What is the Purpose of Art?
We gazed up at the ceiling. We were enraptured by the dramatic depictions of salvation history. We marveled at the sheer beauty of Michelangelo’s art. We were struck silent.
It was 1999. I and my fellow Oblates (along with many others) were visiting the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. It was a joy for all of us to be there.
After a minute or so of craning my neck, I decided to take a break, look down, and turn my gaze toward the people. What I saw was perhaps even more beautiful than the Sistine Chapel ceiling. What I saw were faces – both sexes, from various parts of the world, with various nationalities, various ages, various skin tones. It was a whole cross section of humanity that was standing before me. People from all parts of the world. And they were all looking up.
They were looking up at the ceiling.
Their faces were glowing with joy. And their mouths were wide open in awe and wonder.
It's been many years, but I don’t think I will ever forget that image. They were faces that were literally transformed by the beauty of art.
So what is the purpose of art?
When living in Rome, I would often pass by a small building which housed a radical left-wing art organization. Painted above their doorway were the words, “The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.” It is a quote from Toni Cade Bambara, a 20th Century filmmaker and social activist.
Is that really the role of the artist? Well, perhaps it can be, under certain circumstances. But it should be obvious to anyone that this definition is very limiting – art exists for many reasons, not simply to start revolutions. Otherwise, any city with an art museum would be in constant turmoil.
“Art should comfort the disturb and disturb the comfortable”. This quote comes from Cesar Cruz, another social activist who has devoted his life to reducing gang-related violence. Other artists have taken this quote and shortened it to the even more confining (and ridiculous), “The purpose of art is to disturb”.
Either way, we can see that these attempts to define the purpose of art fall short. After all, do we look at the Sistine Chapel with such amazement because it disturbs us? Or because it incites us to violent revolution? I think not.
Andrei Tarkovsky
We can turn to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky for better answers. Born in 1932 and the son of a poet, he made only a handful of films before dying of cancer at the age of fifty-four. These films are extraordinary, and many of them have an intensely spiritual tone to them (in stark contrast to the Marxist-Leninist government that had a stranglehold over Russia and Eastern Europe for most of the 20th Century).
When speaking of cinema, Tarkovsky first looks at the artist (the director). Is the artist meant to promote solely his/her own personal ideas or “statements”? No. Tarkovsky argues that such artists (and there are so many of them in today’s world) are in love with their own echo.
The true artist, instead, is a servant. Tarkovsky argues that the more the artist seeks to make art his own individual statement, to bolster his own ego, that artist produces art that is stale and lifeless. The artist who is a servant, who expends himself at the service of art, who allows his or her creative self to be expended at the service of art, creates true beauty. There is no true art without true sacrifice.
“The artist,” says Tarkovsky, “is always the servant and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle.” (from Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time)
As to the purpose of art, Tarkovsky speaks with gravity. Art, he suggests, is for personal conversion. “The aim of art,” Tarkovsky says, “is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow the soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.” (from Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time)
The Catholic Church has spoken many times on the purpose of art, but perhaps the best definition comes from His Holiness Pope Pius XI. In his 1934 address to the Italian Federation of Motion Picture Press, Pope Pius said, “The essential purpose of art, its raison d’etre, is to assist in the perfection of the moral personality, which is man...”
Isn’t it clear that when we gaze upon the Sistine Chapel ceiling, we are doing much more than simply absorbing an artist’s desire to disturb or incite revolution? Don’t we feel as if the artist himself has disappeared behind the artwork, and that the artwork itself speaks to our souls? And that this art, rather than simply relaying a radical message or making a facile statement, is instead touching our innermost self with beauty? Isn’t it true that in this beauty we see the ongoing perfection of man himself, and thus begin to capture the beauty of God Himself – a beauty found in the beauty of His own artwork of creation?
“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air…Question all these things. They all answer you, ‘Here we are, look; we’re beautiful!’ Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable?” – St. Augustine of Hippo (Benedict XVI, Church Fathers and Teachers, pp. 183, 184)
Benedict XVI, Pope. Church Fathers and Teachers – From St. Leo the Great to Peter Lombard. San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2010.
Mugridge, SOLT, Dr. Christine A. and Sr. Mary Gannon, FMA. John Paul II Development of a Theology of Communication. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008.
Tarkovsky, Andrei. Sculpting in Time. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987.