We cannot escape the arts. They permeate our lives and our culture--the décor, architecture, music, entertainment, everyday utensils. The imagination of this age, its ideas and concerns, percolate throughout the culture via the arts. These ideas affect us for good or for evil. The choice is not whether to live with art; we must choose whether to live with good art or bad art. Art--like all things human--needs to be redeemed. Christians cannot abandon the arts to the secular world, but can use them to display God's glory. This book will help us develop an informed artistic taste, open yet critical, discerning yet appreciative of what is truly excellent.

LT State of the Arts, Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Crossway (TURNING POINT Christian Worldview Series), 1991, 7/13-16/16, 4/8/17
Recommended by Lewis Carl 12/30/04

Theme:
Type:
Value: 1-
Age: post-college
Interest: high (if interested)
Objectionable:
Synopsis/Noteworthy:

art-idolatry 21, 226
21 Art is considered sacred, the source of their [the elite art establishment’s] values and their means of transcendence. This is a sophisticated manifestation of what the Bible terms idolatry. Today, among the educated elite, the religion of art may be Christianity’s most serious competitor.
21 The implication is revealing—the standard of shock replaces the standard of beauty. Concepts such as beauty, order, and meaning are being challenged by the new aesthetic theories in favor of ugliness, randomness, and irrationalism. The purpose is not to give the audience pleasure, but to assault them with a “decentering” experience. Art becomes defined as “whatever the artist does.” As a result, the work of art becomes less important than the artist, a view that encourages posturing, egotism, and self-indulgence instead of artistic excellence.
conceptual basis 21, 83, 85-6, 91-2, 221-2, 228
21 Just as the current intellectual establishment has lost its conceptual basis for truth, the artistic establishment has lost its conceptual basis for beauty.
83 Human reason has validity, but when it is made the sole arbiter of truth, apart from God’s revelation, it is too clumsy to accurately grasp the human condition—like trying to perform surgery while wearing boxing gloves. Rationalistic attempts to systematize light, space, and unity into a rigid analytical grid will oversimplify.
91 Behind the physical universe looms an infinite but personal God, the source of its meaning, its goodness, and its beauty.
221 Christians are often criticized for their narrow anti-aesthetic attitudes, but I have never understood why they need to be open to this charge. Surely Christianity, with its affirmation of both the physical and the intangible, offers a stronger basis for the arts than the competing worldviews of modern times.
222 Our contemporary culture as a whole knows little about art and cares less. I comfort Christian artists who complain to me that the church does not understand art by saying that the secular world does not understand either.
The art world has turned art into something esoteric, an arcane mystery that demands initiation rather than enjoyment. The artistic establishment seems more interested in excluding rather than educating, preferring to shock or ridicule the less sophisticated rather than creating works that might enrich their lives.
feeling sophisticated (snobbery) 20, 48, 83, 94, 95, 96ff
95 According to Tom Wolfe, the art world—that is, the network of patrons, curators, and critics that sets the fashions for artists, corporations, and museums—consists of 10,000 people. (This does not include artists, who, oddly enough, must seek the approval of the people who matter but are not included in their number.)
artist characteristics 23
(center on Word not visuals 24 ↓
24 Christians, who must be centered on the Word, must be cautious lest they surrender language to the graven images of the mass culture and the neopagan thought forms that they breed.

