And Muses of Mediocrity (sp) exist too. How many times have you read/heard a pedestrian versifier or the author of pulp fiction claim that their work "just writes itself"? "It was like Something was writing through me!" Flip through a few back numbers of Writer's Digest if you don't believe me.

Yet these "inspired" writers produce forgettable stuff, with perhaps a few clever turns of phrase of plot devices here or there.

Having noticed this to my surprise and horror early in my writing career, I've never ascribed even my best poetry to Someone Else, no matter how uncanny its origins seemed to be, or how "easy" it was to write. I doubt God has much reason to comose dramatic monologues about dead movie stars.

I think it was Canadian writer Colby Cosh who once observed ruefully that "sometimes 'the groove' is just 'too much coffee.'"
kathy Shaidle | Homepage | 12.30.05 - 5:15 pm | #

I tried to express this idea, much less effectively, to my mother when she asked me why I didn't listen to 'good Christian music', referring to Christian rock. I responded that I didn't listen to it because it was all 'garbage', i.e. had no artistic merit. Unfortunately, the inverse of your thesis is also often true: good and moral people aren't necessarily at all talented. When someone is both talented and holy, watch out!
JeremyB | Homepage | 12.30.05 - 7:17 pm | #

Jeremy:

Exactly. Exhibit #9860832464 -- the recent THERESE.

That's what Barbara Nicolosi constantly harps on -- that religious ghetto work is usually bad. A religious artist, to be taken seriously as an artist [and thus potentially as a missionary to those benighted lands], must first be a *good* artist with the secular knowledge of his craft.
Victor Morton | Homepage | 12.30.05 - 7:56 pm | #

I read an interesting book review in the WSJ today about creative genius - manic depression very frequently goes hand in hand with creativity. The reviewer noted that the ability to "think loosely" and discern patterns and meaning in things "ordinary" people don't notice is of inestimable value when it comes to writing poetry or novels. In real life, that same ability can lead to thoughts like this: "That man is following me,...,the CIA follows people,...,I'm being followed by the CIA."

When people seem to take the profound political and theological insights of Sean Penn or Madonna seriously, I like to remind them of the first star turned political activist in American history. John Wilkes Booth was quite the heartthrob in his day.
Donna | 12.30.05 - 8:02 pm | #

Re. "Christian music":

I don't know too much about it myself, but it's not *all* garbage - one of my musical, poetic, and yes, spiritual heroes is (was) the late Rich Mullins, may he rest in peace.

He wore the label of "Christian musician" uncomfortably, and frequently complained himself that people listened to Christian music, including his own, as if it were prophecy.

Why's he a spiritual hero of mine? Because he was a saint. He had a saint's abandonment to God, a saint's jaded and sometimes cranky view of temporal things, a saint's disdain for human opinion and impatience with politics and pretence.

Incidentally, Mullins seems to have come within a hair's breadth of being received into full communion with the Church just before he died. I didn't know this until well after I had started my own journey to Rome, but I now count him as one of the great influences (the other one being Chesterton) in my conversion.
Phil Toman | 12.30.05 - 8:18 pm | #

There's a reason the Greeks believed in the Muses: it was a reasonable way to account for the fact that people who could be so stupid in the rest of life could suddenly and inexplicably be so profound when they sang.

That's going in my "quoteable quotes" file.
Dennis_Mahon | Homepage | 12.30.05 - 11:18 pm | #

The world's greatest artist: The Virgin Mary

The world's second greatest artist: David Lynch


What the One did in the real world the second did in the world of art.

That's all.
Pace | 12.31.05 - 1:47 am | #

David Lynch cooperated with God to gave birth to the savior of art?

What in ... uh ... heaven's name does that mean other than "I like David Lynch very very VERY much and I want to compare him to the Virgin Mary because I like her very very VERY much." (In which there's no real point in comparing him to her instead of Pele, Einstein, Plato, Muhammad Ali or some other recognized giant in some field.

That is all.
Victor Morton | Homepage | 12.31.05 - 4:41 am | #

Phil, I was being a bit simplistic when I said that all Christian music was garbage. I apologize. I liked Rich Mullins too. (In fact, he spent a lot of time in my home town of Wichita.) I suppose that I dislike the Christians who decide they want to minister to young people and say, 'Well, lets use the rock music that the kids seem to love.' Those folks tend to churn out unremarkable drivel.

