Good Christian art of our time may be unintelligible to people because
of imperfections in its form, or because men are inattentive to it, but
it must be such that all men can experience the feelings it transmits.
It must be the art, not of some one group of people, nor of one class,
nor of one nationality, nor of one religious cult; that is, it must not
transmit feelings which are accessible only to a man educated in a
certain way, or only to an aristocrat, or a merchant, or only to a
Russian, or a native of Japan, or a Roman Catholic, or a Buddhist, etc.,
but it must transmit feelings accessible to everyone. Only art of this
kind can be acknowledged in our time to be good art, worthy of being
chosen out from all the rest of art and encouraged.
Christian art, _i.e._ the art of our time, should be catholic in the
original meaning of the word, _i.e._ universal, and therefore it should
unite all men. And only two kinds of feeling do unite all men: first,
feelings flowing from the perception of our sonship to God and of the
brotherhood of man; and next, the simple feelings of common life,
accessible to everyone without exception—such as the feeling of
merriment, of pity, of cheerfulness, of tranquillity, etc. Only these
two kinds of feelings can now supply material for art good in its
subject-matter.
And the action of these two kinds of art, apparently so dissimilar, is
one and the same. The feelings flowing from perception of our sonship to
God and of the brotherhood of man—such as a feeling of sureness in
truth, devotion to the will of God, self-sacrifice, respect for and love
of man—evoked by Christian religious perception; and the simplest
feelings—such as a softened or a merry mood caused by a song or an
amusing jest intelligible to everyone, or by a touching story, or a
drawing, or a little doll: both alike produce one and the same
effect—the loving union of man with man. Sometimes people who are
together are, if not hostile to one another, at least estranged in mood
and feeling, till perchance a story, a performance, a picture, or even a
building, but oftenest of all music, unites them all as by an electric
flash, and, in place of their former isolation or even enmity, they are
all conscious of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another feels
what he feels; glad of the communion established, not only between him
and all present, but also with all now living who will yet share the
same impression; and more than that, he feels the mysterious gladness of
a communion which, reaching beyond the grave, unites us with all men of
the past who have been moved by the same feelings, and with all men of
the future who will yet be touched by them. And this effect is produced
both by the religious art which transmits feelings of love to God and
one’s neighbour, and by universal art transmitting the very simplest
feelings common to all men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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