representational, abstract 25
25 The Temple alone included both abstract art and representational art, works that were purely decorative and works that were complexly symbolic.
art is 29
art defined 29-30
29-30 A tree or a mountain range may also have an aesthetic appeal, yet the beauties of nature are not considered art. The term art is usually reserved for something made by human beings. A painting of the tree or the mountain range would be art. The God-given capacity of human beings to make things is at the essence of art. A carpenter building a house is, in this sense, just as much an artist as the painter. Both use their talents, their minds, and their skill with their hands to make something valuable. To consider art is to contemplate human creativity in all of its forms.
30 Art was integrated with life. Museums were not invented until the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, an era that marked the fragmentation of human life in other ways as well.
become art critic 38-39, 40, 51, 54, 222, 228, 229
40 To say we like something is to describe ourselves; to say something is good is to describe the object.
51 The kitsch of popular art and the inanities of fine art can, with confidence, be judged as aesthetically bad. There is no reason to shrink from making a critical judgment or to be intimidated by fine art.
228 That is, we can approach a work of art not simply for propositional knowledge but for aesthetic understanding, so that we can perceive the depths of what the artist is communicating without confusing the creative expression for absolute truth.
229 A story which introduces the marvelous, the fantastic, says to the reader by implication,
“I am merely a work of art. You must take me as such—must enjoy me for my suggestions, my beauty, my irony, my construction, and so forth. There is no question of anything like this happening to you in the real world.” CS Lewis
know a culture through its art 53, 165
53 In order to understand a culture—its assumptions, values, and nuances—one can do no better than to study its art.
165 A study of art history reveals a curious fact—every age has its Christian artists. They usually express themselves in terms of the dominant styles of the time, even when those styles have a secular origin. This is true even of the hymns we sing at church. Isaac Watts wrote neoclassical poetry. Fanny Crosby wrote Romantic poetry. Both, while shaped by their times, were orthodox, evangelical believers. Christianity is bigger than a single style. Because the Lord’s mercies “are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23), the gospel can ever be outdated but can speak to every age in a fresh way.
This does not mean that Christianity can be successfully expressed in every style. Some styles are wholly interwoven with aberrant philosophies (indeed, such styles are often nothing more than philosophical statements, which is why they are so bad aesthetically [something could be a purely philosophical statement and be very good aesthetically-K]). Sometimes Christians follow a particular style uncritically without recognizing the implicit contradictions between their faith and the style they are using to express it. Such incompatibility between form and content results in bad Christian art. (Late Victorian sentimentality, heavy metal nihilism, and pop culture consumerism would not seem to accord with a Biblical sensibility, but such misbegotten hybrids fill the Christian bookstores.)
The best Christian artists manage to be contemporary while strenuously resisting the characteristic errors of their time.
2nd command 57
self becomes center 65
art world 95
importance of teacher 112
tree represents nothing… 116-7
116 Monotheistic abstractionism, on the other hand, fosters images that represent nothing outside themselves but are beautiful, just as a tree or a flower represents nothing outside itself and is beautiful. … As Schaeffer has observed, “they supported no architectural weight and had no utilitarian engineering significance. They were there only because God said they should be there as a thing of beauty.”
117 The present tense of the Hebrew names testifies to God’s continuing action, that God is still establishing and still coming in strength. These truths would come to mind every time the people saw the monuments.
Ezekiel’s attempt to represent angels 120
120 In a sort of divine Cubism, they are apparently reveled to him from all dimensions, from four sides at once, and they are simultaneously covered by their wings and disclosed to him in detail. Such a spiritual encounter, which should help keep us from anthropomorphizing the heavenly realm, is impossible to visualize fully or to represent pictorially.
blue pomegranates 122
blood – symbolic 123, 125, 126
