A fellow staff member, medical officer, who had plowed through the worst of man's destruction in both WWII and Korea, had very little to discuss concerning the depravity-ugliness he had seen of man's inhumanity to man in warfare. He did not discuss ugliness but, every chance was out photographing beauty. With his expensive camera equipment he would spend hours photographing one beautiful flower, it's change during the day. This man did not have a religious thought in his mind, had never attended church of any type but, God had a breakthrough with him in beauty and in art. So it has always been. Other than some historic cave art in Chauvet, France, little is known about art before the cross. (the pivotal point of all history) With stained glass windows in great cathedrals or even in local village churches, art was introduced to the masses. Art became synonymous with Christianity, little art, little appreciation of women and children. (women were little more than slaves before Christ) Can one even imagine the peasants of France, in Notre Dame Cathedral looking at the great rose window.
It is my opinion that even the worst of us have some appreciation for art... the grossest man appreciates the beauty of a woman or child. The most unintellectual farmer appreciates a beautiful crop plant or farm animal. The female who has never seen an art museum enjoys embroidery, colors or material in a homemade quilt.
Some of us were born with an innate inquiry and appreciation of beauty. I well remember, as a child, my appreciation of a beautiful home, beautiful furniture, beautiful apparel... ugliness was repugnant to me.
One cannot improve on the beauty, expressed in art given by God. Michelangelo and Norman Rockwell made a great contribution. The classical writers and artists of music have made a great contribution, but to this day, no one has ever made a sound more beautiful than a bird.
I have visited the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Duomo in Milan, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and other galleries and museums throughout the world. I have heard great artists, the classics, but I still appreciate Fannie Crosby and Charles Wesley (world's greatest hymn writers, Crosby 8,000 hymns, Wesley 5,000)
Art of every type, music, literature, is a matter of to whom it is directed. One of the world's great violinists, at a $200 a seat ticket, formal wear audience, performed in Boston's Faneuil Hall, afterwords, he went down and played int the subway, some of the same music on the same multimillion dollar violin. Very few stopped to listen. $34 and change was put in is violin case.
There is no greater proof of God than the fact a good tree will bring forth good fruit and a bad tree, corrupt fruit. In Africa, a woman professor of music at the university of Montreal, after we had heard some unintelligible drumming, “Anything is music if it has a beat.” Perhaps, but I get no pleasure from the beat and intemperateness of the rap, hip hop artist. I get no pleasure from pornography, even though the same camera takes smut that takes beautiful scenery. I saw beauty in the wide expanses of the Sahara, just sand and sky. I see beauty from the front porch of my beach house, looking across the Atlantic, just water and sky. Whether the Great Tetons of Western USA or the Alps of Switzerland, it is a blessed human, who with hand-eye coordination can capture such on canvass. Those with talent, those blessed as an artist of any type, are that much ahead of we mere mortals. The difference in painting, photography, music, literature, realism... the ability of the artist to make his art real to the participant.
Truth is truth whether anyone believes it or not. Often the reality of truth is revealed in the best of art... even nakedness, cruelty, but, those who intentionally revile art or sacredness (crucifix, manure on a portrait of Madonna, obscenities in lyrics) should be revealed... not tolerated by the artists or patrons of art.
History has been marked with literature by those who felt pressed to indoctrinate every one with addictions, alcoholism, psychiatric obsessions. Erskine Caldwell's, God's Little Acre will never replace classics of David Copperfield, The Rogue, or For Whom the Bell Tolls. Centerfolds in Playboy, Playgirl, Cosmopolitan, will never replace “slick” magazines such as those of art or even Life or National Geographic.
God gave us both the ability to create art and the ability to appreciate art. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. (Ephesians 5:6,7)
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