So much of what I want to communicate to other artists can be boiled down to a simple, deeply felt statement: Your art matters! A lot of artists want to think that what they do matters, but can’t articulate why. I have read a decent amount of books written by artists for artists, and much of it justifies the expenses and effort that it takes to make good art by basking in the comforts of vague spirituality. But the spiritual vagueness feels like standing on thin straw when you could be standing on granite. What I want to do in this post is lay out a particular vision of art that can concretely support artists as they engage their craft. In my way of thinking, there are four layers of hope for the Christian artist.
1.) The pleasure of personal fulfillment
The first hope is that of personal fulfillment. At this stage, we engage with the work of making art because it is personally satisfying and transformative, even if no one else understands. The short story by Earnest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, illustrates this level of hope quite well. It’s about a fisherman who, through much sacrifice, catches a marlin. Before he can bring it to shore, however, sharks consume the marlin’s flesh, leaving the old fisherman empty-handed. The author then intentionally invokes spiritual imagery—showing the fisherman carrying a cross-like burden with the scars of the stigmata (Christ’s piercings from his suffering) remaining on his hands even after the struggle. To add insult to injury, the townspeople look at all that remains of the marlin—its skeleton—and say, “Look! A Shark!” There is a kind of absurdity to the scene. No one understands what the fisherman has done or the importance of his work. Notwithstanding, the story ends with the fisherman dreaming about his next expedition with animals.
Here we see the fisherman experience a kind of personal fulfillment or redemption. It doesn’t matter that his work failed or that onlookers misunderstand. What matters is the fulfillment the fisherman receives from his endeavors. While Hemingway was not religious in a traditional sense, he is here using Christian symbolism to spiritually reflect upon the significance of any work—artistic work included. Through this story, he highlights the personal satisfaction that comes from artistic work as the sustaining force for artists when others fail to understand. It’s not shallow. In fact, when I ask artists why they create, the joy of creating is one of the main motivations they give me. Nevertheless, I do want to point out that in Hemingway’s story, that’s as far as his hope goes. I’m not at all saying that the first stage is a false hope or shallow hope. I am merely saying that it’s only stage one.
2.) The pleasure of God’s delight
In the second stage, we enter the realm of particular Christian hope. In the story Leaf by Niggle, Tolkien reflects on the joy God takes in our artistic work. In this story, a painter named Niggle attempts to paint a magnificent tree. Eventually, Niggle must take a journey to a different country, which is symbolic of his death. As the date for this journey approaches, Niggle hurriedly tries to finish his work, but he eventually leaves the painting unfinished. After passing through this journey, however, he arrives in a new country where he looks up and is stunned to see a tree—his tree—radiant and beautiful and real. He exclaims, “It’s a gift!” Then the story takes us back to his original painting, and we see just a small portion of the painting—a leaf—that remains in a museum. Then the divine voices that observe the whole affair speak, because they are the only ones who realize the true value of the art. They laugh in pleasure over what Niggle has done.
In this story, Tolkien expands our hope from merely personal fulfillment to the joy of God’s delight in our work. Even when other people may not grasp its value, God does. Because God delights in our artwork, he intends to give it back to us as a gift—and his delight in our work might be the even greater gift. In all honesty, this story always makes me teary-eyed. The thought that God would delight in my art so much that he intends to give it back to me, it utterly undoes me. But here’s the thing: Tolkien stopped at heaven and God’s approval of the art—but the biblical story goes even further. There are deeper layers of hope to explore.
3.) The resurrection of art
Next we come to the hope of resurrection. Our art will be rescued from the corrosion of time and the obscurity of our workshops. That idea may surprise you, so I need to explain what I mean. Historically, the Christian tradition holds faith in the promise of resurrection. That is to say, just as Christ’s body was physically given back to him in greater degrees of glory, so our bodies will physically be given back to us in greater degrees of glory. Similarly, and perhaps even more powerfully, this physical world will physically be given back to us in greater degrees of glory. Contrary to popular teaching, the biblical story does not end with heaven; it ends with heaven coming down to earth to make all things new. That’s the true ending which we so often forget (1 Cor 15; Rev 22). For artists, this doctrine has massive implications. If we asked ourselves: Why create art when, like the Titanic, it is doomed to sink into obscurity? The logic of resurrection answers: Because the artwork you create on the Titanic now will carry over to when the Titanic gets raised from the watery abyss.
As artists, we can trust that our art will be raised and restored with the rest of creation. That’s a small part of what Paul meant when he used resurrection as the basis for saying, “your work in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58). There is actually a video game that illustrates this point. In 2019, the Notre Dame Cathedral famously caught fire so that much of it was lost. Before that fire, however, artists designing the video game Assassin’s Creed Unity had meticulously copied the fine details of the cathedral, which served an indirect role in its reconstruction. While the game was not literally used to map out the restoration plans (a different laser scan technology was used for that), the game company nevertheless played a part in its restoration work through marketing—publishing the game freely to raise awareness, and even giving some of the game’s earnings toward restoration work. My claim is this: the same story will be true of our artwork. If our art is genuinely an expression of the goodness of God’s kingdom on earth, then God fully intends to use our art as a means of rebuilding creation.
4.) God’s intra-Trinitarian love expressed through our art
As if our hope couldn’t get any more intense, we now come to God’s use of our resurrected art to express the unending love that exists between the Father and the Son. Let me tease that out, because you probably won’t believe me unless I show you. In John 17, Jesus prays that the infinite love that the Father has for the Son would be given to us (v. 26). That’s already astonishing enough. But this love doesn’t just flow one direction—from the Father, to the Son, and finally to us. It actually goes the other direction too—from us, to the Son, and finally to the Father. I say this because when the author of Hebrews reflects on the moment when Jesus took on flesh (10:5-7), he puts Psalm 40 on the lips of Jesus: “a body you have prepared for me … I delight to do your will, O my God.” Let it not be lost on us that Jesus quotes a poet. When Jesus entered the womb of Mary, he reached for art—a poem of David—and incorporated it into how he expressed his intra-Trinitarian love.
This idea of being incorporated into God’s own life is not foreign to the Christian tradition. In the East it has been called Theosis, while in the West Participation. I’m simply an artist articulating a similar idea from the angle of my profession. If Jesus took human art and used it to express his unending love toward his Father, is it that far of a step to imagine he will do it again with our art? If we see Jesus doing such a thing when he came to earth the first time, does it not free us to use our imagination for similar acts when he returns? With these things in mind, I imagine, for instance, that I might play my cello for Jesus. I even imagine playing something for him which I originally wrote to express my love for my family. And then I imagine Jesus saying to his Father, “Listen carefully: that’s how I feel about you.” This scene feels like the most astonishing gift I could ever receive. Somehow, the love I had for my family—expressed in my art—has been caught up into God’s own life and love.
Epilogue: Almost too good to be true
This four-layered hope for artists makes me want to scream with joy. I literally cannot imagine a story more dignifying for artists. Of course this vision of hope is true of other professions. But the path of an artist is often lonely, and the specific places I noticed of God delighting in the work of artists is concretely encouraging to me. I hope it will fill you with joy as you engage your art. Our hope is solid. Therefore, your art matters. Perhaps now you can see more clearly why.