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“One of the fundamental assumptions of modern art is that art can replace religion as the repository of the spiritual and the bearer of moral conviction.” (Barbara Rose, Autocritique, Essays on Art and Anti-Art 1963-1987, 1988, pg.243)
Religion has been struggling to maintain social power and influence for nearly a century, during a time in which the arts have enjoyed unprecedented public favor. While the arts and humanities are encouraged and even required subjects for most college curricula, religion, if it even exists in the curriculum, is required only at specifically religious schools. Most religious departments have turned to the empirical study of 'comparative religions', that is, they have been 'demythologized'. All large metropolitan centers maintain art museums, cultural and performing arts centers and support art installations.
The artist and the art critics having risen in social prominence became artist advocates. In an industrial era in which the religious past was at best uncomfortable and to many it was quite abominable, the arts were a marvelous alternative. The arts fell easily into the hands of secular advocates. Each shocking new movement in art, from impressionism to rock & roll, became a proud boast for the advancement of culture without religion.
A part of the high place sought by and at least partially obtained by the arts community requires art to move beyond its traditional confines and to usurp the realm of religion. As the spiritual leader the arts must have their own theology to do this. Theology implies theologians, a priestly class of discoverers and explainers. Also required are shrines and sacred objects. Art critics and art historians are the redactors and theologians of the art world. Museums, monuments and show places serve as shrines and temples. Breakthrough art works, such as 'The Fountain', serve as sacred objects. Duchamp was among those surprised to find his witty nose-thumbing turned into a revered icon of the modern art world.
It should be said that the last several decades have had a gradual pulling back of the arts from its forward position. Fewer artists now claim spiritual aspirations. There are still many artists functioning as cultural spoilers or deconstructors, but fewer who continue to see themselves as genuine social constructors. At the same time religion seems to be regaining strength in extreme legalist forms, mystical or ‘New Age’ varieties, and in core beliefs.
Art and religion speak to the muzzy regions of the mind. They dig under the distinct verbalizations and visions to the heart and soul of the individual, the society, and the nature of being. They both touch on the places where attitudes and impressions are born. Both are only affective when they rich the audience at 'gut' level.
The prophet and the artist are similar. The prophet looks at the real world (spiritual and physical) and tries to discern its direction and how to reconnect it to God, how to cleanse and improve, or how to sidetrack the insidious, and then communicates the discoveries in a priestly language. The artist, on the other hand, is an anarchic cousin. The artist is less concerned with a salvific vision and more with a reflective vision. The artist communicates the 'isness' of dreams and the spirit of reality in any language effective and accessible to the audience. The artist has none of the constraints of the prophet. The artist is not concerned with God or perfection unless they specifically choose to be. The artist discovers without purpose.
To the artist, depth of vision is more important than direction. As Tillich notes, some artists have a genuine touch of the prophetic: "Artists do not merely express a moment of the social situation of their time. They express the dynamics in the depths of society which come from the past and run toward the future. Therefore, they have a prophetic character. It is not that artists have a vision of a future which is not yet real. They are not romantics, but in their creative depths they are aware of those elements in the present which will determine the future of society.
“A most telling example of the prophetic function of the artist was the way in which the expressionist painters before the First World War foresaw the catastrophes of the twentieth century.” (Tillich, 1987, pg.29).
In some ways it can be said the artist as prophet is an obsession of artists, not always actualized in expression. Hughs discusses Rothko's vision in his Shock of the New, but it is hard to see where Rothko's art contributes to any larger spiritual vision. “[Rothko] was not only a Jew but a Russian Jew, obsessed with the moral possibilities that his art would go beyond pleasure and carry the full weight of religious meanings—the patriarchal weight, in fact, of the Old Testament. What was more, he expected it to do so at the high tide of American materialism, when all the agreements about doctrine and symbol that had given the religious artists of the past their subjects had been canceled. Rothko would have needed a miracle to bring this off, and the miracle, naturally enough, did not happen. But his efforts to make it so were recorded, shortly before his death, in a cycle of paintings, 1964-7, commissioned by the deMenil family in Houston, as objects of contemplation in a non-denominational chapel attached to Rice University.” (Hughes, 1980, pp.320-323). I live in Houston, and have visited the Rothko Chapel several times. The atmosphere is peaceful and meditative, and the paintings are wonderful. I cannot say that they have transformed me in any way as I can say about the Bible or prayer. Perhaps for Rothko, those paintings were his prayer.
Clearly the arts have tried to maintain this quasi-spiritual position. In an interview in Christianity Today, former NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer says, “Artists are watchers of society, and thinkers about what society is and what it could or should be....art is really our ultimate expression.” He goes on to say, “Our government has an obligation to look out for the mental and emotional health of the nation as well as to protect us and ensure that we have the necessities of life. The arts are a central part of that.” ("Art Gatekeeper: Man Under Fire", vol.34, Christianity Today, June 18, 1990. Pg.53).
Any prophetic importance of the artist is heightened by the decline of the societal importance of religious institutions in the modern West. Often the true prophet has difficulty finding a ready audience. The religious sphere in the democratized Western world splintered into many factions from several melded traditions. Religion is less significant and for many not significant at all. Modern day prophets have almost no mass appeal. The movement of modern Western history is occurring with less and less influence from religion. The artist, by remaining aloof from religious sectarianism, speaks to a larger audience without becoming factionalized, functioning as a secular prophet (if that even makes any real sense).
“Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.” (Harry S. Truman)
Artistic vision, because it reaches into the soul of humanity, has a great deal of influence on the vision of the individual and the society with which it communicates. More evocative and less direct, the artist is less likely to suggest 'Thou Shalt...', and more likely to alter perceptions in a way that causes underlying spiritual realities to emerge. This coaxing is more comfortable to the fully democratized society of the modern West in which personal opinion outweighs all others. On the other hand, the same disintegration of vision which has struck the heart of modern religion ultimately disintegrates artistic vision as well. The artist has served the needs of the forces of disintegration much better than those presenting any positive vision.
Our contemporary situation presents a confusing pool of competing spiritual realities. The overall societal result seems to be increasing toleration of individual moral disintegration coupled with increasingly less toleration for societal moral or humanitarian abuse. For the artist to engage in spiritual commentary, there must be a clear spiritual direction, which general society and thus the arts have lacked since the decapitation of aristocratic privilege. The arts have never genuinely led a moral crusade: “for the arts to function in this spiritual role, there must be a subject that communicates with the viewer about life or living, and most modern art lacks a genuine subject...” (Paul Georges, in Cochrane, pg.59). Ultimately the artist, although more free to operate, is less suited to the vacuum than is the true spiritual prophet.
Modern art has led, through aesthetic liberalization, a movement towards personal and societal liberalization. Artists have introduced us to the totally abstract, mundane objects, blank canvases, and absurd juxtapositions. Modern art has celebrated the profane and the extremely profane. The arts have long since introduced nudity, dismemberment, suicide, and denigration of religious and political institutions. So finally the artist has nothing to attack, but the sacredness of art itself, dismantling the role of art as spiritual informer, (Rose, 1988, pg.243).
The art world, lacking any other moral crusade, is currently fighting to bring the truly profane into public institutions. It is a sad end to a foolish attempt.
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