Real artists producing good music, who also happen to be Christians and infuse that into their work as a consequence, are fine.
JeremyB | Homepage | 12.31.05 - 12:04 pm | #

Here's what Jacques Maritain had to say about "Christian" art in Art & Scolasticism: "If you want to make a Christian work, then be Christian, and simply try to make a beautiful work, into which your heart will pass; do not try to 'make Christian.'

"Do not separate your art from your faith. But leave distinct what is distinct. Do not try to blend by force what life unites so well. If you were to make of your aesthetic an article of faith, you would spoil your faith. If you were to make of your devotion a rule of artistic activity, or if you were to turn desire to edify into a method of your art, you would spoil your art."
Mark Gordon | Homepage | 12.31.05 - 1:27 pm | #

"David Lynch cooperated with God to gave birth to the savior of art?"

Only two times in the history of the world can a ([i]the[/i]) perfect work of art be incarnated into the world.

The reactions to Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" are identical to the reactions elicited by Jesus' presence.
Pace | 12.31.05 - 2:14 pm | #

I heartily agree that attempts to do a "Christian version" of this and that is bound to result in embarrassingly bad art. I used to cringe whenever I went in an evangelical bookstore, back when I was an evangelical. Now I like to do it just because it makes me chuckle.
Phil Toman | 12.31.05 - 2:48 pm | #

By "art" I do not mean, "morally good". Nor do I mean "inspired by God". I mean that the filmmaker (Ang Lee) appears to be interested in trying to reflect something real about humans . . . .

Eisenstein and Riefenstahl would agree with you and eagerly explain that's what they were trying to do.

" . . . and not create propaganda for the purpose of conforming the will of the masses to an ideology.)"

Mark, the idea of art as a "morally contentless" realm of "reflective" excellence is false.

Even your praise of BM, which appreciate's Lee's attempt to show us something "real" a/k/a "true" about human nature, admits as much.

If art holds up a mirror, that presumes there's something to reflect, and that the reflection can be evaluated. One can't do that without a moral framework.

Art can be agitprop and agitprop can be art. Nothing in our condition becomes safer, or better, or more edifying just because we can recognize that one piece of creativity is more elegant or advanced than another piece of creativity.

I don't know how we could appreciate Michaelangelo's "Last Judgment" without admitting it's an attempt to "conform the will of the masses to an ideology."

It's just that the ideology in Michaelangelo's "Last Judgment" is true, whereas so much of the ideology that makes up BM's attempt to influence the will of the masses is false.
SecretAgentMan | Homepage | 12.31.05 - 7:06 pm | #

SAM:

The problem is that this view of art, hewed to as a priori dogma, makes impossible pagan and secular art (the two adjectives are equally relevant). Which, like the green sky, is one of those ridiculous empirical conclusions that, if reached rationistically, should cause one to go back to the starting premises.

I know I'm stealing this example from someone else, but if you identify the "true" too closely with the "beautiful," you'll come to identify the "beautiful" with the "true" and risk concluding that the Pyramids prove the Egyptian religion true.

I think the error is the slide from "something real about humans" to "reflecting the truth of human nature." Can't make that reductive and anti-empirical leap.
Victor Morton | Homepage | 12.31.05 - 8:26 pm | #

Victor:

Sorry, but that went right over my head. Could you dumb it down a bit? I'd appreciated it, thanks.
SecretAgentMan | Homepage | 01.01.06 - 1:01 am | #

SAM:

I'm saying one of two things is true:

(1) OEDIPUS REX is not a work of art. Nor is anything else made before 35AD, or after that year not under the auspices of Christendom (cite favorite example; I used the Egyptian pyramids).

OR

(2) That Truth, which is to say Christ, is not an essential, definitive element in a work of art.

I choose (2).
Victor Morton | Homepage | 01.01.06 - 3:15 am | #

Or to elaborate:

The notion that the true and the beautiful are coterminus is false. Because if that were simply and absolutely so, then we'd be forced into either (1) OEDIPUS REX or the Egyptian pyramids are not beautiful; or (2) Apollo or Amen-Ra rules the universe.

