Tomáš Černoušek - A Small Reflection on the Purpose of Art

Dear friends,

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. And for joy over it he who finds it goes and sells all that he has and buys that field (Mt 13,44). Is not that what is visible, on the surface and easily accessible, like that field full of various flowers? What is deposited below the surface and not visible for anyone, what is kind of dug under the visible flowers, just that hides a treasure of wisdom and knowledge which the Spirit through Isaiah calls treasures hidden in the dark, invisible and secret (Is 45,3). And to find these treasures, the God Himself must throw open the bronze gate which conceals them and break the iron bars on their door (compare Is 45,2), and this can be achieved only by a humble heart.

That is to say there are realities the meaning of which cannot be explained with words of human tongue. They rather appear to us in a simple examining than in their own meaning. So that even a statement God is Triune remains a speech of imperceptible mystery. Only in analogies (resemblance in all non-resemblance!) we can speak about persons in God, only in analogies (resemblance in all non-resemblance!) about procreation and expiration, only in analogies (resemblance in all non-resemblance!) we can speak about three, because what three means in the absolute is in any case in the inner – spiritual word something completely different than three in a calculation progression (Hans Urs von Balthasar – Ways to Enlightenment).

“Good bye” said the vixen to the Little Prince. “My mystery is entirely simple: we can correctly see only with our heart. What is important, to eyes is invisible! (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince). Or in another way: When we stop being children – we are dead (Braucussi).

We know well this A. de Saint-Exupéry’s thought that we can see correctly only the clear, childishly simple soul with a pure heart. This thought, however, grows from a theological basis. It is certain that behind the outer sense, behind words, behind the outer surface of a picture, behind matter is hidden another sense, invisible to eyes, which speaks to our soul and in which the proper message is concealed of a text, a picture, a sculpture and space. And this is the same with any genuine work of art, because art is that very hidden treasure, that message which leads us to God – into God’s kingdom of beauty. This message, however, is not esthetical surface of pretty – prettiness which disappears with time and changes according to the changing taste – the real beauty can be rendered by not many, only by the invited of pure heart.

The creator of such work brings to light the treasure from the treasury of his soul. And often he even does not know how. Artist is that one who leads us from matter to spirit, from an outer picture to the inner message.

There are two levels in his work. The first is always the level of the message of the Absolute, the God’s message to our soul, which is delivered to us through fine art, in an artistic way. This is a form of non-verbal liturgy.

I repeat once more: an artist often does not know how a work of art can originate. Let us listen to the poet Jan Skácel:

Poets do not compose poems

A poem is somewhere beyond, without us

And it has been here for ages

And the poet finds the poem.

The message of a work of art is inexhaustible. Its purpose and concealed speeches which spring from the forms of matter establish eternity of a work of art. The work lives its concealed life beyond time. Archaic Greece sculptures and the Return of the lost son by Rembrandt live in that way. They speak to us. The message comes to our souls, we however cannot simply describe it. Just as God speaks to us in the gospels so even a work of art speaks to us, but in another way. Neither esthetics or form, nor the outer picture, it is the message which comes to our soul.

The same meaning Romano Guardini conveys in his preface to the book “About building a church”. He writes: The church buildings’ forms appear as places of permeation of man and world – as symbols, on which the Christian existence in time is imaginable.

We can generalize it: Architecture is a place of permeation of man and world and buildings then are symbols on which absolute existence in time is imaginable. The word imaginable is a key word… “Art does not deliver the visible”, says Paul Klee “but makes visible.”

We have already said that we can see correctly only with our heart, and what is important is for eyes invisible. Nevertheless artistic creation and a number of artists have in this century observed another goal – not to make the invisible visible, but only attract the attention to themselves, be conspicuous, control, and not serve for the God and people – plain people – with a humble heart.

Vladimír Holan gives a true picture of it with verses:

“…we want to build what only glorifies us…

but the very Earth says:

without genuine transcendency

no building can be finished

never, oh, never will be finished.”

Art must grow up from spirit which serves, which rises from the dignity of the man who is standing before his Creator – before the God in humbleness, of the man who honors the sanctity of friendship, family, children, of the man who lives in Love, who respects and honors the Decalogue: and that is the base of the Christian idea of world, idea “which renders possible for people to utilize their possibilities of selection, and against the predetermined courses of the automated world it gives an example: the independent fate and one’s own initiatives.”

It certainly is not easy to be an artist. It is a calling, election by God, not a profession. It is a gift, habitat, The God’s grace to be an artist. To be an artist is a mission – difficult and often painful mission, or as the poet Jan Skácel puts it

It does not matter very much, by a stone rain

To let one’s face destroy and not hurt one’s soul

From birth up to death it uses to rain

Granite rains drench us to the thread

It is essential to endure on the way of the service for God.

Little by little it is dawning.