medieval morality plays that acted out
various parts of the gospel for the
people, who were mostly unable to read Scripture for
themselves. In the case of music
it is difficult to imagine any form of Christian life
and worship in which this does not play
a central role (see Music, Christian). As we will
see, music goes back to the biblical
period, but it was given special impetus by the
medieval Gregorian chants and the
Reformation chorales.
The desire
to glorify God with the whole of one's life also
served to discourage the
development of certain kinds of art. At the
Reformation, for example, John Calvin was
convinced that the use of images (in both painting
and sculpture) had begun to distract
people from hearing the truth of God's Word and
tended to become idolatrous. As a
result the Reformed tradition has often focused on
the verbal arts of music and drama,
rather than the visual arts, as safer vehicles for
communicating the gospel. Meanwhile
the Catholic tradition, with its emphasis on the
visual drama of the Eucharist and its
sacramental view of reality, has continued to place a
high value on the visual arts.
As society
gradually became more secular and the influence of
the church and
Christianity declined, the connection between art and
Christianity was lost. By the end of
the nineteenth century most leading artists prided
themselves on their independence,
not only from Christianity but from any mythological
framework. Art became a medium
for the expression of a personal vision rather than
the means of communicating
common values. And since most artists were raised
without any Christian influence,
what they expressed was not only antagonistic to
Christianity but often alarming to
Christians.
It is not
surprising that at the beginning of the twentieth
century Christians looked at the
arts more as a field for evangelism than as an ally
in expressing and living out their
faith. Becoming an artist was not considered to be a
viable option for the serious
Christian, and those Christians who did manage to go
to art schools encountered an
environment that was not encouraging to their faith.
The result is that outside of music
(mostly classical or Christian) and an occasional
drama, Christians do not typically give
much thought to the arts in their everyday
life.
BIBLICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON ART
In support
of this negative attitude, Christians typically point
out how little emphasis the
Bible gives to the arts. The Old Testament appears to
forbid the making of graven
images, and the New Testament obviously has more
important things on its mind.
Like the
Reformation, the Old Testament seems clearly to favor
music and poetry over
the visual arts. Beauty was surely included when God
judged the work of creation to be
very good, but at the Fall the devil was able to use
this very beauty to tempt Adam and
Eve to doubt God's word (Gen 3:6). The prohibition
against graven images in the Ten
Commandments probably had more to do with the
temptation to idolatry than with the
fear of images as such. In support of this view,
notice the careful and detailed
instructions given for building the tabernacle and
temple as places where beauty is
brought into the service of worship (Ex 31). In this
respect God's people seemed
almost profligate in their use of art. The temple
used materials and motifs from all over
the ancient world, and Psalms and Proverbs actually
embody poetic forms to praise
Israel's God that were used elsewhere in the ancient
Near East. So while nothing, not
even beauty, should be allowed to share the honor due
God, all the works of human
hands (and hearts) could be employed to promote that
honor.
In the New
Testament Paul's reaction to the classical beauty and
paganism of Athens is
perfectly consistent with this reading of things
(Acts 17). When he rose to speak on
Mars Hill, he could easily see the splendid frieze of
the Parthenon (known to us as the
"Elgin Marbles" in the British Museum); there too was
the Temple of the Wingless
Victory and the vast statue of Athena Promachus. Like
the prophets before him, "his
spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the
city was full of idols" (Acts 17:16
RSV). Was this his only reaction to such splendor?
That Paul was no philistine is clear
from his quoting no fewer than two Greek poets in
that same Mars Hill sermon. No, he
was not insensitive to beauty, but he saw that art
taken out of th |