Neither option seems empirically tenable to me, so it leads me back to rethink first principles. On those terms, I reject as absolutely unworthy of belief, as worthy of belief as "the sky is green," any philosophical notion that the true/good/beautiful are inseperable. Once we've done that, once we've separated them, then we can discuss film-makers like Leni Riefenstahl or Sergei Eisenstein (or Dovzhenko or Dziga-Vertov). Or, at least in principle, Ang Lee.
Victor Morton | Homepage | 01.01.06 - 3:25 am | #

Flannery O'Connor has a great deal to say, especially in her later letters and essays, about the relationship of art and prophesy--based largely on her reading of Maritain, Guardini, and Teilhard de Chardin (not all of whom I myself like or agree with). One of her many such statements: "The fiction writer should be characterized by his kind of vision. His kind of vision is prophetic vision. Prophecy, which is dependent on the imaginative and not the moral faculty, need not be a matter of predicting the future. The prophet is a realist of distances, and it is this kind of realism that goes into great novels. It is the realism which does not hesitate to distort appearances in order to show a hidden truth." (Mystery and Manners, 179)

There's a lot going on here, and probably in Brokeback as well. First, it's important to note that a writer writes what he/she sees and understands, which will always be incomplete because of finitude and distorted because of original sin (even without the additional damage of personal sin). Neither the BVM (because finite) nor Lynch (because damaged by sin) is the "greatest artist" in history. Each artwork is an expression of the artist's vision of the world, and is exactly as valuable as that vision.

Now, a vision can be more or less true, or can focus on one truth to the exclusion of others. There is nothing wrong with noting that Brokeback perceives and expresses some truths about human nature even as it gets others dead wrong. In fact, we should expect that of any work of art. Gibson's "Passion" has its limitations and its faults, even though it gets a great deal more right than any other Jesus movie ever has.

Moreover, as has been said by others, just having a true vision doesn't mean that it will be expressed well; nor does a technically good expression make the vision true. I think "American Beauty" and "Pulp Fiction" are examples of extremely well-made films that very beautifully express a very inhuman vision. Their vision is almost completely false, but that vision is presented very well. Is this good art? From a technical standpoint, yes. From a more holistic standpoint, no; because beauty ultimately is the manifestation of truth, and the only truth these films manifest is the mastery of craft.

Grace and peace.
Robert King, OP | 01.01.06 - 3:41 pm | #

Victor,
Is there truth in Oedipus Rex, not the full truth of Jesus Christ, but certain aspects of truth?
Fred K. | Homepage | 01.02.06 - 12:31 am | #

It's important to remember that Plato would have kicked Homer and Sophocles out of his ideal republic because of they depicted the gods irreverently. The Muses, too, could be regulated, if not by poets then by philosophers. For him both the beautiful and the true were to celebrate and give glory to the good, their only begetter.

Augustine too believed that the pagan drama of his day was demonically inspired--it was geared, he said, towards showing how the gods delighted in human obscenity. (See his City of God). In this he followed Plato's lead. For him it seems, the only drama a Christian needed was the drama of Christ redeeming the world, both in the Liturgy we now call the Mass and in his own soul and community. What could be more dramatic and compelling than the Word become flesh and extending himself to mere, fallen man?

There is, in other words, a Christian basis for being censorious of art that does not live up to or celebrate the good. That being said, the history of art, literature, etc., shows that that way unhappiness lies. When a society can produce a Michaelangelo, great, but we don't live in those times. Therefore, we have to look at what we have, and as Rod Dreher and Robert King have intimated, Flannery O'Connor's letters are really the most advanced thinking on the relationship between art and the good that we have in the contemporary era.

Also, Victor, the Word made flesh is not ideology, which exists in people's heads. There's a difference between reality and ideology. Ideology is by definition false consciousness. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and therefore all suffer from ideology. (Or to paraphrase Emperor Marcus Sheavius Maximus, we have all sinned and we are therefore to that extent stupider). Those who have a clearer apprehension of God's glory, though, are to that degree freed from the grip of ideology. If you don't believe me, see Augustine's volumes, Confessions and The Trinity.