123 What is symbolized here is the very gospel itself, the central mystery of salvation through which the Old Testament saints and we ourselves are reconciled to God. Coming between the presence of God, in His terrifying holiness, and tables of the Law, broken by human sin, is the blood of atonement. The heavenly cherubim look down and see not the Law but the sacrificial blood, which covers all sins. These symbols look ahead to and have their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
126 In Christianity’s most potent symbol inheres the inexhaustible mysteries of the faith.
aesthetic design is neutral (music?!—not exactly, he answers (see above 165) 128, 129↓, 133↓, 138-9, 142, 165-6↓, 204
128 Huram, the craftsman of the Temple, was thus the counterpart to Bezalel, the craftsman of the Tabernacle.
To be sure, any thematic content must be scrutinized very critically through the lens of Scripture, but aesthetic design is essentially neutral.
Always a function of human culture rather than divine revelation, no particular style or type of art ought to be sacralized or made into an absolute.
129 It follows that Christians need not be overly scrupulous in regard to types of art. Abstract, representational, symbolic art all have prominence in the Scriptures. Certainly the content of art, the underlying assumptions and messages conveyed, must be examined with wariness and Scriptural discernment.
Pure questions of form, though, are basically indifferent spiritually. Christian freedom enables believers to pursue or to enjoy any formal mode of art they find congenial.
138 It is little wonder that the people who experienced its beauty and mystery would confuse those feelings with the beauty and mystery of the Lord. Certainly, its beauty must have been more immediate and accessible than that claimed for the God who veiled Himself in the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke. Aesthetic experiences can be very close and are perhaps related to religious experiences, but they are not the same.
139 The living God does not exist to gratify people. Art, of course, does. Moreover, art can gratify people by giving them quasi-religious experiences—a sampling of wisdom, a taste of transcendence, a flash of moral insight. According to Kierkegaard, living in the aesthetic sphere means to live for oneself, to live one’s life solely for personal pleasure.
142 If they are zealous of Biblical truth, they may employ practically any artistic form without fear of committing Aaron’s sin.
In a non-Christian world, there is not always a market for art that does not conform to the prevailing intellectual trends, as Christianity, indeed, must not.
165 (repeated above) A study of art history reveals a curious fact—every age has its Christian artists. This does not mean that Christianity can be successfully expressed in every style. Some styles are wholly interwoven with aberrant philosophies (indeed, such styles are often nothing more than philosophical statements, which is why they are so bad aesthetically). Sometimes Christians follow a particular style uncritically without recognizing the implicit contradictions between their faith and the style they are using to express it. Such incompatibility between form and content results in bad Christian art. (Late Victorian sentimentality, heavy metal nihilism, and pop culture consumerism would not seem to accord with a Biblical sensibility, but such misbegotten hybrids fill the Christian bookstores.)
The best Christian artists manage to be contemporary while strenuously resisting the characteristic errors of their time.
204 The classic hymns—whether from the Middle Ages, Reformation, Enlightenment, or Romantic eras—ironically address us in a new way, mired as we are in the provincialisms of the twentieth century. The alternation of old and new, the preservation of a living heritage that embraces, exemplifying a richer artistic texture than most people give them credit for.
The ever-present cross in a church building is a sign of the gospel, calling both believers and nonbelievers to a consciousness of Christ’s sacrifice.
The Bible gives examples of art that communicate the gospel. One used in worship is the Ark of the Covenant, picturing the sacrificial blood covering the tablets of God’s Law. One used outside the context of worship is the brazen serpent.
art can help others worship 130
130 The picture is of a person praising God by means of the music performed by others.
Bezaleel/Aaron golden calf 133
aesthetic – religious feelings 138-40
140 Kierkegaard’s Christian existentialism tends to minimize the objective content of faith, stressing a subjective openness and uncertainty instead of the solid assurance provided by Biblical doctrine. An evangelical appropriation of Kierkegaard completes his paradigm better than Kierkegaard did himself.
The religious sphere does not deny the aesthetic any more than it denies the ethical.
appreciation 155 – orange 206
155 We usually have oranges at our house, but it was not until I saw a particular painting of some oranges that I really noticed and appreciated their beauty—the brightness of their color, the complex texture of an orange peel, the way light shines on them.
Song of Solomon 158

