Mangled Beauty
March 30, 2016
Mirage, Salvador Dali; 1946
The Dangers of Individualism in Art
By Kidist Paulos Asrat
Western art has been the oeuvre of the individual man, the distinct person. It does not have the veil of communitarian art, but the light of the individual mind. Through centuries of quests and questions, study and theory, and most importantly practice, it is fundamentally concerned with beauty, anchored with truth and goodness (or Godliness). [1]
Modern Western art took this quest for beauty, which had always been aligned with God, into a new turn when the modern mind reduced, and even eliminated, the presence and the subject of God from its oeuvres. What took over instead was modern man as creator, like God himself, and the grand designer of his own destiny. This quest for the new, for progress, for change – artistic, technical and ideological – which has been the character of Western art and mind throughout its history, accelerated during the modern era. [2] This frantic search translated into the cult of the new, which became worshiped in its own right. Progressivism became a substitute for the waning God. [3]
But since there is nothing substantial to worship, or esteem, other than a concept (of progress), man started to hold the thinker and the creator of these ideas, man himself, as the highest pinnacle. [4]
Man’s lack of Godly influence began to show most prominently in his art where he felt God was an obstacle to these pursuits. These psychological and spiritual shifts, rather than leaving him alone to his thoughts and activities, apart and separated from God, introduced another player into his spiritual world. He began to acquire the directions of the Devil.
The Devil knows that man has a soft heart for beauty, even if he may denounce that need when he abandons God. But, the Devil’s beauty is twisted and maligned, a fantastic copy of man’s art created under God’s direction. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the modern era, where we are surrounded by the mangled horror/beauty of the devil’s influence, from the horror films projected every macabre holiday, to the dark and morose fashionS we see in the streets. All, in their methods, show us some glitter and glimmer, flashy, super-saturated colors and false emblems, to draw us away from the darkness of evil and its true intent. It is not ugliness that is the trademark of the Devil, but mangled beauty. [5]
To salvage and restore the horrors we’ve seen in our era, man needs to return to the art which has the influence, and the subject, of God. He needs to renounce his cult of self-worship, and realize the humility to stand before God. [6] Man the person, who is so loved by God, has to reconcile his person, his individuality, with his relation with God. That is when his expressions, artistic, intellectual, or any other, are the most true; are the most authentic and himself. He will then be the individual so loved by God.
References:
1. Bernard, Bro, La beauté sauvera le monde, Cerf; 5e edition, 1990
2. Childe, V. Gordon, Man Makes Himself; London, Watts & Co. 1936
3. Nisbet, Robert, History of the Idea of Progress; Transaction Publishers; 2nd edition, 1994
4. Ibid.
5. Clair, René: Beauty and the Devil; Armand Salacrou; Release date: 1952
6. Weor, Samael Aun, The Revolution of Beelzebub: The Demon Who Renounced Evil and the Man Who Guided Him; Glorian Publishing, 2014
