The Eye of the Beholder

Right now I am listening to "Laudate Pueri, Dominum" by Couperin and it is so incredibly beautiful, there are no words to describe it. On the cover of Magnificat this month is a painting of a Gothic cathedral, and it strikes me how those things created by the hand of man reflect the beholder. So many of us are deeply moved by the beauty of a majestic Medieval church or the intricacies of a sacred piece by Josquin de Prez, and this is perhaps not surprising when you realize that the primary beholder is God. Yes, they are meant to be seen or heard by humans and direct our thoughts heavenward, but in some sense they were created for God. Nonbelievers grasp this as well and react accordingly; I know one athiest who listens to Bach's "Mass in B Minor" over and over, saying how much it moves him. Once he wondered why music like that isn't written anymore, and he had no reply when I pointed out that Bach was writing for God but most music nowadays is written to appeal to the lowest common denominator. An even more extreme example is an acquaintance who actually said Gothic cathedrals made him uneasy because they made God seem so... "big!" "I like to think of God being my size!" he said. I found this an incredibly mind-boggling statement - how could God be 5'10"? - but at least he didn't miss the message that sacred space was built to convey.

The second level of art would be that aimed at human beholders. Most people find the portraits painted by the old Renaissance Dutch and Venetian masters very beautiful, and so they are, because they were created with the patron in mind. Music up until the time of Beethoven was very much this way as well. I would say Beethoven was the first composer who seemed more concerned with his own creative ideas than with the listeners' perceptions. This has become extreme in modern art and music, to the point that the upheld ideal is not something which is easy to relate to but something "challenging," meaning most people do not care for it. Personally, I would think art, like any other commodity, should be subject to market forces. When painters and composers had to please kings and dukes, look what beauty they created! When they get grants from the NEA, look what downright subversive and smutty things they create using our tax money! And then we, the people who paid for this trash, are at best browbeaten for our populist tastes and failure to embrace ugliness, and at worst are accused of censorship for protesting having to pay for things that offend our religious beliefs, not to mention our sense of beauty! Sorry, censorship means you are not allowed to create this garbage. Nobody is stopping you from doing so; we are merely protesting having to foot the bill.

This brings me to the third level. Who is the "beholder" of so much modern art? It would seem that it is the artist alone, but perhaps it is someone more sinister than that. If God is beauty, then what would ugliness be? And who would be trying to pass ugly off as the new beautiful if not that ancient deceiver, Satan? After all, when an artist creates something not to please God or even other people but only himself, is he not in some sense making the same choice Satan did, to recognize himself above God as the ultimate judge of good and evil? And would Satan not want us to reject the truly beautiful in favor of the pornographic and sacriligious? When a crucifix suspended in urine or a play depicting Jesus as homosexual is held up as great art while an artist like Thomas Kinkade who creates beautiful landscapes is derided for being both "too Christian" and "too accessible," you can easily figure out whose side the critics are on.

Famous Hat