Art, Christmas & The Value of Being HumanDepending on your outlook you may have been pleased or irritated by the attempts Christmas card manufacturers make at this time of year to focus your attention on ordering a couple of boxes to be well-prepared for this years round of card writing and sending. However, the quality of the prints on the card varies and so does the price. So what do you do? What is the value of paying the extra for a quality Rembrandt, Leickert or Farquharson? Is there any real value in art after all?Charles Leickert

Joseph Farquharson

Funnily enough, it was in taking a break while travelling on the Carlisle to Lancaster section of the M6 that I revisited strong opinions on the subject of art and architecture. We had already stopped on our journey from Newcastle at a place called Walltown on Hadrians Wall. This particular section of the wall is very pleasing as there are substantial parts of the Wall which can be walked on, mused over and examined. Even more pleasing was the dramatic landscape set against a steely skyscape which really only occurs on a truly showery day. The landscape is particularly dramatic because the shape of the land rolls up almost like primordial waves, their breaking paused for an eternity and almost corniced at their crests! Even more dramatically, it was August of this year when the UK government was facing the teeth of the wind which was the bid for Scottish Independence. So her we were looking across to the North, admiring both the land and sky scapes but also wondering at how the land itself had formed hostile cliffs in favour of Roman, and later, English defences. A sight to behold.

Hadrians Wall, looking East

Tebay Services

However, despite this testimony to natures majesty, it was actually Tebay services that got under my skin and left me with the deeper impression. If you have broken a journey in the past with a visit to Tebay I am pretty sure you will agree with the following. Firstly, Tebay is a family run business and, therefore, much more wholesome than the usual suspects that dominate our motorway network with their flashy pronouncements, miles in advance, that McDonalds, Burger King, KFC or even Waitrose is awaiting your imminent descent from speed to relaxation. Secondly, Tebay is set in the context of the most scenic location, perched on a spot surrounded by hills, dales, valleys and wildlife. But here is the point Tebay services is designed in such a way that it adverts to all of this. Manmade, or otherwise, the restaurant is surrounded by a pond complete with ducks and a picturesque footbridge. The restaurant windows are quite deliberately designed for visitors to be afforded full advantage of the inspiring view. Yes, other more modern services have their pools and fountains plus, if the weather is sufficiently clement, the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. Then it struck me how people do want to sit outside, enjoy the opportunity to engage with scenery and, in some way, after a long haul up the motorway, retrieve some of the humanity they were losing after prolonged robotic numbness at the wheel. It appears to be fundamental to all of us to prefer beauty and wholesomeness as something basic to being human. If this is the case then art, design, architecture and civil engineering can, quite simply, humanise or de-humanise. If I had the chance I would be patronising Tebay services every time and, I would expect, most people would agree.By contrast with these encounters with beauty while travelling that day I was spurred on to reflect on the contrasting carbuncles, much of which has been created too economically, too mundanely or too naively, adhering to spurious claims that the future is upon us or we have to accept it. This has now been the case for decades. I have vivid thirty-year-old memories of school textbooks recklessly portraying the human environment ten, fifteen and twenty years into the future. Equally reckless indulgence in lunar landings, space shuttle missions were matched by wildly fantastical space films all which, despite significant abatement over the years have continued in some shape or form to the present day. I dont know how we lost this sense of the beautiful but Im sure economic depression, bad architecture (and architects) and unfettered acceptance of concrete jungles and the summer of 69 all had something to do with it. These events and cultural changes must have shaped the carbuncles which contrast so powerfully with our inclinations, people happily pay top dollar to take a break at Tebay. But I think this isnt just about taste its about humanity.And then we have Tracey Emins bed If one accepts that art is one of the formally accepted interfaces where people encounter their culture, then we need to ask some serious questions of what on Earth is going on with modern art. Only recently, I listened to yet another one of those Radio 4 discussions where the show accommodates in the same room people who are absolutely diametrically opposed to each other to the core. The conservative artist was taking the bait and challenging the liberal, modern artist and the same old defence was wheeled out:

Its up to you what you make of it. The fact that were having this debate proves that the art works. Dont over think it, just let the art speak to you!

Further to this the liberal claims in the world of modern art there are as many interpretations as there are people, and rather than admitting the art is simply rubbish they concede to one of the most hideous acts of relativism and dismissal of the existence of Truth in any shape or form. Tracey Emin submitted her bed in 1999 for the Turner Prize exhibition despite the fact that it consisted of

her own unmade, dirty bed with used condoms and blood-stained underwear (Wikipaedia Tracy Emin 2006).

