To Contemplate the Human Soul
A Look in The Mirror of Truth at Man in His True Nature
In “Ars Gratia Artis,” Peter Cermak offers a learned and convincing analysis of the artistic value of certain forms of modern and contemporary art as well as a sweeping critique of other such forms. My response to him, therefore, is not so much a critique of the arguments as an attempt to open discussion about a fundamental question that seems to be largely taken for granted in his work as settled: what is the true purpose of art?
“Ars Gratia Artis” makes several references to the purpose of art as the communication of transcendent experience, while leaving the notion of transcendence decidedly foggy. Peter even adds at one point parenthetically that the transcendent experience of the artist can be of any kind. I think it is fair to say that most people mean by transcendence at least a going beyond the senses in a manner of elevation beyond the workaday experience of life, but beyond this, differences of understanding about the notion are manifold. Some hold that going beyond the senses, for man, is a process that builds upon the refinement and discipline of the senses themselves (this would be a Thomistic, or at least an Aristotelian account), whereas many others mean by transcendence something entirely intuitive and liberated from the senses (Transcendentalists of an Alcott or Emerson type). Further, and more importantly, the object toward which one steps in a transcendent experience is by no means agreed upon.
I take it from the middle and final lines of the moving sonnet that serves as a finale to “Ars Gratia Artis,” that the proper object of art assumed by Peter is the divine, even God Himself. The matter is not that this account is wrong, but only that it misses the more direct and common object of art. What I would propose as the proper and de facto object of true art is the virtual contemplation of the human soul. I take this argument from Arthur Little S.J. whose work The Shield of Pallas is, in my opinion, too often overlooked as a seminal work on the nature of art. (I would ask that readers not hold the “S.J.” against Father Little, as his tremendous arguments form a piercing Thomistic position on the purposes of authentic art.)
The position I take Little to be setting down is an essentially humanistic one (in the best sense of the term). That is, that what real art most fundamentally reveals to us are truths about human nature. The divine, of course, cannot be excluded from this picture, since as “Ars Gratia Artis” notes, the divine is the origin of the artistic spark. Yet, art nevertheless remains a properly human endeavor. It takes the mysteries of Liturgy and Sacraments to reveal to us what is properly divine, while the comparatively humble task of art can only lead the mind to God accidentally, so to speak, in the same manner as the divine effects in nature.
By way of illustration, I will rely on only one of Little’s arguments, since the whole would be lengthy, and I also do not have the source at hand. What I have selected is the argument from tragedy. Great tragedies often focus on matters of great sin and sorrow, and indeed often on unrepentant sin and undiminished sorrow. Such objects are by no means the fitting medium for contemplation of the most Holy God, and yet such tragedies are recognized among the greatest works of art. This phenomenon, however, presents no difficulties once the proper orientation of art is understood. In the realm of man’s soul, sin and sorrow are all too familiar, but the convincing portrayal of such elements allows for man to see their disorder and un-fittingness for his life. Or, even if no clearly relevant moral can be drawn, as the case often arises in Greek tragedy, the raw power of the emotions experienced is nevertheless a bridge to understanding man’s nature.
Again, art does not lack any orientation toward the divine, but rather is oriented more indirectly than is sometimes indicated, and if we are to have a clearer measure for evaluating claims to artistic standing then we must have a more precise picture of the art’s purpose. Neither do I believe that anything written here need be understood in opposition to the arguments of “Ars Gratia.”
Indeed, I believe that the conception of the nature of art presented here can lend greater clarity to the analysis of works such as Kandinsky’s. If, as Peter argues, great art draws the audience into the creative experience, then an orientation toward the virtual contemplation of the human soul appears even more inevitable, since the creative process in itself is a heightened realization of potential specific to man as a sub-creator. What is transcended in artistic experience, therefore, is the malaise of an ignorant and merely external participation in life. What is reached, is a look in the mirror of truth at man in his true nature, and yes, what is glimpsed is an image of God.