Art: the patronage sequel

Where’s the money?

That’s the unspoken question haunting the pages of the Herald’s preceding issue on art and imagination. Where is the money to support those labouring in the vineyard of Christ-directed creative output? We say we support the arts, but true support includes the bottom line. So where is the financial support?

We value that for which we are willing to pay. We’ll pay a full-time worship leader handsomely to shower us with the aural dopamine of the endless praise chorus – a million of which won’t change the neighbourhood, much less the world (I know he’s an awesome God already!) – while the artist, shaper of society, struggles in the shadows, pathetically splicing his or her calling into the unyielding fabric of economic reality and the day jobs it often demands.

How can true excellence be attained without support? There would be no Michelangelo without the Medici. There would be no Vincent van Gogh without Theo van Gogh. No one wanted to buy their art – it required patronage. But look how much richer the world is as a result and how the beauty of creation is glorified. God is an awesome God!

Gregory Wolfe describes the situation thus: “In my ten years as fundraiser for Image [a publication devoted to art, faith, and mystery] I’ve learned a great deal about the state of patronage in America, at least as far as the nexus of religion and the arts is concerned. I’ve found that institutions such as churches, universities, and foundations are, more often than not, timid and confused. The institutional church hasn’t been a serious patron of the arts for a couple centuries now, and it hasn’t been doing much to make up for lost time. Powerful, arresting art is simply too controversial to please everyone in the pews, and so the lowest common denominator usually wins out.”

Art is a struggle, an awful career to follow, filled with skepticism, misunderstanding, a tune played on the harp of despair, spectacularly underpaid, and subject to outrageous highs and lows. Like a blind miner, the artist stumbles along, hoping to find – and mine – that invisible motherlode of creative gold.

The true artist, more than anything, simply wants to work, to produce. All that’s required is the means to do so.

But just as Christian mystic Simone Weil defined her place as occupying the space at the intersection of Christianity and everything that is not Christianity, so many artists of faith must feel they are at this exact point: on the threshold of the art gallery, Bible in hand, quite still, starving, ignored.

So: consider patronage. Consider the deal struck by Vincent and his brother Theo, whereby Theo supported Vincent and, in turn, took ownership of the artwork produced. Why couldn’t a church do likewise, or an individual? It would take a judicious hand and much discernment, true, but the investment could well reap huge benefits not only in the spiritual world, but the economic as well. A van Gogh painting – unwanted during his lifetime – can sell today for as much as 50 million dollars. That could make for a pretty nifty multi-purpose room!

So, again: consider patronage. The artist produces, fulfilling a God-given calling; the patron acquires potentially valuable art in the context of rewarding stewardship; the cause of Christ is honoured and furthered.

Everyone wins.

Faithful Skeptic attends a Mennonite Brethren church where his clandestine coffee-klatsch truancy is an under-appreciated art form.