I knew before I finished reading Christian musician Michael Card's book Scribbling in the Sand that I would reread it as soon as I reached the last page. I hadn't expected my first in-depth study concerning art and Christianity to change my entire approach to my profession as I knew it. As I make every attempt to absorb a fraction of the content in Scribbling, I want to briefly and periodically share with you a few of Card's thoughts so that you might benefit from his studies as I have.
What is art?
New York artist and director of the International Arts Mission, Makoto Fujimura, describes "the language of the arts" as "a language born of faith" (9). He adopts painter Joel Sheesley's ideology that content in art is "the substance of things hoped for," the Hebrews 11:1 definition of faith, based on the idea that art is an attempt to translate the transcendent into the visible and tangible. Certainly, this translation is not unique to Christian artists, but imagine the difference in content when the "things hoped for" include salvation through Jesus Christ.
Card attributes the natural human longing for beauty to the exquisite, inherent beauty of God, saying, "God is beautiful. His beauty demands a response that is shaped by that beauty. And that is art" (27). How drastically would our lives (and art) change if we learned to truly "gaze upon the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 24:7)? How can people who are artistically gifted by the world's standards use these gifts to translate the "things hoped for" into a visual feast for hungry eyes?
What is creativity?
"Creativity is not about me. It is not about you. It is not us somehow acting like little gods, creating on our own in the same way God creates. Although he asks us to imitate him, we are not imitators of God in this dimension. The most we can hope for is to respond appropriately and creatively to who God is and what he means. Creativity is a response" (28). A response. A response to a musical line bursting from the soul of a trained musician? Possibly. A response to a random strike of brilliant inspiration in an ordinary moment on an ordinary day? Perhaps. But above all, it is a response to the creator's hunger for beauty: his hunger for God.
Card openly contradicts the popular claim that since God is the Creator and we are made in His image, our own creativity is simply a reflection of His. Instead, he proposes that it is a response to beauty, which is in itself a form of worship. Worship is commanded of us. We were made to worship. And "because it is a response, it does not originate with me. He speaks. He moves. He is beautiful. We respond. We create. We worship" (29). Creativity has nothing to do with us.
This passage resonated in me as I recalled a TEDTalk by secular writer Elizabeth Gilbert, author of NYT bestseller Eat Pray Love. In an effort to recover from the absurd, disproportionate glory brought to her by EPL, she studied the history of man's perception of "genius." In light of the 21st century's emergence of the "tortured artist" who destroys himself into oblivion because of pressure, fame, or fear of failure, Gilbert, knowing that her largest success could be behind her, chose to pursue a different way of thinking. She notes, "we've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish." She asks, "is it logical that anybody should be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do?"
She traces the idea of "genius" back to ancient Greek and Roman culture, where the "genius" is not the artist, but rather a daemon, a sort of spirit that may or may not choose to assist the artist in making a masterpiece, indicating that failure is nothing personal; it's just bad luck. In contrast, the humanistic concept of "genius" that emerged in the Renaissance places every ounce of credit, glory, fame, and blame on the artist himself. This "completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance." As a result, an artist's realization that his glory days may be behind him "is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you."
Indeed.
What is art?
New York artist and director of the International Arts Mission, Makoto Fujimura, describes "the language of the arts" as "a language born of faith" (9). He adopts painter Joel Sheesley's ideology that content in art is "the substance of things hoped for," the Hebrews 11:1 definition of faith, based on the idea that art is an attempt to translate the transcendent into the visible and tangible. Certainly, this translation is not unique to Christian artists, but imagine the difference in content when the "things hoped for" include salvation through Jesus Christ.
Card attributes the natural human longing for beauty to the exquisite, inherent beauty of God, saying, "God is beautiful. His beauty demands a response that is shaped by that beauty. And that is art" (27). How drastically would our lives (and art) change if we learned to truly "gaze upon the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 24:7)? How can people who are artistically gifted by the world's standards use these gifts to translate the "things hoped for" into a visual feast for hungry eyes?
What is creativity?
"Creativity is not about me. It is not about you. It is not us somehow acting like little gods, creating on our own in the same way God creates. Although he asks us to imitate him, we are not imitators of God in this dimension. The most we can hope for is to respond appropriately and creatively to who God is and what he means. Creativity is a response" (28). A response. A response to a musical line bursting from the soul of a trained musician? Possibly. A response to a random strike of brilliant inspiration in an ordinary moment on an ordinary day? Perhaps. But above all, it is a response to the creator's hunger for beauty: his hunger for God.
Card openly contradicts the popular claim that since God is the Creator and we are made in His image, our own creativity is simply a reflection of His. Instead, he proposes that it is a response to beauty, which is in itself a form of worship. Worship is commanded of us. We were made to worship. And "because it is a response, it does not originate with me. He speaks. He moves. He is beautiful. We respond. We create. We worship" (29). Creativity has nothing to do with us.
This passage resonated in me as I recalled a TEDTalk by secular writer Elizabeth Gilbert, author of NYT bestseller Eat Pray Love. In an effort to recover from the absurd, disproportionate glory brought to her by EPL, she studied the history of man's perception of "genius." In light of the 21st century's emergence of the "tortured artist" who destroys himself into oblivion because of pressure, fame, or fear of failure, Gilbert, knowing that her largest success could be behind her, chose to pursue a different way of thinking. She notes, "we've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish." She asks, "is it logical that anybody should be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do?"
She traces the idea of "genius" back to ancient Greek and Roman culture, where the "genius" is not the artist, but rather a daemon, a sort of spirit that may or may not choose to assist the artist in making a masterpiece, indicating that failure is nothing personal; it's just bad luck. In contrast, the humanistic concept of "genius" that emerged in the Renaissance places every ounce of credit, glory, fame, and blame on the artist himself. This "completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance." As a result, an artist's realization that his glory days may be behind him "is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you."
Indeed.
I love this, Emily! I love the idea that creativity is not an end in and of itself, but that creating is an act of worship meant to bring glory to God, not the artist.
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