Name a prominent American Catholic in public life whose Catholicism is central to the views he promotes in the public sphere. My guess is that did not take you too long. Now, just as quickly, name a prominent American Catholic artist—you choose the medium—who makes it clear that her faith informs her art. Time’s up. Now, of course, there are such artists, but what does it (...)
November 18, 2011
Books
Imagine
Beauty Will Save the WorldRecovering the Human in an Ideological AgeGregory Wolfe ISI Books, $29.95, 278 pp.
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I gave up my subscription to Image some years ago for reasons that are implicit in Scott Moringiello's advocacy.
Piety does not stand bail for talent. Dorothy Sayers' injunction holds: "The only Christian work is good work, well done." Statements of faith, of devotion, do not necessarily make a work Christian any more than gold leaf makes sacred art.
Moringiello's post confuses criticism with promotion. Often enough, there is more to learn from a negative review than one that merely prompts an audience to read or see something. And as to encountering the world "as it is" through the art it produces, well . . . down the rabbit hole we go. Aldous Huxley's reprove was closer to reality: "High brow; low loins." In the end, the purpose best served by Image is the worldly one of using one's faith as a means of self-promotion. Art—certainly the veneration of it—is the smiling face of contemporary materialism. And every honest artist knows it.