Are you ready? Here it is … Art must be beautiful.
The vocation of the artist is the pursuit of beauty. Art must be beautiful because it is always and everywhere a protest against the ugliness and evil in the world. Art is truth clothed in beauty. Do not fall into the fallacy of thinking that beauty is relative. Beauty is an absolute; it transcends mere aesthetics.
“Art for art’s sake” is a popular mantra these days; I think it misses the mark. How about “Art for Beauty’s sake?”
It has become popular to think that art must challenge the viewer. This has led to some truly ugly art. Paintings, poems, songs, all expressions of artistic talent should lift hearts and minds to the Divine. If you want to challenge the viewer then challenge them to examine their relationship with all that is true and good and beautiful.
Yes there is evil in the world and it cannot be ignored, but even when depicting evil, it must be depicted beautifully
Birthday presents
Your talent is a gift, a birthday present from your Creator. All of us have unique gifts, talents, and abilities. It has been said that the difference between maturity and immaturity is that the immature person appreciates the gift, while the mature person appreciates the giver. Artistic ability is a gift. Remember to be always grateful to the Creator who has given it to you. The best way to do this is by returning your gift a hundred times over by what you do with it.
Why you?
Your talents are not for your own indulgence. These gifts were not given to us to indulge in our own whims. They were given for the common good. Each of us has been given a unique role in God’s plan for our salvation, a role that cannot be fulfilled in the same way by any other person. You are the sum of your experiences, your talent, and your training, carefully formed to turn people back to the light of God in a way that no one else can.
Get to work!
You have a job to do. Each of us is given the same task, but we are given different ways to achieve it. The task is to help our brothers and sisters find their way home. How are you using your God-given gifts to help other people? How are you participating in the great commission given to us by Christ, nothing less than bringing the world to perfection?
“The painter teaches better by his pictures.” – Gregory Nazianzus
Are you making invisible art?
Are you creating work that only special people can “see?” Here is another great secret; it’s not about you.
Modern art has taken on an “ivory tower” mentality. No one, it seems, is willing to tell an “artist” what he or she should be doing with his or her talent. We have reduced this great messenger of transcendent truth to mere aesthetics, and therefore entirely subjective. If a work is understandable only to its author, then it has failed. If a work must be explained to the viewer before it can be appreciated, then it has failed.
I have seen art critics look at a work of art, unwilling to comment on the merits of the piece until they understood what the artist was “trying to say.” This attitude is reminiscent of the story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” no one seems to be willing to point out that the emperor is naked.
“Art is not for the artist only, any more than gold is for the miner or pearls for the pearl-fisher.” – Wyke Bayliss
Who are you working for?
Your audience is not other people.
Art is meant to serve the community, to help our brothers and sisters. But it is not our brothers and sisters who are our true audience. Do not work in order to impress a certain demographic. Our true audience is Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother, and the saints, work to please them.
“Art is … for us all; to refine us, to ennoble us, to raise us from baser pleasures, to fill our eyes with beauty and our hearts with gladness, to show us that we are not beasts but the King’s Children, and that Beauty is His Messenger.” – Wyke Bayliss