I have not seen Brokeback Mountain, nor will I, as time and money can be better spent in my situation. However, I can say very generally that Oedipus Rex does not recommend incest, and if Brokeback Mountain is true to the human condition in a congruent but less intense fashion, it is certainly possible that it can use the phenomenon of homoerotic love to explore the tragic, human condition. If Rod is right--and again I have no basis for saying yay or nay to that conditional--then it's a shame that our politicized, phillistinic artistic environment can't help but take the sacred and come up with a plague of rats. Where are the golden hemrrhoids that will deliver them? (Please see the Book of Kings if you think that's Gibberish).
BA | 01.02.06 - 10:23 am | #

It's also good to remember that Balaam is no less a prophet for being a false prophet. Just because someone is a prophet doesn't mean he or she is worth listening to; and just because something is a work of art doesn't mean it's worth viewing.

BA makes a good point about reality vs. ideology. Reality is the basis for judging how worthwhile anything is: test everything, even prophets and even art; cling to what is good--i.e., what is true and real, i.e., what is of Christ.
Robert King, OP | 01.02.06 - 12:13 pm | #

If I'm understanding the quoted Flannery above, I would have to comment that prophecy is not just imaginative without any dependency on the moral framework necessary to make proper judgments in the present in order to extend the present into the future unknown. That is rather "logical prophecy"... if this or that doesn't change then one can predict future happenings... not necessarily dates but consequences. Many of the OT prophets were of that order. If it is something like predicting the downfall of Jerusalem for some specific time... say, within a generation, that would rather be inspired... and again, not based solely in the imagination.

Within "pagan art" there can be witnessed at least an attempt at truth and beauty and order based on what is known at the time. It can be a "longing, in formation" for more, tending towards THE TRUTH. But, if it is merely an attempt to reject the already known good and true, and attempt to foster some other kind of order of truth, then what is noted as "art" or "beauty" would be based more on the externals... like a good script, good photography of good subjects and scenery, but the essential GOOD is missing from th "spirit" of the work. And in the end, it can't help but leave the human spirit rather "dis-spirited" which perhaps happens in this film or any other that tries to hope in something that stops looking for the desired plan of God just as suffering for no purpose results in only melodrama.
Chris K | 01.02.06 - 1:31 pm | #

Robert:

"It's also good to remember that Balaam is no less a prophet for being a false prophet."

A very good point.

Christ K:

From an Augustinian point of view--and I think this is correct--nothing emerges from the imagination that wasn't somehow put there. The imaginative faculty or creative capacity is as much a matter of recombining, refiguring, reorienting things as it is of coming up with "new" stuff. Imagination therefore can serve the truth just as well as reason--often more powerfully. Both prophets and artists, then, have inspired imaginations, though to different ends. Art that does not celebrate truth, goodness, or beauty but functions merely as a diversion or titillation is mere entertainment. And, please forgive the pedanticism, but melodrama is more often than not the most earnestly moral genre of all. That's why it's often so dreadfully brutal. It's agitprop equipped with an ethos rather than an ideology.

Thanks for this discussion,

BA
BA | 01.02.06 - 2:37 pm | #

Yes, BA, I can "imagine" your purposes in your comment. Oftentimes I would say that imagination serves art more by what is left out than what is blatantly shoved in one's face, even if it is the result of an artist's own individual creativity, unique approach and assumptions of what the audience's limitations may be! Melodrama serves art with an approach of a club rather than assuming the audience can finesse the more delicate repercussions resulting from hints applied from a more experienced artist. Perhaps, then, the audience would also have to be more experienced or sophisticated in observation and receptivity which either is just not the case today, or the arrogance of the artist would prefer to dictate a point of view rather than respect the dignity of objective truth, taking advantage of audiences of frogs slowly reaching the boiling point without too much objection. As someone else mentioned above, imagination must be accompanied by the ability to express itself well... at least for practical purposes. So, then, perhaps we should also be considering "skill"... and just why some generations produce excellence of the highest proportions in the arts and others are left to "suck off" of those ultimates. And why it is hard to "imagine" that what is now considered to be universally classical could ever have been looked upon as revolutionary or risque. Yes, an interesting discussion. I guess there's "just no accounting for taste"! And if there wasn't "beauty in the eye of the beholder" a lot of us would go through life awfully lonely!
Chris K | 01.02.06 - 7:57 pm | #

Perhaps we should define what we mean by "beauty".

I would suggest that true beauty is to be found in asymetry, or through an asymetrical vision, or way of seeing, rather than in or through symetry. At least for us still here on earth.
Pace | 01.02.06 - 10:53 pm | #