The Holier the Artist, the Better the Art — Integrated Catholic Life™

The holier the artist, the better the art. The better the art, the holier the artist. This is a controversial statement. Certainly the evidence stands against it. Many great poets, writers, visual artists, musicians, and actors were also great sinners. And many holy people were terrible artists. Art is not a strictly moral activity, which John Paul II acknowledges in his Letter to Artists: It is one thing for human beings to be the authors of their own acts, with responsibility for their moral value; it is another to be an artist, able, that is, to respond to the demands of art and faithfully to accept art’s specific dictates. This is what makes the artist capable of producing objects, but it says nothing as yet of his moral character. We are speaking not of molding oneself, of forming one’s own personality, but simply of actualizing one’s productive capacities, giving aesthetic form to ideas conceived in the mind (2). Artistic intuition and technical skillfulness are natural talents, God-given but not contingent on the life of grace, and certainly not distributed equally among all His children. Natural talents simply are, and a person need not be religious to practice and improve his art. This is why someone can be both a great artist and tortured soul. Yet, while making a clear distinction between art and morality, John Paul claims that art itself provides an artist with an opportunity to grow in holiness, insofar as he is willing.

The Holier the Artist, the Better the Art — Integrated Catholic Life™