People often ask if art is useful.
When they ask that question, what they really want to know is if art has any practical value. They want to know if a painting can be used for something more than giving a sparse wall a little color or if music does more than just please the ears.
But the truth is that art is quite useless. It has no practical function in the real world. You cannot “do” anything with art. However, art can do so much with you. You are very useful.
In an essay called “Experiment in Criticism,” C.S. Lewis wrote:
“We sit down before a picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way.”
What Lewis is saying is that we don’t “use” art like we use a kitchen knife or a vacuum cleaner. Art isn’t used. It is experienced. The value of art lies in the experience and in the subsequent results of that experience. William Wordsworth, the poet of Nature and Experience, urged his readers to give up society and science and enjoy the outdoors. “Let Nature be your Teacher,” he wrote in “The Tables Turned.” Later in the poem, he exhorts his readers to:
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth and bring with you a heart,
That watches and receives.
Wordsworth was writing as England was on the verge of the Industrial Revolution, ready to take the plunge into materialism and the middle-classes. He was very much alone with his message of nature and beauty. But over a century later, people still go to visit a large hole in Arizona called the Grand Canyon because it’s supposed to be beautiful. Somehow, seeing something beautiful has value to people, even in an age of pragmatically-minded materialism. The experience is considered worth it.
People still read books, listen to music, and visit art museums—all for the purpose of seeing something beautiful. This is because the artistic experience is considered worth it. But it is only worth it if we remember that it’s an experience, not a tool, not something to be picked up and used like a mop or broom. The value of art cannot be translated into practical language. It cannot be expressed in terms of everyday life. Start talking about what poetry means to you, and you’ll feel ridiculous, like your soul is the stuff Hallmark cards are made from. But art has value nonetheless. However, that value can only be realized if we stop thinking about what we can take from it and instead start thinking about what it can give us. As Lewis said, we have to “sit under” art. We have to receive it.
That is why art and God always dance together in my mind. The two cannot be isolated. God is like art, because God is the force behind art and behind human creativity. In the same way that you have to “sit under” art, you have to “sit under” God. You have to receive Him. You cannot come to God with the practical on your mind, hoping to use your religion like you use your kitchen appliances. Too many Christians sit through sermons, taking notes and making outlines as they look for the stuff that can be taken away. But God calls us to experience Him. The value of a relationship with God lies in our experience of Him and the subsequent results of that experience. God said to Job, “Be still and know that I am God.” Stop thinking about yourself and think about Me. On his blog, while writing about God, art, and nature, Donald Miller wrote:
“I am wondering if sunsets, faces, mountains and rivers were not designed to [be] invitations to know God more fully, more completely. This seems the nature of a love letter, in ways. That is, a love letter adores and praises, but also invites a greater intimacy.”
Art is intimate. Whether an artist paints, writes or composes, he is providing someone with a window into his soul. He lets you see him as he truly is. But art is also relational because while you are allowed to see him you are also allowing him to change you. It’s the same way with God. His art lets us see Him, but it also lets Him change us. That’s why we need to abandon our notions of what is practical, of how we can “use” religion, and instead, just sit under Him and be changed. If we only look at a statue, then we will just see a piece of rock carved and chiseled into an image. But if we see the statue, then we will have our minds carved and chiseled into something by the sculptor. So let’s go see God, whether it’s in church while listening to a sermon, in an art museum standing before a Michelangelo, or on a mountain roadside staring out across the great divide. Like Mary, let’s go sit at His feet and fall in love with Him. Leave the dishes in the kitchen, because God is in the living room.
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