Matters of Faith

If you’ve never read C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce it’s high time you bought yourself a copy, hunkered down and began reading it!  I’ve read it at least 5 times, and every time I do something new stands out to me and calls me back to repentance, compassion or forgiveness.  One of my favorite encounters in the book is between two former artists.  One has become a Solid Person (you will understand this more once you read the book!) and has come to lead the other (who is still a Ghost) on his voyage into Heaven.  The Ghost is desperate to find some painting supplies so that he can capture the beauty of what he sees despite the Solid Person’s explanation as to why the artist’s supplies are no good in Heaven:

“When you painted on earth—at least in your earlier days—it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape.  The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too.  But here you are having the thing itself.  It is from here that the messages came.” (83)

If this is the purpose of art, then I must ask, “Where have all the true artists gone?”  There was a time when the Church led the way in the Arts.  People were so hungry for a taste of Heaven that they relished every morsel that was handed to them by the likes of Pisano, Giotto, Ghiberti, Donatello and Masaccio (just to name a few).  I daresay even the non-religious artists of the time had a better understanding of the purpose of art, but this is no longer the case.

The problem is that people are still hungry for a taste of Heaven and yet we are fed by the hands of such artists as Andre Serrano, Chris Ofili, Peter Langenbach, and Renee Cox (you can look up her “Yo Mamma’s Last Supper” on your own…I’m not posting it here!) whose “art” is offensive, grotesque, unimaginative and quite frankly juvenile (by the way, much of their work has been paid for by your tax dollars).  I am reminded of Lady Cordelia in Brideshead Revisited when she asks Charles Ryder, “Modern Art is all bosh, isn’t it?”  I’d have to respond just he, “great bosh”.