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“Functional Art”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We’ve all heard that. Moreover, many of us have probably experienced a moment when we used that line to politely say to someone, “what you think is beautiful, I have the right to find it. . . nyah! Art is a very subjective thing. I discovered that with my family. While across the Atlantic, we had a chance to scoot under the English Channel and go to Paris. Paris, as you know, is full, just FULL of the most wonderful art museums in the world—the Louvre with the Mona Lisa, Italian Sculptures including the Venus De Milo and great works by Michaelangelo, the Musee’ D’Orsay with the largest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world, by Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Renoir, and others. Other art museums dedicated solely to Picasso or the sculptor Rodin. While in Paris, we tried to see as much as we could. After touring the museums filled with the classics, we went to the Georges Pomidou Center, the largest Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Now, I enjoy modern art, even if I don’t always understand it. Large canvasses painted a solid blue with a single yellow dot in the upper right hand corner. Sculptures made of trash. Those big accordion-fold paintings that show you one thing when you look at them this way and another when you look at them that way. I find modern art invites you to participate more in it. A great Impressionist painting may stir your soul, but a funky piece of modern art gets you to move around, scratch your head, and try to figure out just what in the world the artist was THINKING! Now, I must tell you, my wife, Kristi can take modern art for all of about 3 ½ minutes. She begins to get a pained expression on her face, and in fact, will tell you that she is getting a headache. We learned in Paris that we have two daughters—one like Kristi who just can’t get into the stuff, and the other, like me, who finds it exhilarating. So, we reached a compromise—Kristi and Syd went shopping while Taylor and I finished touring the museum. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And art—meant somehow to resonate with the sensory parts of our brains that knows beauty when we see it, must finally be judged by each person based on whether or not he or she finds it beautiful. And let’s face it, some art, just fails the test! What makes art, art? Whether or not it is beautiful? Where or not it is aesthetically pleasing? Whether or not it invokes some emotion? Now, the Internet is a marvelous tool! I went to the Internet to see what some Art Appreciation texts had to say about defining what is art. One expert had a definition that ran some 700 words long. Most of those words are spent talking about the difficulty of coming up with specific identifiers or criteria for art. Finally, the "expert's" definition boils down to this: “Art is art. . . if it is experienced as art.” Got that? Art is art, if you see it, touch it, or hear it, and say to yourself, “Oh….that’s beautiful……that’s art!” Now this is true for just about any art form. Painting. Sculpture. Performing arts. It’s too bad there isn’t a more concrete way to determine whether an artist has succeeded or not. We’re just left with “some like it, and some don’t.” It would be good if there were some a tangible way to know if the thing an artist has made is “good” or not. Dabble some paint on a canvas, form a tower of steel and rock, compose a piece of music with a couple of octaves of notes…there should be a way to know if it is generally right or not. Take some clay and form it by pressing and pushing and forming—there should be a way to know whether the object is….justified in being made. Perhaps there is one art form that does have a way to judge whether or not it is good, whether or not it is a success, whether or not it is justified in it’s form. In college, I used to love to watch the pottery artists work. They would work the clay, then throw it hard against the wheel, and with the pressure of their hands, pull it up into a creation. But the potters were unlike all the other students in the art department. They weren’t just creating something to be seen, or to be heard, or even to be only touched. They weren’t just creating an aesthetic, something to be admired for its beauty. No, the potters were creating… “functional art.” Something with a purpose. A pot. A plate. A bowl. A chalice. A jug. Objects of use. The closest they might come to creating something for beauty’s sake only, I suppose, came in making a vase or urn. But even those pieces had a function. You suppose that’s why God told Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house? There, Jeremiah would find a great sermon illustration. A potter forming a pot. But when the pot failed—when it marred in the potter’s hands, he re-worked the clay and began again. Apparently the potter is after something more than just beauty. For Jeremiah did not notice that the potter found the pot ugly, or lacking in some artistic expression—not Jeremiah says that the potter reworked the clay when it “marred in his hands.” Apparently unable to fulfill it’s intended function. Whether that was something that would crack when it was fired in the kiln, or an uneven surface that would make it dysfunctional when you tried to pour something out of it, or perhaps even would make it topple over when you set it on a table. Then….when it couldn’t be what it was intended to be, then….the potter reworked the clay and began the process of pushing and pulling and shaping again. The Lord then tells Jeremiah: “I’m a lot like that potter. If a nation or a kingdom is to be torn down, but then they repent and turn from their evil ways, I will relent and not destroy it. And the opposite is true. If I am about to build up a nation, and they do evil in my sight and do not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended for it.” You hear it? If the people God is building up become marred, spoiled, unable to accomplish the purpose for which they were made, then God, like the potter, can choose to flatten out the deformed piece and begin again—with the same clay. The potter’s vessels are all created with a purpose. A pot is formed to carry a load. A lamp, created to bring light. A cup to offer a drink to the thirsty. A plate to feed the hungry. A jug to store something of value for another use. While all may be things of beauty, they are not created with beauty as their final purpose. They are created to be used. And in their use is the real joy of their creation. And so it is with God’s vessels. There’s a number on display here this morning. While they may be things of beauty, they have been created not just for beauty’s sake. There is so much more! Some of us are created to carry a load. Some to bring light. Some to offer drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. Some to store up that which is valuable for a later use. For what function do you suppose you were created? Ever wonder? One of my favorite Psalms (Psalm 139) includes these lines:
13 For you created my inmost
being; “For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Why? Ever ask that? Why? So that God could look at one of us and say, “Oh…how beautiful!” Or, was there some purpose, some FUNCTION in our creation, as we were put together fearfully and wonderfully by the hands of God? Now, before I get too carried away with this "fearfully and wonderfully made" stuff, I suppose a bit of humility is in order. In fact, the root word for humility is the same root word for humus, the soil out of which Adam was originally created, the soil to which we will all return at the end of life. Science tells us the human body is 70% water. Hmm. Seems to me that that’s about the same make up of a good mud puddle--70% water and 30 percent dirt. But to a pig or to a 4 year old, a mud puddle often has more function than many human beings! Are we human or humus? Person or puddle? The trick for humans, seems to me, is to first discover Who it is that created us and put us here. As we begin to form an understanding of who God is as the one who has created us, we may become curious about WHY we have been created. . .and for what purpose! An art piece’s beauty may indeed lie in the eyes of the beholder. . .but our purpose lies always, unmistakably in the hands of God! Thanks be to God.
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