The Christian and Art

I lived in the city of Amsterdam during the 1960s. As I walked through the city, I recognized the names on many of the street corners. There was Beethoven Straat, Vanderhelstlaan, and Rembrandt Plein. The streets and places that I encountered there often bore the name of famous composers or artists.

During my stay there I visited the Rijks Museum, one of the finest art museums in the world. It was an overwhelming experience. The transcendent beauty of painting after painting produced by the great masters of the history of art was inspiring. Many of these artists were dedicated Christians working in the world of art. The more I saw, the more I concluded that the golden age of Christian art in Western civilization has long since passed.

Today, in the Christian community, there seems to be a negative attitude toward art. Many think that art is unworthy of a Christian, as if art were something worldly, an illegitimate enterprise for Christians. In this chapter on art, I want to examine briefly this pervasive and negative attitude toward the whole field of art in the evangelical world.

As Christians, we are to be concerned about three qualities: the good, the true, and the beautiful. These three are virtues that touch the very heart of Christianity. It is a triad of values, each of which points beyond itself to the character of God. We are concerned about goodness because God is Good. We care about truth because God is Truth. We care about beauty because God is Beautiful.

When we study that which is good, we are concerned with ethics. When we study that which is true, we look into the arena of philosophy or epistemology. When we study the beautiful, we are dealing with aesthetics. If we look at the virtues of the good, the true, and the beautiful from a biblical perspective, certain principles leap from the pages of the Bible, which directly or indirectly deal with the concepts of beauty and of art.

The beginning of art is found in the act of creation itself. The ultimate foundation and basis for aesthetics is the work of creation. Here we encounter God the supreme artist. We are all aware of the beauty that surrounds us in creation. We rhapsodize about sunsets and about the Painted Desert in Arizona. We talk about a breathtaking panorama as we look from a mountaintop and see the display of beauty beneath us. These vistas of creation bear witness to the artistic virtue of God Himself. The psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Ps. 19:1).

Not only is God a painter, but He is also a craftsman. His work is extolled in the Scriptures for the creation of human personality. We are told that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14). Even in describing redemption, the New Testament borrows images from art. The Christian is said to be the workmanship of Christ (Eph. 2:10). Christ is the ultimate craftsman who molds and shapes what He wants to form in you as a Christian.

With these plain evidences of art in creation, again I ask, Why does a pervasive negative attitude exist toward art in the Christian world?

I remember visiting Cumberland, Maryland, several years ago for a golf tournament. I happened to be paired in that event with a man who was the television announcer for the Baltimore Orioles. As he was addressing the ball, preparing to start his backswing, he stepped away from the ball, looked at us and exclaimed, “Isn‘t this incredible!”
“What do you mean?” I asked.

He said, “Look at the colors here!” And he called our attention to the fact that, in the landscape of the surrounding mountains, there must have been thirty distinct shades of green and none of them clashed. I had never considered the fact that there were so many nuances of color, hues, and shades existing side by side. If I tried to match my wardrobe like that, I would certainly end up with mismatching and clashing colors. But when God creates nature, He does it with subtleness of shade and of hue and of texture that somehow never clashes and is never ugly.

There Was Nothing “Tacky” About the Temple

If we move from the realm of creation to the realm of biblical history, again we see dimensions of God‘s involvement in art. In the Old Testament, God ordained and commanded the building of the tabernacle and later of the temple. These were extravagant projects of art. By divine imperative, the children of Israel were commanded to bring their gold and silver, to melt them down, and to use them for adorning the vessels that would be a part of the holy place and of the holy of holies. The finest wood was brought from the distant mountains of Lebanon. They imported the perfect wood of the cedars to be used in the construction of the temple. Certain craftsmen, like Bezalel and Oholiab, were given charismatic gifts, special supernatural endowments by God, so that they could perform their artistic tasks of forming, shaping, and polishing the furniture and the utensils of the tabernacle (Exodus 31:6). God spent the energy of His Holy Spirit on an artistic enterprise. There was nothing “tacky” about the temple. It was a building whose excellence in every way called attention to the glory of the God whose house it was.

I remember when my father came back from World War II after being in military campaigns in northern Africa and in Italy. He was troubled by his experience in war-torn Rome and when he came home he talked at length about his ambivalent feelings. He said, “I saw street urchins, children without clothes, children with their bellies swollen from malnutrition begging for bread, children with lice crawling in their hair. And not far away, I saw the Vatican City with walls covered with gold. I couldn‘t put together the poverty of the people and the opulence of the Vatican.” That contrast has always been a problem for many Christian people.

I think we do have a historical precedent for the excellence of a church building that is built to the glory of God. It can be a great witness. On the other hand, church buildings and the art that adorns them can be an exercise in human arrogance. They can simply be monuments in human pride.

Recently I picked up a book written by Franky Schaeffer, Francis Schaeffer‘s son. He wrote it as a young man reacting to the impulses within the Christian world concerning art. If you recall the history of the L‘Abri Fellowship, for many years the head professor of art at the Free University of Amsterdam, Dr. H. R. Rookmaaker, made annual pilgrimages to L‘Abri and was intimately involved in shaping the philosophy of Francis Schaeffer. Dr. Rookmaaker‘s desire was to bring about a reformation of Christian art and, obviously, Franky Schaeffer was nurtured in many hours of discussion with Dr. Rookmaaker. In reading this book, appropriately titled Addicted to Mediocrity, I feel the strains of an angry man expressing his reactions to the inadequacy of Christian art today. He is precisely correct when he says:

Today Christian endeavor in the arts is typified by the contents of your local Christian book store, accessories, paraphernalia shop. For the coffee table, we have a set of praying hands made out of some sort of pressed muck. Christian posters are ready to adorn your walls with suitable Christian graffiti to sanctify them and make them a justifiable expense. Perhaps a little plastic cube with a mustard seed entombed to boost your understanding of faith. If this were not enough, a toothbrush with a Bible verse stamped on its plastic handle, and a comb with a Christian slogan or two impressed on it. On a flimsy rack are stacked a pile of records; you may choose them at random, blindfolded, for most of them will be the same idle rehash of acceptable spiritual slogans, endlessly recycled as pablum for the tone-deaf, television-softened brains of our present-day Christian.

