Idolizing the Arts

[py3ak]

From Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays v.2:1926-1929: "The Substitutes for Religion"

The arts, including music and certain important kinds of literature, have been, at most periods, the handmaids of religion. Their principal function was to provide religion with the visible or audible symbols which create in the mind of the beholder those feelings which for him personally are the god. Divorced from religion, the arts are now independently cultivated for their own sake. That aesthetic beauty which was once devoted to the service of God has now set up as a god on its own. The cultivation of art for its own sake has become a substitute for religion. That it is an extremely inadequate substitute must be apparent to anyone who has observed the habits of those who lead the pure, aesthetic life. Where beauty is worshipped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.
​

While Huxley was an opponent of Biblical Christianity, his pointed observation here reminds me that the worship of idols is not only barren, but also corrupting.

 

[Peairtach]

Quote duly stolen.

 

[MW]

Where beauty is worshipped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in.

I would point out that it is simply another "morality and philosophy" which uses the goddess for horrible putrefaction, as is evident in the practice of cult prostitution.

 

[py3ak]

I don't recall what sermon it was in, but somewhere in his preaching Dr. Lloyd-Jones held up Aldous Huxley's dictum of "Try to be a little kinder" as exposing the utter poverty of the world's attempt to find a substitute to the gospel. While Huxley could incisively flay certain trends, he never can quite cut to the bone and is all at sea when it comes to offering a solution.

As an author and music critic, Huxley's recognition that art is powerless to produce holiness can be useful as 'expert' testimony - expert with regard to the arts, not holiness!

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Art is whatever the artist wishes it to be, given his or her competence to realize his wishes. It may, the power of the Gospel filling its sails, be a vessel bringing souls to Christ. It may also—wielding the word of God—be a weapon casting down arrogant imaginations exalting themselves against the knowledge of Him (2 Cor 10:3,4,5,6). But this one I especially like:

The burden of Art, especially Poetry, is the establishment – and defense – of human reality.​

 

[2ndViolinist]

Saving this! Thanks for sharing.

During the riots in Baltimore last year, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra held free concerts outdoors and used a Leonard Bernstein quote as their motto:

"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."

It's an example of making an idol out of music, I think. The idea fails on a practical level but even more than that, only the Gospel solves such problems.

 

[py3ak]

Art is whatever the artist wishes it to be, given his or her competence to realize his wishes.

Not quite whatever, surely; it is beyond human competence to make something a means of grace, for instance, or an element of worship.

During the riots in Baltimore last year, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra held free concerts outdoors

That's interesting! I admire their willingness to do what they could, but yes it quite fails. Human culture will never bring about new creation.

 

[Mr. Bultitude]

I don't recall what sermon it was in, but somewhere in his preaching Dr. Lloyd-Jones held up Aldous Huxley's dictum of "Try to be a little kinder" as exposing the utter poverty of the world's attempt to find a substitute to the gospel.

That sounds really interesting. Do you remember the gist of how Lloyd-Jones argued that point?

 

[py3ak]

As I recall, he referenced a few intellectuals - Toynbee, Huxley, maybe a few others. His style of argument was to take up their statements and then pour thoroughly Biblical scorn on them. It's been more than 15 years, so beyond that I'm fuzzy on the details.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Hello Ruben — you said, "Not quite whatever, surely; it is beyond human competence to make something a means of grace, for instance, or an element of worship." I'm not sure how strictly you are using the terms "means of grace" and "elements of worship". Nor do I know if you are thinking in terms of EP, which would rule out anything sung not strictly Scripture.

I was thinking of godly writing or song based on Scripture, which can—in my view—be a means of grace in that it may minister the Spirit of Christ to the heart and mind of the hearer. Or with my last quote on the "burden of Art" and "human reality"—our identity as human beings is under ferocious attack (such as Biblical understandings of personhood and gender), as well as the redefinition of human reality effected by the Lord Jesus taking upon Himself our human nature, and our union with Him. I seek to use art, as well as the preached Word, to convey these things.

 

[py3ak]

In both 'means of grace' and 'element of worship' I would understand something which God commands his people to employ and which he promises to bless for their salvation.

Of course, God can use many things that are nonetheless not required, and to which no promise is attached. It is important not to exaggerate the importance of those things which God has left free. If making beauty an end is an idolatry prohibited by the 1st commandment, perhaps making it an indispensable means is an idolatry prohibited by the 2nd.

 

[timmopussycat]

Art is whatever the artist wishes it to be, given his or her competence to realize his wishes. It may, the power of the Gospel filling its sails, be a vessel bringing souls to Christ. It may also—wielding the word of God—be a weapon casting down arrogant imaginations exalting themselves against the knowledge of Him (2 Cor 10:3,4,5,6). But this one I especially like:

The burden of Art, especially Poetry, is the establishment – and defense – of human reality.​

The potential of the arts, as arts, ranges on a scale running from ephemeral distractions to bringers of experiences that point to something beyond the human norm.