FRIDAY POTPOURRI: BUT IS IT ART?: WHAT IS BEAUTY?

Today we enter into more murky waters.  It seems as though that which is beautiful should be easily defined, but it is not.  Last week was given the argument that it is beyond mere attractiveness or that which is pretty.  It is also beyond that which simply stirs the senses and has some connection to Truth.

Now, part of understanding what is beautiful is in the receiver.  How has the receiver been trained?  Is the receiver situated in the 1970s and is caught up in the fashions of his day?  A painting of Jesus with a Farah Faucet haircut may have wowed the viewer in an era of bellbottom jeans, but 50 years later a viewer might be inclined to think, like a person who looks at their high school picture, “Oh my!  How stuck in the 70s!  That looks terrible!”  So clearly part of what we accept as beautiful is culturally influenced.

Side note:  Keep in mind that this article is restricted to art and man’s creation, not God’s creation.  For example, a person is always beautiful because they reflect Christ Who is Truth, an interesting thought as our culture thinks this less and less and human life is thought less beautiful and valuable.

Then there is the education of the viewer.  Like fine wine, a person’s first taste of it may sicken them.  But as they grow older and their tastes develop, they may become an accomplished sommelier.  Likewise, there were some impressionistic paintings at the museum that I did not care for at all.  My cousin taught me how to see them and I gained an appreciation for them to the point of having purchased a couple of such paintings for myself.  So clearly, that which is able to be seen as beautiful is at least partly within the receiver.  (There are definite limits to this.)

Then there is beauty present in the object itself.  It is not entirely subjective.  There was a print of a painting in my confessional of the Blessed Virgin Mary painted by the grandmother of a couple I married.  It brought comfort to a lot of people.  One night, a number of years ago, a couple of teenage boys caused some mischief in the church, one of the things being to mar the picture with two long swipes of some kind of blade.  They didn’t rip the canvas but made a couple of permanent creases down Mary’s face.  It did have an effect on the print.  A person (within my school of art appreciation) would say that the beautiful was marred now (and if it were insured for lots of money, I would expect a payment!  No one would be able to convince me (with rare exception), “Hey!  They just added to the artistic heritage of the print!”  Some of the beautify that it represented has been taken away.

Granted, someone will argue that, once the story of the marring was explained, it may become of great interest to others.  But this would make it interesting.  It would become a commentary.  It might even become attractive.  But it did not make it more artistic.  (The artistry might be in the description!)  

Very few people have seen the painting that will be presented to the parish at Easter to help celebrate our 90th anniversary.  The few that have, upon walking into the room, invariably jump back for a moment and involuntarily utter a cry a kin to "Oh my!" or "Wow!"  Does that make it art?  We will continue to explore but here we are so far:  If a thing is beautiful, part of its beauty lies within itself.  Part of the perception of beauty of an object lies within the viewer.  

STAY WARM AND WELL FED

It is one of the most short sighted agendas in our culture that our poor need food, shelter, clothing and medical attention and that then we have done our job.  What a horrendous mode of existence.  It is one of the terrible blunders of housing for the poor.  We build large, ugly buildings in which to warehouse people and wonder why they are not more inspired.

In the Holy Land, the places where we visited were not beautiful places to live.  (I have been assured that in other locations there than the ones we visited the case is much different.)  There was very little in the way of public art, in many areas the litter was as abundant as leaves on the ground in Ohio in the fall, there were few parks and, for the most part, I was not inspired by the architecture.  (There are many reasons that this should be the case, but just the same, this is the way I saw it.)  What was beautiful were the places of worship.  Entering in, one would see (often) good and inspiring architecture, art (some great, some adequate) music, order and (to varying degrees) cleanliness.  They are places (at least in theory) that are open to the rich and the poor alike.  It is a God send (quite literally) that they exist.  One is transported from the traffic and crowds and heat of he day to a place of serenity and beauty of which the poor are particularly in need.

One might say that in the United States, we have plenty of publicly accessible art to inspire rich and poor alike and that we should spend all of the money on the poor.  (Let us set aside for a moment that the largest contributor to the poor in the world - governments included - is the Catholic Church and that most of the people making these accusations do so while not living in ugly houses in order for them to give more money to the poor yet not invited the poor in to enjoy their homes.)  But even so, where is the public art the inspires anyone in our Christian Judaeo heritage?  Such art is eschewed today.  It is not funded.  

Add to that the amount of public art in West Akron that no longer exists.  The Indian on West Exchanged was removed albeit for safety and preservation reasons.  A statue of the early pilgrims that once was on the property of ACME #1 was removed with promises that they would provide a new piece of art (which has yet to happen.)  Where is the ONE place you can go to be inspired by truly and unapologetically Christian art?  Your church (at least I hope.)

Not only that, if we do not inspire artists where will they hone their skills?  By people who will hire them.  If we do not - look around at who will willingly pay them and what messages are being delivered to our culture.  

Not only is it patently not hypocritical for the Church to engage in the mindset of being patroness of the arts, she is grossly failing her people, particularly the poor, if she does not.  A pastor who allows his parish to order “art” out of a catalogue should be horsewhipped.  (Well, maybe he should just go to confession.)  The parish is the original “free museum.”  The keeper of a culture in a greater culture that is increasingly divergent.  To do anything less is woefully negligent.