Art and its "Elusive Allusivity"

The Lord is currently using a book, "Art & Soul" by Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplin to inspire, encourage, and inform me. This beautiful little gem arrived in my hands by way of Nick, and it has seldom left my hands since. I feel like I am slowly beginning to see through "new eyes" and awaken out of my writer's block/artist's block/frustration with my own creativity.

One of many portions in this book that was particularly transforming was the portion on art's "elusive allusivity", cleverly coined by the authors. After describing the difficulties and dangers of defining what art is, they paraphrase Calvin Seerveld by saying

"Art can never be, and never has been, simply recording, or a painting using photorealist techniques, what makes it art is that it carries with it this quality of allusion. It suggests, or hints at, something beyond itself. It depicts subject-matter as experienced."

They go on to say " if we take allusiveness as our defining factor, we can now begin to see why Christians can sometimes produce such bad art. On an urgent quest to present a message, the tendency can be to dive immediately for a specific symbol, metaphor or allegory as a vehicle for literal meaning."

So true. In my own experience, the very root of my artistic frustration is the striving to force people to "get" my art. I find it difficult to write a poem of of pain or sadness without tying it up with the "well, everything's not really as bad as it seems because Christ saved me and now everything is wonderful" bow. Or, that if I paint a picture that doesn't portray a sunny subject or an obvious religious symbol like a cross, my work is meaningless and godless. Sadly, for too long, I have been been missing the inclusion of art's most valuable and defining trait: that of being allusive.

Christian art, song, poetry, etc. as a whole needs to strive to go deeper into the core of the people who experience it. Give them something to chomp on, wrestle with, play with, be curious about, and appreciate. This striving and searching is what Jesus longed to produce in people by asking his seemingly misplaced and abrasive questions instead of giving clear-cut answers.

Prayerfully, we will wake up and allusivity will no longer be elusive to believers in Christ in their art.