In an article first published by ASSIST News Service, BRIAN NIXON looks at the relationship between art, truth and beauty…
In French philosopher, Étienne Gilson’s work, Forms and Substances in the Arts, the case is made that art’s main purpose – as distinguished from aesthetics (the study and philosophy of art) – is the creation of beauty.
Gilson writes, “The philosophy of art, if the arts of the beautiful are in question, has as its object human activity in the general order of making, whose proper end is to produce beautiful objects.”
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IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: Brian Nixon says truth should always be elevated above beauty. PICTURE: © Zaid Zolkiffli/www.freeimages.com |
The idea of beauty and art go back long before Gilson (1884-1978).
The Greeks sought to combine the idea of beauty as represented through the arts, especially the beauty of the human form.
During the Middle Ages, art was connected to the beauty of God. Individuals such as Thomas Aquinas and Albert Magnus drew comparisons to beauty and art – as extensions of God’s nature.
In our day and age, men such as Herbert Read (1892-1968) have stated something similar, “All artists have…the desire to please; and art is…defined as an attempt to create pleasing forms.” Aka…art is about creating beautiful things.
On the surface this line of thinking sounds fine, if subdued. Isn’t that what art is all about after all, to make one feel good and instill a sense of pleasure and beauty?
Though beauty is a noble pursuit, something underneath this mindset musters some problems.
First, how is one to understand beauty? How is beauty defined in relationship to the arts? As a striking scenery? As a pleasant photograph? As a picturesque painting? Or is beauty something deeper, more sublime? Some like Aquinas (and there is great merit in his line of thinking) would say beauty has elements of form, structure, and order. And these are worthy of discussion. But my guess – and I think Gilson would agree with me – is that beauty is more than just banalities fashioned in some general form – be it a painting, a composition, or a poem. No, beauty is not bound to pretty pleasantries, but something more profound. And this leads to my second problem with beauty as the basis for the arts – particularly from a philosophical or theological understanding.
My greatest argument against art as an arbitration of beauty is that it – theologically speaking – dissects it from the greater notions of God’s nature. It’s not like beauty is a separate entity of God; something like – God is a quarter beautiful and a quarter righteous and quarter holy, etc. No. God is one; He is pure actuality. God exists, and there is no possibility of Him not existing. And because God exists prior to everything, He is the cause of everything in existence. And because God is, as theologians like to say, “the uncaused Cause”, He is unified.
In classical terms the unity of God is called simplicity. God’s simplicity means that He is without parts, and therefore cannot come apart. If God had “parts,” it goes without saying that He could be dissected. But God cannot be divided; His Being cannot be unbound. Put another way, God is absolutely one in accord. The mathematics of the Trinity help shed some light on this: 1x1x1=1, but it doesn’t fully express the unity of the Godhead. The Greek word perichoresis does a little better. Perichoresis means the mutual exchange of love within the Godhead, a co-indwelling.
Scientist and theologian Alister McGrath puts it this way: perichoresis “allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two.” And though we can’t fully comprehend the pure unity of God, we can apprehend it in a formal sense; it is not a contradiction.
The simplicity of God should remind us that the pursuit of beauty through art is only a piece – albeit a fine one – of the greater nature of being. And we must never lose sight of the fact that beauty is an attribute of God’s being; something indivisible within His Personhood, not something separate: the beauty of God is intricately bound to His being. Norman Geisler puts it this way: “God is beautiful; He is, in fact, the ultimate standard of all beauty. Whatever is beautiful is beautiful because it is like Him…God is the source of all beauty.”
So my problem with beauty being the aim of art is that it separates itself from something greater, namely God – and that troubles me. It’s not like beauty is the ultimate standard – God is. And though God is beautiful, all beauty is not God. Just as God is love does not necessitate that all love is God. And furthermore, beauty can be defined in various, subjective ways – a pretty flower (which is beautiful) or a mundane rendering of mountains through the medium of oil on canvas (which may not be a beautiful painting).
So if art’s aim is not beauty, what is it? As already hinted in the title, the target of art is truth – that which corresponds to reality (through color, form, technique, expression – taking us back to Aquinas). Truth as art’s aim presents a more robust appreciation of God’s greater being, but still limited in the fact that it is an attribute of God, and not God (just like all beauty is not God, truth as an intellectual idea is not God, either). Again, Geisler: “Being (reality), insofar as it is knowable, is true. Being, insofar, as it is desirable, is good. And Being, insofar as it is pleasurable, is beauty.”
True, God is truth just as God is beauty – both attributes represent His nature. But truth is tethered to a more realistic means of understanding the nature of art than just beauty. Why? Because truth is beautiful; so even if a work of art is not “beautiful” (albeit disturbing or shocking; not eye-catching in the established sense) it still can be true, and therefore beautiful.
My case in point would be the cross of Christ. Is a man hanging from a cross, dripping with blood, death at his door, artistically beautiful? Sure we could analyse a painting of Christ’s death from the standpoint of form, color, and perspective – all great things. But I dare say when people approach beauty in a traditional sense (as a pretty picture) – they’d say, no, a painting of Christ on the cross is not a beautiful picture. Rather, we’d here cries of shock, disgust, and “hard to look at.”
But because a painting of Christ brutally beaten is not beautiful, it can be true, which conversely makes it beautiful. Christ is truth incarnate – the Logos (The Word – reason and truth – became flesh) and therefore is beautiful; even Christ on a cross. So rather than having beauty bind our understanding of art; let truth tether us to the tenacity of art. Let truth lead, allowing other attributes of God to follow. And when truth leads, art is loosened from the grapple of pretty and pleasing pictures to the awesome nature of God – in all His splendor and attributes, pain and suffering included.
And by letting truth lead in the arts, our artistic sensibilities will have freedom as well, incorporating an appreciation for the arts that go beyond pleasantries – to more profound expressions – be it abstract (the truth of the color, form, and technique), realism (the truth in representation, perspective, etc.), and all the various “isms” we can muster up in multiple movements found within the arts.
Though beauty is good, truth is grand – when it comes to the aim of the arts. All truth – rightfully understood – is God’s truth, and beauty is the better for it.