Franky Schaeffer is very forthright in his opinion of art in the Christian community today. Christians have accepted a level of art that is marked by superficiality; art has become plastic, it lacks depth and substance. This is what Schaeffer means by an endless “recycling of hash and of pablum.” What I find in so-called Christian art today is that which is not only superficial and cheap--but what is also boring. The beautiful should never be boring.

Why is this? Who is to blame? We are. We are the ones who demand the kind of stuff that the bookstore owner puts on his shelves, because he knows what will sell. Quality is never cheap; in fact quality has a tendency to be appreciated by so few people that it is not profitable. So quality gives way to profit.

Recently I was in Ocala, Florida, for a preaching mission and when I walked into the minister‘s office, I did a double-take at the painting I saw on the wall. I asked him, “Where did you get that? It‘s my favorite painting. I‘ve never seen it hanging in anybody‘s home, let alone in a minister‘s study!”

Usually, when I walk into a minister‘s study I see the same boring pictures that are found in every Christian bookstore. But the painting in this man‘s study was a reproduction of the famous Rembrandt painting originally titled “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem.” It represents one of Rembrandt‘s finest efforts.

Rembrandt frequently used episodes from biblical history or biblical characters as subjects for his paintings. Other of his paintings include the “Descent from the Cross” and a portrait of the Apostle Paul. In the painting of Jeremiah, we see an elderly man in a posture of almost total despair. His head is in his hands, and he is leaning on a big old book which is the Word of God, the Bible. In the background are the faint images of a city being destroyed and of people fleeing for their lives. In the foreground, the prophet contemplates and laments the vision of the total annihilation of the Holy City.

The Fruitful Moment

Rembrandt used a fascinating technique whenever he painted his portraits, much like Michelangelo did when he created his sculptures. He used a technique later described by German philosophers (particularly Herder) as the “fruitful moment.“ (The German word for moment means “the blink of an eye.“)

One of the problems that an artist must deal with is the question of how to capture the essence of a human personality in a single painting. Life is a process, it is dynamic. A sequence of many different events shapes and forms our lives.

For this painting, Rembrandt approached his work by reading the biblical account of Jeremiah. He immersed himself in the text of Scripture trying to gain a comprehensive understanding of the style and the movement of the life of the weeping prophet. He then got out his pad and began to sketch scenes. He sketched up to eighty scenes from the life of Jeremiah, all the while searching for that fruitful moment, that one moment in the life of the man that would, somehow, capture in freeze-frame the essence of his personality. In the painting of Jeremiah, one can see the pain etched into the lines on his forehead. The conflict between the light and the darkness that was so much a part of his life is evident. The disappointment and the frustration of the prophet are captured as his head has become too heavy for his neck to hold up. We can look at Rembrandt's painting a thousand times and see something in it that we never saw before.

Michelangelo had the same approach. After drawing many sketches, he chose to depict David with stones in his hand. As we look at that famous statue, there is that sense of readiness, as if David were ready to spring into action.

The substance, depth, and thought behind the works of the masters gave their art an enduring value that far transcends the cheap, the boring, and the superficial.

The same can be said of the music of the great musicians. Does Mozart's music ever go out of style? Does Chopin's music ever get boring? Does Handel's Messiah still move us when we hear the “Hallelujah Chorus“? Watch the national music charts each week as they record the most popular songs across the country. The songs rise and eventually fall in a matter of a few weeks. What was Number One this week may not be in the Top Forty six weeks later. Many of today's songs are there for a moment and then they are gone. Great art, on the other hand, has the ability to persevere through time.

What Is “Christian“ Art?

But what makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist's subject be religious to be Christian? I don't think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful. I think it is wrong for Christians to demand of their artists that they paint only themes which are overtly and directly religious. There is nothing wrong with religious themes, but the theme does not have to be religious to be “Christian.“ In a sense, the subject matter of Christian art may be exactly the same as that of non-Christian art. The Christian's goal, however, is to seek to express and capture the beautiful, the good, and the true.

This leads to the last issue that I would briefly touch upon: whether or not Christians need to be careful with the form of their art and not simply its content. Some theorists argue that the form of art is utterly neutral and that it does not matter what form art takes as long as we are careful of the content. I disagree with this. I think a Christian may use many different forms in his painting, but we need to be aware that sometimes the form of a painting itself is a part of the message. When formlessness or the chaotic is the structure of the painting, that, in itself, is a statement that reality is ultimately chaotic.

As Christians in the realm of art, our impetus for producing Christian art is a desire for excellence. That desire stems from the fact that the God who has ordained this world is the supreme example of excellence in all that is good and true and beautiful.

If we are to produce a new generation of Christian artists, we must stop stabbing young artists in the back. We must stop accusing them of being “worldly“ and “unspiritual.“ We must encourage Christian art—good art. Art is a form of communication. God Himself is a communicating God. He communicates to us both verbally and nonverbally. Our church services are marked by Word and sacrament. The sacrament contains forms of a nonverbal sort that communicate profoundly of God's redemption. If we cut off the aesthetic element from our triad of virtues we are left with a truncated Christianity and a God who at best is dull, and at worst, is ugly.