Battle lines were drawn at the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art, staged at New York’s 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue. Though the “Armory Show” featured 1,250 works by more than 300 artists (including Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Kandinsky, Cezanne, Corot, Gris, Leger, Ingres, and Rodin), one work stole the show, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) by cubist painter, Marcel Duchamp. The public was shocked by much of what they saw, even calling the room labeled “French Painting and Sculpture, the “Chamber of Horrors.” Little did they know how “horrifying” things would become. (In 1917, that same Marcel Duchamp would exhibit a “ready-made” urinal and call it Fountain.) It would be a century in which all moral restraint would be cast off, and artists led the way. At first, they fought for freedom to violate canons of decency. Ultimately, they fought to maintain taxpayer subsidies for such violations, whether in the realm of obscenity or blasphemy. Those who followed the news in the closing decades of the twentieth century were dumbfounded by the unspeakable works of Andre Serrano (with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts), Robert Mapplethorpe (at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center), and Chris Ofili (at the Brooklyn Museum of Art).While much of the art found shocking at the Armory Show has stood the test of time, there is still a strong sense, even among secularists, that things have gone haywire. Many argue for fresh attention to edification and beauty through the classic principles of line, texture, mass, rhythm, color, unity, and balance.

The artistic elite live and move within what philosophers of art now call the Artworld, the community of museum and gallery gate keepers, critics, patrons, foundations, and consultants and designers for corporations and municipalities. They decide what is celebrated and what is scorned. Evangelical Christians are scarce in these circles, either by exclusion or indifference, and pastors are likely to count themselves as people who have nothing much to say in that realm.

The Bible paints a different picture. Millennia before the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Pompidou Museum in Paris presumed to judge and direct civilization’s taste, God filled a man with His Spirit to be artistic. The Lord called Bezalel to craft the Tent of the Meeting and its appointments for the children of Israel—

Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. (Exod. 31:1-5 NIV)

Contemporary art is much taken with novelty, expression, ugliness, provocation, and dark messages. God’s artist, Bezalel, was given to craftsmanship. Knowledge was more important than feeling. Design trumped chaos. The love of God and His creation was obvious. Bezalel knew that the properties of his precious materials were so ordered because it pleased God to make them so. He worked in gratitude and reverence, not hubris.

Because God is a God of artistry, both in the creation of this world and in the commission and inspiration of artists, Christians should feel free and even compelled to study and address the world of art and to encourage artists within their ranks to develop and apply their gifts. From Giotto to Dürer to Rouault, Christian contribution to the arts has been substantial, and there is no good reason why this should not continue.

from Kairos Journal

posted in Cecil County, Maryland by the First Baptist Church of Perryville