My feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable.
(Madeleine L’Engle, Walking On Water, pg. 16)
“To try to talk about art and Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and glory.” (L’Engle, 16) To be an art major, an artist requires one to believe in something beyond one’s self. As a Christian, I know that God is the ultimate source of everything good and beautiful. For me, there is no thought of how to integrate my faith and being an art major—they already are. An artist’s work comes out of who they are, how they see the world. Some of the most basic aspects of being an artist directly parallel what it means to be a Christian. As I learn more about what it means to be an artist, I learn more about what it means to be a Christian.
First, and most important of all, I have to remember that it is not about me. I need to remember not to get so wrapped up in the process that I lose sight of the purpose I create for. “There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ….It is the subtlest of all the snares.” (Lewis, 71) Artists and Christians can both focus so much on what they are doing that they lose sight of why they are doing it. There is a conversation overheard in The Great Divorce that illustrates this perfectly:
“Light itself was your first love; you loved paint only as a means of telling about the light.”
“Oh, that’s ages ago….One grows out of that. Of course, you haven’t seen my later works. One becomes more and more interested in paint for its own sake.”
“One does indeed. I also have had to recover from that. It was all a snare. Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they can not be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn’t stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower—become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.” (Lewis, 81, emphasis mine)
If I lose sight of Who I am ultimately inspired by, it just becomes a self-based thing. Why do you think so many artists fear their work being stolen or destroyed? They are wrapped up in self-glorification. “They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.” (Lewis, 93)
Secondly, as an artist, I am called to seek and show the divine in my every day life. As a Christian, I know that “the divine” means God, our Creator, Sustainer and Savior. As both, I know that I can’t separate the divine, God from who I am; it is an integral part of me. As H. R. Rookmaaker says,
“I am often asked what one has to do if one wants to work as a Christian….We are not human plus an extra called our Christianity….To be a Christian artist means that one’s particular calling is to use one’s talents to the glory of God, as an act of love toward God and as a loving service to our fellows.” (Rookmaaker, 33)
A Christian artist shows others the glimpses of God she sees around her. Emmanuel Cardinal Suhard of Paris, in his classic book Priests Among Men, said, “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” I am not called to merely reflect back the world around me. I am to be a mirror of God’s glory, and that should be evident in my works of art.
Just as I am not to simply regurgitate the world around me onto canvas or other art media, I am called to technical and conceptual excellence. Artists are required to make quality work, as a Christian that is even more so. Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (emphasis mine) We never see the mediocre artists from the Renaissance or Impressionism for that very reason. Why do we still look at works by da Vinci today? Because he was a talented artist, yes, but also because he worked hard to make his art fantastic and excellent. “The amount of the artist’s talent is not what it is about.” (L’Engle, 23) No good thing is ever accomplished by those who are lazy and do not work hard at it. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, in his book Art and the Bible, held technical excellence as the top standard a work is judged by. “If the artist’s technical excellence is high, he is to be praised for this, even if we differ with his world view.” (Schaffer, 43)
As we have seen, it is absolutely essential that faith is wholly part of being an art major and a Christian. There must never be a separation of the two. I must be an integrated human being. Just because something is not necessarily “Christian” does not mean my faith should not be a part of it. As Joe Smith, Chair of the Art Department at Northwestern College, has said, “Don’t say, ‘I am a Christian and then an artist.’ You are whole people, so don’t separate yourself.”
Works Cited
L’Engle, Madeleine. Walking On Water. North Point Press. New York. 1995
Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. New York. 1978
Rookmaker, H. R. Art Needs No Justification. Intervarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL.1978
Schaeffer, Francis A. Art and the Bible. Intervarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL. 2006
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