I wrote elsewhere about True Myth. I argued there that the universal phenomenon of making myths hints at the deep structure of reality. That is to say, just as our stomachs crave food because they are designed for food, so we crave stories because God chose to make himself known through a true story. If this perspective is true, then it gives immense dignity to artists who write stories. If left there, however, the impression one could get is that storytelling is the highest form of art that there is. Music, dance, or painting might be lesser art forms because, after all, it was not music, dance, or painting that became flesh, but “the Word became flesh” (John 1:1-18). How, then, should we think about wordless or abstract forms of art? Do they share the same dignity as word-form art?
The Dignity of Wordless Art
I would like to make the case that all art—however wordless—has a twin dignity with explicit, word-form myth or storytelling. I want to argue that all forms of art have the potential to highlight the beauty of the Jesus story, even if they never use words or consciously attempt to portray some aspect of that story. Scripture itself holds a robust category for the importance of wordless creative work when it says,
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
Apparently, when God put on his artist hat to forge creation, he made things without a voice—which still speak of him. How is it that wordless creation speaks? How do the skies, for instance, “use no words” yet “their words [reach] to the ends of the world”? There is actually a logic to how this works. My argument is this: just as myth resonates with us because the True Myth stepped into history, so also wordless art resonates with us because it shares the same logic of Incarnation.
That claim that abstract art “shares the logic of Incarnation” needs further explanation. Psalm 34 can offer us help here. The psalmist says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8). That’s a lovely poetic line, the idea of enjoying the Lord’s goodness by means of our tongues and our eyes. For some time I glossed over the expression without realizing that it is steeped in the imagery of the Scripture’s creation narratives which show us how to do this. “Taste” and “see” specifically did not come from nowhere. They come from deep reflection on the creation pages of Scripture where God reveals himself to us in and through the physical world.
Take, for instance, food. God created the human being, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2). Then the first invitation is to eat of the fruit of the ground. Alexander Schmemann points out that God’s life came first, and then the continued life that humans received from him came by means of the physical world. In other words, God continued to offer them the breath of life, and gave it to them through food. In some way, says Schmemann, when we eat, God gives us the gift of his life through his gifts of creation. Food is how we “taste” that the Lord is good. It is little wonder that Jesus later says, “Take and eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26).
Similarly, we can “see” that the Lord is good. Recall the sun in Genesis 1. It is curious that when God spoke on day one, “Let there be light,” the sun does not appear until day four. This surprising order—light first, sun later—suggests that God himself is the true source of light, with the sun acting as the physical steward of that light. It is, in a way, God’s light given to us through the sun. The sun is how we physically see God’s goodness. Jesus carries that pattern forward when he says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Specifically, concretely, his body is how we see God and his goodness.
For artists, this pattern of the spiritual taking shape in matter gives dignity to our art—even when it is wordless. Because God made us creatures of dust, he chose to reveal himself to us through this world. As such, musicians can mediate God’s goodness to the world by means of the physical sounds from their instruments. Painters can reveal the goodness of God by means of the colors on their canvas. Dancers can unveil the goodness of God by means of their choreography. Our art, however wordless, awakens desires and longings in us that can only be satisfied in full by the Incarnation of Christ, who is the climax of all that is good and beautiful.
God’s Presence in Wordless Art
You will recall how the artist C.S. Lewis came to faith after years of being steeped in mythology. Initially he dismissed the life of Jesus as a myth because it resembled so many other myths. Eventually, however, he reasoned that the world’s myths have so many common themes because they portray universal human longings. That is to say, we are story-telling creatures because God chose to reveal himself to us through a true story. The Jesus story is the story that makes sense of all the stories, the Myth that makes sense of all the myths. For Lewis, the Jesus story was the Myth that distinguished itself from the others by stepping into history.
As it turns out, the whole universe works this way. It’s not a quirky Lewis thing or a strange reading of myth. From the Christian vantage point, the universe at large reveals God to us. Just as myths reveal the shape of the story in which God chose to reveal himself, so creation at large reveals the shape of that same story. The sun is a physical steward of God’s own light, and as such anticipates when God’s own light would uniquely take on flesh in the person of Jesus. Food physically mediates God’s gift of life to us, and as such bears witness to the unique Incarnation of God’s own life in the coming of Christ. It was seeing this pattern in the myths of the world, the pattern that seems to beg for a culmination in the Incarnation, that led the artist C.S. Lewis to embrace the Jesus story.
Some theologians refer to this way of seeing reality as Sacramental Theology. In this way of seeing, the Eucharist is not some weird moment disconnected from everything else; it is an intensification of how the universe already works. We meet God when we look at the sun. We meet God when we taste food. We meet God in myths of the world. When Jesus comes and gives us his body, it’s an intensification of how the world already operates. If he was present in the sunlight and the food and the myths, how much more so here! If that’s how the universe is wired, then we don’t need to always preach with our art—because the art by its own beauty already preaches. That’s why not all art needs words to display the glory of God.
Some people might object that general revelation does not bring people to Jesus (Romans 1:20-21). True, words are needed for that. Still, I would challenge you to look carefully at the ministry of Jesus. He always came to preach and to heal (Luke 9:2). In other words, there is a time to preach and a time to heal. They are like the two hands of our body that need not fight but can coordinate with each other to powerful effect. Our art may intentionally gesture toward the Christian story, or it may intentionally not gesture toward the Christian story. Either way, we can trust God to reveal himself through our art because it shares the logic of Incarnation—God’s transcendent goodness applied to us by means of the physical world.
The painter Makoto Fujimura articulates a theology which complements what has been articulated above. In his book Art and Faith, he applies N.T. Wright’s theology of God’s kingdom by arguing that our art can bring the goodness of God’s future kingdom to earth in the present. He calls this practice “culture care.” His emphasis is one of God’s future age breaking into the present, bringing wholeness and healing into an otherwise broken world. While not identical to what this essay has argued, it resonates deeply with it. Wordless art (despite its being less overt in its Christian messaging) has a twin dignity with word-form art precisely because it mediates God’s goodness to its recipients here and now.
Conclusion
So artists: taste and see the goodness of God. Not only can your art help you do this, but it can also help others experience God’s goodness. Lewis and Fujimura, like the two ministries of Christ—teaching and healing—are like the pendulum of a grandfather clock: swinging back and forth between showing and telling the Christian story. I have argued elsewhere for using our art as a tool to tell the Christian story. Here, I am arguing that the art itself, apart from any explicit reference to the Christian story, can be as powerful a witness to the Christian story as explicitly referencing it. Because God made the world to reveal himself, we can trust people will meet him through the beauty of our art without contrived attempts to make it happen. Perhaps the very subtlety of our art will help those who encounter it, in a moment of surprise, to taste and see that the Lord is good.