Art & Permenance

In many ways, the technocratic capitalistic world has unwittingly created a deep sense of rootlessness. This perpetual restlessness has in some sense been harnessed only by the incessant need to buy and consume. Most of our art world is driven and subsidized by the world of advertisement and regardless of how beautiful the experience of art one may have in a commercial venue or exchange, the final realization is that the beauty was inspired and brought into being solely for the purposes of commoditization.

Thus, much of the deep alienation humanity has been in part due to the lack of permanence inherent in the world of art and beauty. We expect to see this world rust, decay, to see buildings torn down, to see wetlands and nature destroyed solely for the purposes of big business’s expansion.
We have this holy longing for something that is indestructible, immutable, and transcendent. We hunger for something that is capable of enduring, of remaining long after our mortal coil leaves this realm. This age of transience brought on by extreme relativism, has taken the durability of art ands tradition built out of love and community and replaced it with an age of trickle down hip.

It is said that when Teilhard de Chardin was a young boy he ran crying from the room after his first haircut. Some days following he began to collect little bits of iron but when he discovered their corrosion, he began to collect rocks instead. “Later as an adult his great mind attempted to seize onto truths that were indestructible, capable of standing up to the ravages of fire, and rust, whim and fashion, relativity and contingency.” Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas Teilhard, The man, the Priest, the Scientist (New York, Doubleday, 1977, pp. 23ff.

There is s restoration taking place on many levels in our world today. The restoration of beauty is just one of them. However, I do not find it odd that when the Tsunami hit, artists banded together to do a concert which was broadcast world. Why? Because great art moves the soul of humankind. It can make us noble. It can make us hunger and a thirst for truth. IT can soften our hearts to our own hard heartedness.

The nobility of the human imagination has been marred in recent years. Perverse modernism has made the ugly, the cynical, the despairing the center piece of our human engagement. This movement has honored the brokeness of our existence over against any of the parts of our humanity that calls out for change, for truth, and goodness.

In many ways the restoration that is taking place in the art world is a restoration of faith. In some cases it manifests itself in actual returning to the religious roots that fostered much of the great art in ages past. May we discover the trinity of truth, goodness, & beauty once again.