Art: The Most Beautiful Prayer

In The Gift of Beauty, I delved into the tireless human quest for the beautiful.

Much as this insatiable longing often brings us despair, it can also arouse the highest achievements of human creativity and passion. Art is the directed manifestation of the human longing for Divine Beauty and Love. The one who beholds the completed painting, or hears the finished piece of music may find them beautiful. But the finished product is the result of the artist’s tiresome quest. In the medium of art, the composer hopes to get closer to the beauty which s/he seeks. The desire to create art is born of the same longing as the one who seeks to hoard beauty through possessions and experience. But while the latter slowly kills the beauty by containing it, the artist expands the beautiful by giving it wings. The artist takes the beauty which they alone can see, and presents it in such a way that others can appreciate it.

Art renders reality more beautiful than it first appeared. Through art we become privileged to experience reality in a whole new way. The great landscape paintings of an artist like Douglas Carpenter give a whole new appreciation to the reality we seldom take the time to notice. You may cross a creek a hundred times without stopping to notice its beauty. But after reading Tennyson’s poem of “The Brook” and you will never look at the modest creek the same way. Mendelssohn permits me, who has never traveled to the Hebrides Islands of Scotland, to see them as I never would, by brilliantly painting the turbulent waves, tide-smoothed boulders and dangerous crags through the instruments of the orchestra. These artists expressed their longing through oil and canvas, pen and paper, or instrument and baton. Their insatiable quest for beauty may not be satisfied by their labor, but their gift brings the rest of us much closer to the Divine.

It is as much the quest for beauty as the hope of finding it that inspires us. For this reason the work of the painter, poet or composer gives them as much satisfaction as they can expect. They are blest with the gift of seeing the world with eyes most of us lack.

The search for beauty which we wrongly pursue in carnal pleasures is our hope of transcending the life which never quite fulfills our longing. It is no enigma that the one who tastes few of life’s blessings and the one who seems to have it all experience the same longing. Surely, the one who seems to have gained all the world usually knows a greater discontent than the poor, for that one has learned how little life’s pleasures can satisfy the heart’s longing. The longing for our Creating Love cannot be satiated with any beauties or pleasures of this life. Even what we think of as perfected human love very often leads to despair. Just as in our fruitless attempts to possess beauty, we too often attempt to own and contain human love, and by so doing, take it out of the realm of the divine and make it something only of this life, and thus, gradually diminish and extinguish it.

In art we come closer than through any other means to transcend the limits our world has placed on beauty. Rather than crippling beauty, art gives beauty new reach, while taking nothing away. Carpenter takes nothing from the meadow by painting it, yet gives it as a gift to so many. Likewise the shore of Hebrides only gains by Mendelssohn’s notes. Through poetry Tennyson’s brook can truly claim that men may come and men may go, but I go on forever!

Sculptors such as Alexandros of Antioch and Michelangelo celebrated the beauty of the human body with an incredible transcendence with their Venus de Milo and David, respectively. While today the naked human body is most often presented in an overtly sexual light, these marble nudes stand as testaments to the goodness, purity and natural beauty of the human form. Theirs is the strength, gentleness, confidence, and natural sensuality of humanity, given as the gift of the artist.

The novelist or playwrite makes a glory of human love in ways which seldom manifest in reality. The beauty and wonder of the human relationship, along with its jealousy and despair is expressed through the dramatic artists. We enjoy being swept up in drama, for somehow it seems to accentuate our own lives and relationships.

Art is a celebration of beauty. The artist reflects beauty in their medium and then shines it out for others to see. It does not capture the beauty, which is fruitless to attempt, but it acts as the prism which takes none of beauty’s light while reflecting it out in dozens of directions. By praising beauty, art shares it with many, some of whom would never be able to appreciate it on their own. Art is the most beautiful of prayers. It is truly a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty which inspires the artist.

In art we are sometimes able to rise out of our menial toils and our fruitless quests. If I close my eyes and let music infiltrate my head and heart, my senses seem to expand. There is a feeling distinctly physical, yet which cannot be described by the five senses of the body. By staring into a painting my imagination runs free. The depth in the canvas removes me from time and place, yet simultaneously enhances the time and place in which I stand. The lyrical words of the writer deepens my emotions as I read. The majesty of the sculpture inspires me to reach for the model of humanity perfected in the stone. Art allows us not only to possess beauty, but to access emotions to which we would not have otherwise been privileged.

The power of art is unrivaled in its ability to stir humanity. That is why throughout history art, especially dramatic art, has been prey to censorship. From Roman times, through the Communist regimes of the Twentieth century, artists have been suppressed and even killed for their work, for no other medium can so influence the thought of the populous, stir public sentiment and shape political ideals. Nineteenth century opera composers Wagner and Verdi were in danger, and in Wagner’s case exile, for much of their artistic careers for their involvement in German and Italian unification movements. Stravinsky’s ballet, “The Rite of Spring” caused major disruption in Paris in 1913, for the music presented rhythms people had never heard, and it violently disturbed them.

By inspiring, art can move and shape the human mind. It is a powerful tool. But more importantly, art is a gift. The artist shares their inspiration–their personal experience of beauty, with others. Isn’t this what we have come to know as love? For only by giving, can we open ourselves to receive. By giving love, we can know love ourselves. By giving art the artist experiences beauty in a much more personal way. All the beauty of the world is a gift from the God of love which created us. The artist follows this example by giving away something they have created. Both the artist and those who appreciate art experience the love of this relationship.

