About the Teaching of Art

Should art be taught for enjoyment or understanding? Or can it be taught for both? I've been wondering about that for a few months. Last fall I had some talks with my mom about the place art should have in a curriculum based on relational principles (i.e. Charlotte Mason). Now my college semester has begun, and with it my fourth and final semester of humanities. We've been studying history chronologically, so this semester is about the 20th century. We've already studied plenty of modern art.

I've noticed, however, that all we study are the avant-garde, envelope-pushing works. We've looked at Matisse and Picasso and Munch, watched Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, listened to atonal music and talked about Schoenberg's twelve-tone system. Our discussions of "what's happening in art" during the 20th century have focused on modernism and post-modernism: the rejection of traditional Western aesthetics, experiments with other styles, and the serious, searching art that was produced as a result.

[Admittedly, the literature we've studied—World War I poets, W. B. Yeats, Pygmalion—has been more traditional. (In other words: no Joyce!) We haven't studied the literature as art, however, but as illustrations of contemporary ideas. The WWI poets demonstrate the two ways people looked at the war (romantic, patriotic sentiment versus shocked, disillusioned realism). Pygmalion expresses and criticizes the behaviorist principles of B. F. Skinner. And so on.]

I understand to a point why we ought to study the latest developments in art. The state of the arts can tell us much about the state of a culture. But my question is this: why do we privilege progressive art over works created in older styles, works which may do nothing to advance the art of art, but which are still profound and moving and beautiful? Why the bias towards the new?

I asked two of my professors this question, separately, and got several answers. One professor replied that, in a survey course such as humanities, we have limited time, and have to focus on the tip of the spear, so to speak, as art moves forward. He explained that, once you hit the 18th and 19th centuries, old styles no longer die out as new ones are born; thus by the 20th century you end up having neoclassical, romantic, realist, and a whole list of other styles all being used simultaneously with the developing modernism. That modernism is the new element, so that's what needs our attention. But just because we're not studying the other art of the 20th century doesn't mean it's not important.

The other professor replied that the humanities course is focused on understanding art rather than enjoying it. (This professor, by the way, enjoys art as much as anyone I know.) I may be misinterpreting him, but I think his point was this. When we look at the diverse collection of 20th century styles, most of them are ones we have studied before. Romanticism we met in the 1800s; neoclassicism in the 1700s. So, while artists may still be using those styles, they offer no new perspective on the human condition. The new styles, those that offer a different approach: those are the ones we can learn from. Those are the ones that add something substantial to our understanding of the world.

I think I understand their arguments, but they don't satisfy me. If students are taught to understand art—that is, to analyze it—without being taught to enjoy it, then education has missed the point of art. If we approach a work only to extract its philosophical underpinnings, then we have forgotten how to listen, and if we do not listen, we cannot learn. Art must be experienced, not merely studied. We learn from art only when we respect it enough to build a relationship with it. That means entering without an agenda and without trying to analyze. It means entering with attention, even with humility, to ask the art what it means.

Any good art will be rewarding if we take the time to build that relationship with it. In saying this, I disagree with the bias towards new art. I don't mind learning about the new as well as the old; we have to know the whole history in order to understand where we are now. What bothers me is the tendency to say that an artist must say something new in order for his work to have significance; to say that the only legitimate, honest art is that which speaks in the most current dialect; to say that today's questions can only be answered with today's artistic styles.

If art were like science, always gaining more knowledge, always correcting old theories, then the bias towards new art would be necessary. But art is not progressive like science. An old work of art, or an old style of art, has as much to say to us now as the art that is current. Plenty of music composed in the 20th century was sophisticated and significant without abandoning tonality or aesthetic standards. Vaughan Williams comes to mind, as does some Prokofiev, or later works by Stravinsky. Plenty of literature written in the 20th century was beautiful and meaningful without abandoning traditional narrative structures or poetic forms. I'm thinking of The Lord of the Rings, or the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, or Yeats's lyrical works.

We can gain as much by getting to know these traditional works as we can by studying new styles. Atonal music, abstract art, stream-of-consciousness literature, and the like may be more "advanced" (that is to say, newer). But that does not make them more valid or more valuable than art which says well what needs to be said, whether it has been said once or a thousand times.

Batman Begins: the Untold Story

I just finished watching Batman Begins for the first time with my brothers. They had both seen it before, which put us in the interesting situation of them showing me a movie for once. (An unusual occasion, that.) I enjoyed the movie a lot, but at the same time it left me with an unsettling feeling. In this movie, more than in any of the other Batmans or superhero movies I've seen, you see the vulnerability of good guys. It wasn't simply that the hero had weaknesses, or that he could be injured; that's a given in any good superhero story. This movie made you doubt Batman's ability to save Gotham, or stay a step ahead of the bad guys, or protect the ones he loved. It made you doubt his ability to defeat evil at all.

Batman Begins made me feel how precarious our victories are in this life. The world is balanced on a razor's edge. No matter how many times we save the world, all we're doing is keeping it from slipping. It remains hanging on the edge of destruction. The next battle could very well be the last.

