The Seductive and Destructive Lie of Art as Personal Taste, pt.2

Part One, and Two Recent Posts on Art:  One and Two (and Here's a Third from Further Past)

Exodus 31 verses 1 through 6 read:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: 3 And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 5 And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. 6 And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan: and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.

Among other places in scripture, this passage represents a scriptural understanding of art.  The artist is Bezaleel, and in his characteristics, the LORD "filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship" (v. 3).  With those traits, he could "devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship" (vv. 4-5).  His partner, Aholiab, was very similar (v. 6).

Bezaleel and Aholiab needed these attributes for true craftsmanship for the depiction of the glory of the Lord in the tabernacle.  True art depicts the object of genuine beauty, which is fashioned after the nature of God as seen in His creation.  The tabernacle provides a model for art and Bezaleel the artist.  Terence Fretheim writes:

Bezalel executes in miniature the divine creative role of Genesis 1 in the building of the tabernacle. The spirit of God with which the craftsmen are filled is a sign of the living, breathing force that lies behind the completing of the project just as it lies behind the creation. Their intricate craftsmanship mirrors God’s own work. The precious metals with which they work take up the very products of God’s beautiful creation and give new shape to that beauty within creation. Just as God created such a world in which God himself would dwell (not explicit in Genesis, but see Psalm 104:1-4; Isaiah 40:22), so now these craftsmen re-create a world in the midst of chaos wherein God may dwell once again in a world suitable for the divine presence. 

J. Cumming in the Biblical Illustrator writes:

It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that 

"On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung"; 

but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human being who is so richly crowned and gifted. 

Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the weaver, and the perfumer.

The Pulpit Commentary reads concerning the same context:

Artistic excellence is not a thing to be despised. It is very capable of abuse; but in itself it is a high gift, bestowed by God on a few only, with the special intent that it should be used to his honour and glory—not indeed in his direct service only—but always so as to improve, elevate, refine mankind, and thus help towards the advancement of God's kingdom.

Before the crafting of the tabernacle, the divine Glory descends on Mount Sinai for six days, covering it with a cloud.  The building of the tabernacle is a commission corresponding to God's creating the universe as seen in the linking of both creation and the tabernacle the institution of the Sabbath, foreshadowed in Genesis 2:1–4 and juxtaposed to the detailed description of the tabernacle in Exodus 31.  It is a re-creation of the act of original creation.  Art is imitative and depicts the glory of the Lord, the beauty of His holiness.  Bezaleel imitates God, the creation of the tabernacle representing the humanization of God's creation of the heavens and the earth, even as the tabernacle makes a place for the divine to dwell among mankind.

A parallel exists between the account of the creative, artistic act of Exodus 31, performed then in 35-40, and the making of the golden calf and its aftermath in Exodus 32-34.  In the case of the tabernacle, God's people are  requested, not commanded, by God to offer precious metals. With the calf, there is a similar offering of precious metal.  Bezaleel's work required skill at depicting the nature of God.  Aaron's work proceeds according to the fashion of the nations round about and from his own imagination.  It does not require any great ability.  In the former, God is glorified, and the latter He is blasphemed.  The contrasting patterns offer a lesson.

The tabernacle represents the created order from original matter that was without form and void. The form reflects the meaning of divine arrangement: light from darkness, day from night, dry land from the midst of water. God gives it coherence through His revelation.  On the other hand, the making of the golden calf arose as an expression of the desire of self to satisfy lust, even communicated by the sounds that Joshua heard in coming down the mount.  Some consider it a kind of word-play because the Hebrew word in Exodus 32:25, translated "naked" and meaning "a lack of control or restraint," is parua,  Pharoah, a kind of resubjugation to Pharoah, using the spoils that Israel took from the Egyptians when they left Egypt. The tabernacle was a holy act and the calf was an unholy one.

Revelation of God is the basis for true beauty, objective beauty, the beauty of God's holiness, and art.  It is a transcendent depiction of God's revelation, such as produces the awe of God's creation and His will.  The physical world is not a prison from which to escape, even to look inward, but is the creation of God and the location of His visitation of man, just like the tabernacle.  This can include the glory of depicting in a realistic way ordinary people functioning at their work, which has spiritual dignity and significance.  The Bible is the first book of God's revelation, but Dutch landscape painters portrayed nature as God's second book of revelation.

Martha Bayles in Hole in Our Soul:  The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, said the modern age has been a period of "intense self-consciousness about the meaning and purpose of art" and it all started when art "began having radical doubts about its relationship with the truth."  Instead of looking for the truth outside of ourselves, the modern age or the enlightenment looked to the ultimate reality in the mental, particularly in the realm of ideas.  Pre-enlightenment or pre-modern, art had been to express truth, which always originates from the outside of a man, so that art is a mirror or reflection of objective truth, a vehicle for real knowledge.  In a world of matter in motion, beauty does not exist as an objective quality, but the outpouring of inner feelings or expression.

Christians should enjoy the aesthetic qualities of art while developing the tools for critical analysis, so there is more to come.