Through all our searching to fulfill our longing for beauty, the only ways we find contentment are through seeking our Creator—offering our love to Creating Love through goodness and compassion to those around us, and through art. Art is indeed our hand reaching toward heaven, and being given this beauty in return.

When I stand in the Cathedral and sing Mozart, surrounded by orchestra and choir, I know this music is not the work simply of a human mind, even one as ingenious as Mozart’s. This music is a gift from the divine, in the same way that the majesty of our very world is a gift.

I can plant a shoot of rose, full of knowledge how to make it grow. With greater knowledge I can even hybridize the plant, altering it sufficiently to change and predict exactly what type of flower I will produce. But when the rose blooms, I may be a proud gardener, but I did not really create the rose. Similarly, while Mozart toiled long hours imagining the notes of his masterpieces, plunking them out on his keyboard, arranging melodies, harmonies and rhythms until it comes finally to the point when I, the humble chorister, sings “Kyrie Eleison,” Mozart can only take partial credit for the music, just as the gardener can only claim partial credit for the rose. The same Creator who made the shoot, soil, water and air by which the rose grows, also made notes, chords, rhythms and all the components by which music, or any art, is made! Mozart can only take credit for planting and tending well the musical seeds God gave. Thus, when I experience music that seems heavenly, It truly is heavenly! This is a gift God gives to sustain us in our tireless quest for his love.

We see art’s beauty, its transcendent nature, its ability to shape and change human thought, even human history, and greatest of all, its nature as a gift of love from the artist to the observer.

But art also has a dark side. Rather than giving beauty transcendence, some art elevates despair! The artist’s heartache, hatred and horror manifest in their work, and instead of sharing with others the gift of beauty and hope, they share these grim gifts. Edvard Munsch’s painting brings to visible, disturbing light the horror of a scream. Emily Brontë’s poems and novels detail the despair of a hopeless heart. Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” as well as Shakespeare’s “MacBeth” show the heart and soul of a murderer with familiarity most of us never could have imagined! Many songs written in times of war or economic hardship speak of crippling loneliness. And who can show better than Shakespeare the consequences of human love gone horribly awry?

This type of art unsettles us. It may take us places we would rather not go. But is it still beautiful? Is it still a gift? Not a gift of hope, always, but perhaps a gift of warning. And the beauty of a lesson wisely learned.

While art brings out of us our best feelings of love, hope and joy, it can also bring out our darker sides. Yet these are often sides we need to face, and sometimes only art can force it. Art does not need to be comfortable to be beautiful. It may be painful, but it is still divine. Don’t we all sometimes chafe at that which is divine!

The building blocks of art are the seeds through which the Creator works. An untended rose can still grow beautiful flowers. Likewise, beautiful art can sometimes spring from the minds of madness. So from the depths of despair can spring the most transcendent art.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Pathétique is often considered his greatest work. It would be his last. He took his own life days after its 1893 premiere. By this time the composer who gave us such light-hearted ballets as “Nutcracker” and “Sleeping Beauty,” had plunged into a deep despair. In the four movements of this symphony he writes something of an autobiography. The first movement invokes the turbulence of youth, with the mingling of two themes, one melodious and romantic, and the other violent. The second movement is a sweeping romance, though with an aspect of imagination, almost like the fairy tales he so often set. You get the feeling that this joy is incased in a dream, not reality. The third movement is a scurrying march: the success of life, though with fading joy. The final movement, the Adagio Lamentoso, is one of the most poignant, painfully tragic pieces in the entire orchestral literature. Here you feel the hopelessness of the composer, the desperate loneliness of the homosexual man in Nineteenth century Russia, for whom all the artistic success of his life seemed for naught. When he wrote it he must already have known that his life was ending.

Playing this work as a violinist in the symphony was one of the most transcendent musical experiences I have ever had. At the end of over forty-five minutes of music I am sweating in my tuxedo, my bow-tie bent out of shape by the violin I’ve been pressing into my neck. The power of this music is all the more powerful for having lived every note of it. And the finale reduces the other three movements to dust. The second theme of the final movement is a simple, four note descending scale from the tonic to the dominant. It is begun by the violins. At the end, the violins take up the theme again, lower on the instrument. The melody descends down to the very bottom of the violin’s range. The instrument runs out of notes just prior to the resolution of the melody. I yearn to play that note but I cannot. One note, that seems so simple, yet impossible. My instrument has gone as low as it can. The cello plays it, but that does not sooth my instrument’s longing. It brought tears to my eyes, there in the concert hall to feel Tchaikovsky’s despair, graphically written into the conclusion of the first violin part. It still brings tears to my eyes every time I listen to this movement.

I wonder how much joy, if any, Tchaikovsky felt from this piece. I wonder if he experienced any comfort from the Love which inspired him as he wrote his own requiem. But what he did with this work was to illustrate the despair of his life. It has inspired in me tremendous love, compassion, and even hope, the feeling the composer failed to win. In his despair, he gave the world a gift that far transcended his own life. The Pathétique was Tchaikovsky’s prayer. A prayer of desperation, sorrow, and yes, a prayer of love.

And this is the beauty, the transcendence of art, that human emotion can so affect, and be so affected! by art. That one man’s utter despair can give such a gift of beauty.

God has given us art, just as in his love he gave us all the other gifts of the world. In art, just as in nature, in our own bodies, and especially in our relationships with others of humanity, we reach toward the divine through the experience of the gifts given.