Likewise, the movie made me feel how powerless we are to fight. Though Batman had his superpowers, in the end it was the power of the bad guys that was impressive. Batman's victory was hardly triumphant: it was victory by a hair's breadth. He succeeded in snatching Gotham from total destruction, but only after the bad guys had infiltrated the whole city and caused a huge amount of damage. Except for the fact that it was a Batman movie, which meant that he had to come out on top, there was no sense of certainty that he would prevail in this battle, nor any surety of his victory in the future. The bad guys knew his tricks (in fact they taught him most of his tricks); and as Lieutenant Gordon said at the end, what is to stop our enemies from matching power with power? You start using semi-automatics; they get automatics. You start flying around in a bulletproof suit; they pull out the armor-piercing rounds. There are more of them. They hold the cards. (Sometimes literally.)

That is indeed our position in this world's war. We face an evil of such immense power that not one of us can hope to defeat it. Our enemy is far beyond our strength. As Luther wrote, many years ago,

Still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate:
On earth is not his equal.

No matter how fiercely we fight, our foes will always be fiercer. No matter what weapons we can find to throw at them, they will always be a step ahead of us. No matter how wise and careful our plans, their cunning and malice will always be stronger. We are like ants fighting dragons. They hold all the cards.

Except one. And that one is the trump card. We have a Messiah: a Savior who cannot be defeated. He cannot be defeated because he was already defeated once, and came back again. His power, the power of resurrection from death, is greater than any power of the enemies that beset us. And that power lives in us and works in the world (1 John 4:4).

Yet still we see darkness closing in around us. Evil is an ever-encroaching flood, and the dark waters of sin and death seem to be only just kept at bay by an ever-dwindling number of fighters. Our victories all seem precarious. No matter how often we drag the world back from the brink of destruction, it keeps slipping. We cannot trust ourselves to win the next battle. We can't trust ourselves to protect the things or the people we love. We can't even trust ourselves to keep fighting. But even in such conditions, we have a hope to hold on to.

No matter how dark the world grows, and no matter how few our numbers, our Messiah will never give up on us. Gotham was so depraved that Ra's Al Ghul thought the city was past hope and condemned it to destruction. Bruce Wayne, however, looked at the few in the city who were still fighting—Rachel, Mr. Fox, Sergeant Gordon—and saw them as a sign of hope for Gotham's redemption. Our God likewise looked at the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah, and said that if it were only for the sake of ten righteous people, the cities should be spared. What's more, our Messiah has promised to protect his own. He hasn't lost a man yet (John 6:39).

That is our hope. Not in our fighting, but in the one who fights for us: in a Messiah who is both merciful and powerful to save. So long as he fights with us, we cannot be defeated. Darkness may prevail for a time, but we know that good will defeat evil in the end. But how do we join the fight? And how do we spread our hope?

One way is by prayer. Our direct plea to God, and his direct action in the world, are powerful forces to work good. Another way is by living righteous lives. Proverbs 28:4 says that to obey the law is to fight the wicked. Our daily perseverance in righteousness—being honest with friends, being faithful to spouses, having patience with an over-talkative co-worker, not cheating when it would be easy to do so, even simply fighting the chaos in the hall closet—all of those ordinary, everyday deeds are really indispensable in the fight against evil. They are the bricks which build the ramparts of our defense.

Yet another way to fight evil is with stories. I know, I know. "Stories?" you say. "Alongside prayer and righteousness? That's a bit of a stretch." Not at all. It is through stories that people make sense of the world. Our stories tell us the shape of the war going on around us. The stories we believe make us either hope or despair, love or hate, fight or flee. Stories have the power to tell us that redemption is possible, that evil is conquerable, that the fight is worth fighting. This is what Chesterton meant when he said that "fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

We need stories to show us the truth, for they alone have that power. Yeats once said that "man can embody truth but he cannot know it." He meant that truth is in the parable rather than the precept. Ideas can be true—or rather, accurate—up to a point. Philosophy can tell us that there is a fight between good and evil. Morality can tell us which one ought to win. Religion can even tell us who are the contestants. But only a story can tell us how the fight turns out.

That ability to embody the truth gives stories great power. But—to mix fandoms—with great power comes great responsibility. Here Batman Begins both succeeded and failed. It did indeed show Batman winning in the end. But the world in which he won was a world ruled by the bad guys, a world in which the good guys were vigilantes waging a hopeless war on evil. That's only half the story. We live in a dark world, but we have the promise of final victory. That is why, though the movie was great on many levels, it was ultimately unsettling: because the story it leaves untold is as great as the one it tells.

Happy New Year!

In my reading this morning I came across this passage from Psalm 4 which seems befitting for the start of the new year.

Many people say, "Who will show us better times?"
     Let the smile of your face shine on us, Lord.
You have given me greater joy
     than those who have abundant harvests of grain and wine.

I will lie down in peace and sleep,
     for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.

I love this. It is at once a prayer for blessing, a song of thanksgiving, and an expression of trust. As the year beings we are all hoping for better days, days of peace and plenty. The psalmist directs us to God, who is the foundation of all our hopes. He gives thanks for last year's blessings, and reminds us that we are blessed whether or not we've had an abundant harvest, because we have been given life and love by our God. Finally, he reaffirms our trust in God by reminding us to rest, to keep Sabbath with God, because it is God who keeps us safe, whether we wake or sleep.

Have a blessed new year, everyone!