Art & God

Over at Lutheran Surrealism, Kirby posits that:

Art is a personal dialogue with God.

It's a fine idea. Perhaps finer than he intends.

Humans are, by nature, observers--"pattern makers" as Grendel calls them. So when we see art--that result of a dialogue between the artist and God we impose a pattern upon it.

This pattern becomes our experience of the art.

It's been said that art is in fact a conversation between the audience and the artist mediated through the artifact.

I think, though, that this discounts the importance of the artist in creating the artifact in the first place.

I'll be one of the ones leading the charge to tell you that, once the artifact exists, the artist wanes in importance, approaching insignificance--but it is the height of ignorance to claim the artist is never important--or rather is not of primary importance.

So that conversation with God is the spark. The reception of the inspiration from the muse. Art is born.

Then the artifact exists. If it finds and audience it becomes a second art--the art of communication between humans.

Between the divine and the human to between humans is the distilled story of creation--renewed each time an artist lifts his chisel, his keyboard, his paintbrush, his bow, his pen.