The Law of Christian Art [pp. 398-402]

THE LA w OF CHRISTIAN ART.
him almost perfect command of one of the most powerful mediums of thought. He is the honored of the wise and the rich.
He paints a great picture for an exhibition. All the world
crowd to see it. What do they find? Nothing shocking. The
conventionalities of life are quite sacred to the artist. Moreover,
he must paint for his patrons, who are good people. So he has
chosen a splendid scene of Oriental pageantry, where the gloss
of silk, the glitter of arms, the purple of royal robes, and the noble forms of high-bred men and horses give fine opportunity for
displaying his masterly power. A sunny plain, and afar the dash
of a sapphire sea where white ship-wings flash against a golden
sky, show that he makes nature's splendors serve his purpose
wvell. The spectators come and go. Go in wonder and admiration, but-not one in love. Even the color-sensualist wearies of
tones which are nothing else but tones. Yet this is art too"art for art's sake," or rather art for the artist's sake; and in fact,
though not in manner, in this phase art has reached its lowest
degradation. As art holds of humanity, its mission is to teach
and to exhort, to lead humanity to the intelligent and devoted
worship of the Eternal Love. Let us not be told that art's duty is
sufficiently fulfilled when it is the truthful chronicle or portrayal
of the manners and customs of an age. It fulfils that part of its
duty passively by a natural law whose action it can scarce avoid;
but to fulfil its duty as a power of instruction and inspiration is
required the conscious act of the artist's will. He may live and
work in the error that the power of art is self-sustained and imposes no divine obligation upon him; and the fruit of his error is
work whose excellence can be only technical, and whose influence can only be to fortify the passions in their unending war
with the spirit. He need not be grossly voluptuous, but his
work will be no less powerfully degrading; for the generality of
people shrink from a palling sensuality, while they yield to the
seductive sway of a delicately and richly illustrated human sentiment. We have spoken as though the unfaithful artist were
always endowed with wealth of technical knowledge and skill.
The unfaithful artist is the artist of to-day, who is unfaithful because he is proud. The artists of primitive civilizations were
more faithful because their crude efforts at delineation and building made them humble. The thought, the inspiration in obedience to which they worked was not obscured by brilliance
and perfect harmony of color, nor by delicacy of form and finished execution. They were conscious of the nobility of their
inspiration and that that inspiration was the gift of a superior
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