9/24/2022 0 Comments Reason for Art and CreativityAs a renown film director once mused, as a visual arts creator, you have access to people’s minds for a certain period of time. You hope to entertain and wow them, but more importantly, you want to leave them with a lasting, psychological "pebble in their shoe" for their brain. Thus, entertainment is a kind of the Trojan horse. You want to tell compelling stories and ideas that they otherwise could not have come up with and thought about themselves. If your communication is captivating enough to hold the attention of your audience, then you will have succeeded in accessing their minds and filling their thoughts toward the truth. It is to this purpose that Christian artists hope to awe people with visually stunning work. I believe being creative, whether it be through painting, drawing, films, et cetera, is a natural instinct of any human being by virtue of the imago Dei. Yes, I am aware that I am probably the voice of the rare few in the vast wilderness in which the reigning zeitgeist, at least in the western hemisphere, favours anti-hierarchy and all things hostile to the idea of a divine creator. Yes, someone inevitably will mischaracterize the history of mankind as the history of evils committed by the religious few in the name of their gods as a pretext for denying their own fundamental basis for their creativity. Nevertheless, the basis for anyone's creativity is the fact that they are all inherently religious and worshipful creatures. Of this reality, there is no dispute, for as the complexity of our art increases (i.e. from a simple doodle to a marble sculpture of a David), we hungrily yearn to say some meaningful statement about someone or something. The object of our worship completely dominates our mind and conscience, and affects everything we do: what we value, how we perceive reality, life, death, and certainly how we make and define art. As for me, art, creativity, the expression of all things honourable and valuable according to the conscience, like everything else in life, is done for soli Deo gloria. Art will always be a way to communicate the beauty of God against the background of darkness, an endless chasing after the infinite essence of perfection.
Do we all share the same values, worship the same god, perceive things the same? Evidently, we do not. Thus, the artists who will be most effective in communicating their perhaps foreign perspectives -- hence the most relatable and winsome -- are those who know how to empathize according to the fundamental values of humanity. In other words, our religious respect for the common moral values endemic to all of our humanity is not an enemy to creativity; it is the basis for creativity. And creativity is a vehicle through which we freely exchange our ideas and communicate our mutual understanding of our essence. How do we define Art? Necessary conditions (essential things for the existence of art): 1. A universal established standard of beauty and truth (i.e. God). 2. Proper perspective of the realities of life in a fallen world. (i.e. Knowledge of God and His Word) 3. Appreciation of beauty and truth (i.e. Love of God and His Word). 4. Ability to create something that would demonstrate a true character of God in light the realities of life in a fallen world (i.e. Imago Dei; as creatures made in the image of God, we have creativity and ingenuity.). In conclusion, Art is a combination of beauty and truth; the intention to magnify a beauty of God in light of the raw realities of life in a fallen world through a medium - film, music, literature, sculpture, painting, building, sophisticated design of human infrastructure, dramatic performances, sunset, the celestial bodies, food tastes, the colour spectrum, the human body, the properly functioning God-ordained human institutions (government, family, church) - in a way that would be consistent with the purposes, and character of God, which then would be appreciated by those who honour the attributes of God. Every human attempt to create Art is imperfect, and falls short of the standard of Art. Moreover, just like every other gift God has given us, Art can be and is most often abused (i.e. used for the purpose for which it is not intended by God.). For instance, pornography would not be considered an art form, since it utterly contorts the purpose of human bodies and rapes the beauty of sexual intimacy, treating it as an object of immoral self-indulgence outside the private, intimate relationship between husband and wife. On the other hand, the sophisticated weapons of war designed to thwart a deadly force perpetrated against an innocent, defenseless people should be considered a form of art, since it magnifies the righteous vengeance of God against evil aggressors. The above was the definition of Art. However, because of all the abuses of Art in the name of freedom of expression, the following would be the best definition of Art to encompass all the abuses: Art is an attempt of the artist to express his/her state of mind, the ways of thinking, the personal values of right and wrong, honourable and abhorrent, sacred and profane (i.e. his/her worldview).
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CategoriesAll Discourse Doctrines Gospel Humour NT Commentaries OT Commentaries Tactical Life Date
August 2023
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