God’s Word reveals – not images 24, 159, 214
159 The Bible, however, works from different aesthetic assumptions. For the Hebrews, one relates conceptually to other people not by seeing them but by hearing them. Thus, to take an important example, there is little talk of seeing God in the Bible. Such an experience is reserved for the future life.
214 This priority of the word means that, for art to convey the Gospel, it must be in some sense propositional. It must be in some sense connected directly or indirectly to language.
214 Christianity is sometimes criticized for being “word-centered” and thus insufficiently oriented to visual images or to emotional subjectivity. This, however, cannot be otherwise and is nothing to apologize for. The Word is at the essence of the Christian faith. The faith of the ancient Hebrews was based on God’s revelation in language; the faith of their pagan neighbors was based on gods revealed in graven images.
Greek – Hebrew 155, 160, 161
161 The Hebraic tradition and the Greek tradition, despite the often unresolved tensions between them, were brought together by Christianity to constitute Western culture. The legacy for the arts ever since is one of both creation and imitation.
culture 165
support the arts 174
contemporary clothing 183
183 Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation artists likewise painted Biblical figures dressed in the contemporary clothing of their day.
choosing a church 201
201 Changing churches out of theological conviction is certainly legitimate.
Hezekiah bronze serpent 204-207
204 (repeat above) The ever-present cross in a church building is a sign of the gospel, calling both believers and nonbelievers to a consciousness of Christ’s sacrifice.
The Bible gives examples of art that communicate the gospel. One used in worship is the Ark of the Covenant, picturing the sacrificial blood covering the tablets of God’s Law. One used outside the context of worship is the brazen serpent.
non-Christians teach 208
208 Because morality is not exclusively the property of Christians, even non-Christians can sometimes teach us something about God’s law. The early church honored the “virtuous pagans” (such as Socrates, Aristotle, and Virgil) as teaching valid moral principles even though they did not know Christ.
Art can have a moral function. Aesop’s Fables, Goya’s anti-war paintings, Dickens’s novels, Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the poor—such works of art are frankly didactic.
Artistic images can appeal powerfully to the emotions, kindling pity at human suffering or outrage at evil. Art that is ostentatiously didactic, having no other merit than that of the lesson it teaches, generally fails both as art and as teaching. This is often because it starts preaching or lecturing in propositional terms instead of moving its audience by artistic means.
Gospel 211
eating life 213
C.S. Lewis book 228
rationality – intellect 230. 231, 232
230 According to classical thought, beauty is perceived by the mind, which contains two faculties—rationality (ratio) and intellect (intellectus). Ratio is the mind’s ability to be logical, mathematical, analytical, to perceive truth by a process and by effort. Intellectus is the faculty of immediately perceiving truth, intuitively and directly. The old theologians taught that angels are pure intellect; that is, they perceive God and all things immediately and fully.
Fallen humanity, though, at present depends upon ratio. We can apprehend truth, but we must do so indirectly and piecemeal, through experiments, logical analysis, and the accumulation of knowledge through time (as in working one’s way through a book, as you are doing here). Because we are fallen, our minds do not function as they should, so that we are utterly dependent upon God’s revelation [Spirit] to discern [perceive] spiritual truth. The higher power of the intellect is still operative to a certain extent. When we see something [fully], our perception and our knowledge are instantaneous. When we finally grasp the truth of an idea, our intellect experiences a flash of illumination. That our intellects can be deceived through false appearances is more evidence for the fall.
According to the ancients, beauty is perceived by the intellect. It is common today to say that art appeals to the emotions. Our vocabulary is rather more clumsy than the ancients’. Their view of intellect was holistic and would include much of what we mean by “emotions,” including love and joy. (Intellect includes feelings, but it does not include logic, which is a function of ratio.) They would insist, however, that beauty is perceived by the mind, not by the more physical “passions,” which [passions] can give occasion to other, sometimes sinful, pleasures.
When we see something beautiful, our intellects experience a flash of satisfaction and joy. Classical aesthetics understands our perception of beauty on earth as a glimpse of that total and direct apprehension of the essence of things that the angels and saints in Heaven may experience. “For now we see through a glass darkly…”
231 This point helps us to understand something of the felicity of Heaven. The Beatific Vision, the direct perception of God enjoyed forever by the redeemed in Heaven, is described by the old theologians as an experience of ultimate beauty…

wish all would read
CBC – XVI, 29, 33, 38, 39-41 (like-good), 51, 53 (culture), 116 (Jachin), 155, 201ff
Whit – 30, 32, 34
kids – 33, 40
Dawn – 33ff, 116-7, 201ff
Lewis – 48, 50
Ron Beanblossom/Horton – minimalism – 144, et al
L 74, 105-84, 133, 155/206, 158, 167

I found this book helpful in understanding the arts from a christian perspective. ( )

My personal library functions as a lending library of sorts. Even though I haven't read State of the Arts, a friend who did state that the introduction alone was worth the book. In it Gene Veith state his purpose, define his terms, and sharpens his sword.