
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. Read More »