Why the Church Needs Art

I will focus on the final section of John Paul II's Letter to Artists, in which the Pope argues that art needs the Church. This section is of particular interest because it draws out the implications of the earlier descriptions of the artist and the artist's role in the Church. Moreover, the Pope's introductory comments suggest that he sees this section as his most controversial argument of the passage. His reasoning runs along the following lines: If the artist is "constantly in search of the hidden meaning of things" and striving to express "the world of the ineffable" (Section 3), then, in order to fulfill this aim, the artist must turn to those human activities and institutions that offer the greatest insight into what is transcendent. Religion is a necessary resource in this task because it directly addresses itself to the nature of transcendence by exploring questions of meaning, both on the level of the whole of reality (e.g., what is the structure of the universe?) and on the level of the individual (e.g., how am I personally called to use my gifts?). Among religions, Christianity—in particular Catholicism—provides an especially fruitful source of inspiration to the artist because Christianity proclaims the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ is God become man for love of human beings. Therefore, art needs the Church because the goal of the artist can best be fulfilled in the context of the life and doctrines of the Church. ¹

The most controversial premise of this argument seems to be that the doctrine of the Incarnation is vital to the fulfillment of the artist's vocation. This strong claim serves as the lynchpin of the passage as a whole. Building from the second premise to the third, the argument suggests that art needs religion and, in particular, needs Catholic Christianity because of the doctrine of the incarnation. On what grounds can one assert that art needs the doctrine of the incarnation, much less that art needs the Church's particular expression of this doctrine?

Challenges to the importance of the incarnation to art might take one of two basic forms. First, one might argue that John Paul is correct in identifying the task of the artist as the struggle to express what is ineffable and transcendent, as a search for meaning, but disagree that the incarnation is needed to fulfill this task. In a more encompassing challenge, one might object that the Pope is incorrect in his assessment of the vocation of the artist, in which case, any argument that the incarnation is necessary for this misconception of art becomes a moot point.

Let me take up the second objection first. The answer to this challenge goes back to the initial explanation of the artist's vocation. In describing the task of the artist, John Paul claims,

In producing a work, artists express themselves to the point where their work becomes a unique disclosure of their own being, of what they are and of how they are. . . . In shaping a masterpiece, the artist not only summons his work into being, but also in some way reveals his own personality by means of it. (Section 1)

Notice that this description focuses on the self-expression of the artist. Interestingly, this approach does not seem to be an overtly controversial account of art. Presumably, artists without religious commitments can and do understand their art as self-expression. John Paul goes on to emphasize that art can also aim at ends beyond the work itself. Art can be a means of spiritual growth for the artist and a medium through which to communicate with other people. These ends are noteworthy in part because they are directly linked to the artist's inner life, that is, to the self that is expressed in art. In the...