an excerpt from: Art for the Sake of Art?

An excerpt from: Art for the Sake of Art?

At the most innocent meaning of this phrase “art for the sake of art” that is thrown around today, we understand it to mean something like this:

- An artistic work created with the sole motive being to skillfully express a truth, a thought, an emotion, an image, a discipline, etc., that is not compromised by outside influences or ulterior motives.

A compromising outside influence (something that comes to the artist) might be an economic market, a fad, or another person that attempts to persuade the artist on what he should say in his art, or how he should express it. A compromising ulterior motive (a motive coming from within the artist) would work to influence what the artist is saying in his work so that something else might thereby be obtained: money, status, etc…. When either of these two influences govern the artist, the artwork (the expression) is going to be compromised in some way. And so the cry for “art for the sake of art” has been sounded by both artists and audience alike to say: “let the artist express himself freely.”

While this desire for freedom is honest and beneficial to a degree, it has also made way for some to over-regard an artwork as a kind of live, protected being whose worth cannot be questioned or scrutinized. Call something “art” today and it becomes untouchable, protected! And even more than that, there is this unspoken demand upon the observer to affirm, enjoy, and defend the artwork, especially if the observer hopes to accepted in that particular circle of art-lovers. Unfortunately, for artist, audience, and even “art”, these winds of untouchability seem to be prevailing today. And so the cry “art for the sake of art” has grown from a protection against expression contamination, into a warrant for praiseworthy existence.

But even if protection from expression contamination is all that we mean or all that we pursue in “art for the sake of art,” and nothing more, we evidence that we are still ignorant of why art exists. I don’t believe that this creed will ultimately satisfy the artist or the observer.

GOD RICHLY SUPPLIES US WITH ALL THINGS TO ENJOY

One reason that artistic expression exists is so that man could take pleasure and enjoyment in it, and thereby take pleasure and enjoyment in its author, God. Art exists in this capacity by the direct design of God “who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). That art is enjoyable to us is due to God conceiving that artistic expression be and giving it to us with the design that it would be pleasurable. God has given us art for our enjoyment. To try to understand just how connected God is to our enjoyment in art, or in anything, I ask this question: can anyone experience enjoyment apart from God? Solomon, who had everything a man could attempt to take pleasure in, (and all of that directly from the hand of God - I Kings 3:11-14) said this; "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment" (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 ESV)? Solomon, the wisest man ever, tells us that no one can take pleasure without or apart from God. God “created all things, and by [His] will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11 ESV).

Notice this, not even the wicked can enjoy life apart from God. David cries out to the Lord to save him from the “men of the world whose portion is in this life.” David continues, “You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants” (Psalm 17:14). Even the pleasures that the wicked find are a grace from the hand of God. Everything is from the hand of God. I would conclude then that art, and its purpose of bringing enjoyment, is from the hand of God. So we should honor God by enjoying art, since He has given art to us for our enjoyment.

But this is where we have gone astray. We have more often dishonored God, which has resulted in our experiencing a lesser degree of pleasure in art, when we have enjoyed art as being apart from Him, or more defiantly, in place of Him. Art would not be if God did not conceive of it. We could not be artistic if God hadn’t given us the skill to engage in it. To enjoy anything that God has made, apart from God, is not to enjoy the full pleasures that God has designed it to have. More specifically, I mean that we do not end up at the full pleasure of seeing and enjoying God Himself...

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excerpt from The Affections of the Heart in Art - a wrestling for the full pleasures in art Jason Harms