with a lithograph of Our Lady of Lourdes.14
This denominational eclecticism continues into the present day. Having spoken about art in a wide variety of church-related venues and conversed with priests and pastors from all over the country, I have observed that today there is an even greater openness to a wider selection of visual materials in many Christian churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. However, all too often even excellent, evocative, multivalent artistic materials are subverted into didactic readings as congregations are encouraged to look for the one, true meaning of an artwork. This is parallel to a method of biblical interpretation that insists on a single, correct meaning for each chapter and verse, rather than a hermeneutic of questioning the text. Rather than allowing the arts to open conversations that lead to exploration of multiple ideas, artworks are overexplained, reduced to sermon illustrations rather than allowed to stand on their own as biblical interpretations or analogues of spiritual experience.
Such single-message interpretations lead, too often, to a preacher or Sunday School teacher showing a Renaissance painting that depicts some scriptural narrative with no regard to the intrinsic meanings of the painting itself. Instead of attending to the specific ways that this painting tells the story in color, spatial emphasis, the visual relationships among the various characters, and any other telling details, the preacher will simply say, in effect, “I’m preaching on the Prodigal, so here’s a picture of that story,” while completely disregarding any potential conflict between the preacher’s interpretation and that of the artist. Equally disregarded is the potential for the image to illuminate the understanding of the text by either the preacher or the congregation through attention to the exegesis offered by the artist.
This attitude devalues good art by refusing to recognize that anything other than its subject matter might contribute to its meaning. It also leads to joyless felt banners with the word “Joy” stitched across them; moralistic children’s stories that are so predictable that even the children are bored by them; and hymns of praise that are sung like dirges, more out of duty than any sense of delight in the presence of the living God.
Commercializing Art: Making Art a Commodity
There is a certain kind of art that is created solely for the purpose of aesthetic contemplation. Such works have no other purpose than to delight, to elicit the particular thrill that is felt by many in their presence. This is often termed high art, and is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the artistic enterprise. In music, this is sometimes referred to as concert music, and generally takes the form of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, opera, and the like. In the world of literature, a distinction is often made between the literary novel and all other forms of fiction. Serious poetry, drama, and certain films also fall into this category.
In the world of visual art, it is the kind of work that Daniel A. Siedell calls museum art, in his book, God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art.15 As Siedell points out, the high arts are both a cultural and an institutional practice, a living tradition that exists
not only invisibly in the hearts and minds of its practitioners and participants but also embodied, mediated in and through its visible public institutions. And it is in fact this public or outward manifestation that produces the private and inward experience of art. What art is, then, is defined through a public network and not merely by private assertion or opinion.16
In general, Siedell is speaking about modern or contemporary visual art and the structures, critical language, and traditions that surround and support it. According to Siedell, such art operates for the serious viewer in many ways like icons do for the Orthodox Christian. Like an icon, he suggests, a work of art is a kind of hypostatic union “between sensuous material and rational ideas.”17 This union of form and content, he argues, is the source of high art’s power. Similar arguments can be made about the effects of serious music, drama, poetry, and other artistic disciplines, as found in such visible public institutions as concert halls, theaters, and literary publishing houses.
Not all art has such lofty goals, however. As Nicholas Wolterstorf helpfully notes, there are many purposes for art.
Works of art are instruments by which we perform such diverse actions as praising our great men and expressing our grief, evoking emotion and communicating knowledge. Works of art are objects of such actions as contemplation for the sake of delight. Works of art are accompaniments for such actions as hoeing cotton and rocking infants. Works of art are background for such actions as eating meals and walking though airports.18
Some art is actually intended for commercial purposes, to participate intentionally in the world of commerce. Art in this category is not just the overt advertising that is ubiquitous in our culture, but also includes such things as mass-market music and movies; most (but not all) architecture; and fashion design, industrial design, and all the other fields that include the word design in their titles. Sometimes, the line between commercial art and high art is hard to discern, as when a dancehall poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec becomes more prized than paintings by many less well-known artists, or Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is used as the soundtrack for an animated film, or the work of popular musicians like Bob Dylan or the Beatles become the subject of scholarly dissertations.
Generally, however, the commodification of art becomes problematic when works that are created for the purpose of contemplation are treated as simply as objects to be bought and sold in the marketplace. In this situation, discomfort arises in those who value art for reasons that are unconnected with money. Artists whose works sell well, or who allow their works to be used to sell other products, are sometimes accused of selling out, of compromising their principles for monetary gain.
Religious institutions rarely are involved in this kind of overt commodification, but they nonetheless often confuse the true value of the arts with their monetary price. Alternatively, they abuse the notion that art is priceless, expecting artists to donate their time and talents even when that would create an undue hardship. While there are, of course, successful artists who command many thousands of dollars for each of the many works they might sell in a year, most professional artists struggle to get by, taking any commission that comes their way, even if the effective hourly rate is below minimum wage. Asking such artists to donate their time and work can severely compromise their ability to pay their bills. Even Michelangelo was nearly bankrupted when Pope Julius II refused to pay him what he had promised for the Sistine Chapel.
Money, in itself, however, is only a marker for an attitude that sees no intrinsic value in artistic activities or objects. The problem of turning art into a commodity arises in churches when how much it costs, how much revenue it can raise, or how it can serve as a symbol of a congregation’s social status, outweighs the emotional, spiritual, and communal values that the arts can bring to a congregation and to the individuals that comprise it. In the church, art becomes a commodity when it is seen as a hook that will bring in new members, as a decorative addition to a worship service, or as a way to communicate the cultural sophistication of a congregation.
Art becomes a commodity when stained glass windows are ordered from a catalog with no sensitivity to the particular building and the congregation that worships there; when a church hires professional singers for the entertainment of the congregation rather than teaching its own members to sing as an offering to God; or when an exhibition series is started with the hopes that commissions on the sale of paintings will generate income for the church rather than for its promise as a ministry to artists. When the value of the arts is connected too closely to their monetary potential or liability, the loss is often the ability to experience an artwork directly. What is lost in the transaction is the experience of allowing an artwork to enter through the senses and