Tracey Emins Bed

Rather than reactively labelling Tracey as a mere filthy pig I would venture to say there is something very true about her art as it was one of those clever representations of how our culture has lost its way. Compared with my former nave, dogmatic and certain younger self I am not tempted to take out the Catholic big stick and analyse the worlds failings through the lenses of:1. Loss of the sense of the Transcendent2. The modern false sense of freedom3. Immorality and the consequences for life4. Loss of the sense of human solidarityNo, right now I would prefer to talk about artists and architects.Another memory returned to me as I mused over a coffee with my partner at Tebay services. At Hampton Court in 1984, Prince Charles famously linked modern architecture to a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend. But he went deeper and, I believe, demonstrated significant insight into the experience of human life today:For far too long, it seems to me, some planners and architects have consistently ignored the feelings and wishes of the mass of the ordinary people in this country To be concerned about the way people live, about the environment they inhabit and the kind of community that is created by that environment, should surely be one of the prime requirements of a really good architect.And, again market forces are not enough I would like to see architects working with artists and craftsmen, showing that pleasure and delight are indeed returning to architecture after their long exile.(I wonder if HRH has visited Tebay Services?)Clearly, Prince Charles had struck on a principle here, but, despite the fact that he is undeniably on the right track, he failed to identify anything more humanising than simple pleasure and delight.

John Paul IIs Letter to Artists, written in 1999 (when Tracey Emin was busy about her bed!), built on Paul VIs Message to Artists of 1965 by sending out an ecclesial challenge to the values of contemporary art. The overall impact of the letter is that artists have a special place and vocation to do two things. Firstly, the artist looks on Gods creation and helps us see that it is very Good (Genesis 1:31) and by capturing the beauty of Gods design he or she helps others to do so as well. This work may not be religious in nature at all except to say that the result is something which is beautiful and, therefore, testimony to the divine intelligence. In this regard the artist has shaped the wondrous material of his own humanity to exercise creative dominion over the universe which surrounds him (Letter to Artists 1999, 1).

Secondly, artists over the centuries have engaged in religious art to assist the faithful enter into the mystery of the Incarnation by telling the stories of the Old and New Testaments. This is the explicit vocation of the religious artist who employs non-lingual modes of expression to evoke a sense of the beautiful and intuition of the mystery (Letter to Artists 1999, 8; CCC 2502). The service provided here is no less than a bridge to religious experience (Letter to Artists 1999, 10 and to enable the faithful to see the beauty of the faith[footnoteRef:1] (On The Way To Life 2005, 65). [1: Beauty here is meant as something in addition to the coherence and cogency of the faith.]

There are clear challenges here to contemporary art as the artist has to shape his or her own humanity and disclose their own being (Letter to Artists 1999, 1 and 2). Inherent in this is the Christian definition of the human being who is nothing less that a gift of infinite worth and made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). However, although the Letter to Artists does not make this point it seems reasonable to conclude that the artist may easily reveal the effects of sin in his or her own life and aspects which are in need of conversion and conformity to Christ who reveals the truth about ourselves and the world we live in (Redemptor Hominis 13). In other words, artists and the art they produce may not, and probably often do not, meet the expectation and ideal of the popes vision. Where art is beautiful, whether it is religious or not, then it can be argued using the reasoning above that those viewing such art are being invited to contemplate on the visible form of the good (Letter to Artists 1999, 3; Catechism of the Catholic Church 2500 and 2501). Unfortunately, as I have argued above with reference to Tracey Emins bed, some of what passes for art is considered ugly by many and is hardly testimony to Gods marvellous design.

Finally, I would argue that the Churchs vision for artists and their work also implies another, tougher challenge. If all acts of creation involve the work of the Holy Spirit to bring them to fruition and art is an act of creation[footnoteRef:2], then there must be at least good intention on behalf of the artist similar to those who, in Lumen Gentium 16, seek God with a sincere heart (Flannery 1965, 367). On the basis of this good intention there is the necessary orientation of the artist to the Holy Spirit who will illuminate his or her work to become good and beautiful (Letter to Artists 1999, 15). [2: At the creation of the world it was the same Spirit of God or ruah that moved over the water in Genesis 1:2.]

In conclusion, artists of the quality and stature of Rembrandt, Constable and Turner remain fixed in my highest esteem. I trust that one day our culture will come to its senses and finally jettison the dehumanising rubbish that has for too long been scandalously accepted and integrated into a discipline which has the potential for the ultimate vocation which is to transmit Gods sacred self-revelation of Himself.Rembrandts Nativity