Four Standards of Judgment

Francis Schaeffer poses and then answers the question "What kind of judgment does one apply, then, to a work of art?" in Art & Bible, pp. 41-48:

I believe that there are four basic standards: (1) technical excellence, (2) validity, (3) intellectual content, the world view which comes through and (4) the integration of content and vehicle.

I will discuss technical excellence in relationship to painting because it is easy to point out through this medium what I mean. Here one considers the use of color, form, balance, the texture of the paint, the handling of the lines, the unity of the canvas and so forth. In each of these there can be varying degrees of technical excellence. By recognizing technical excellence as an aspect of an art work, we are often able to say that while we do not agree with such and such an artist's world view, he is nontheless a great artist.

We are not being true to the artist as a man if we consider his art work junk simply because we differ with his outlook on life. Christian schools, Christian parents and Christian pastors often have turned off young people at just this point. Because the schools, the pastors and the parents did not make a distinction between technical excellence and content, the whole of much great art has been rejected by scorn or ridicule. Instead, if the artist's technical excellence is high, he is to be praised for this, even if we differ with his world view. Man must be treated fairly as man. Technical excellence is, therefore, an important criterion.

Validity is the second criterion. By validity I mean whether an artist is honest to himself and to his world view or whether he makes his art only for money or for the sake of being accepted. If an artist makes an art work solely for a patron -- whether that patron is the ancient noble, or the modern art gallery to which the artist wants access, or the modern art critics of the moment -- his work does not have validity. The modern forms of "the patron" are more destructive than even that of the old noble.
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The third criterion for the judgment of a work of art is its content, that which reflects the world view of the artist. As far as a Christian is concerned, the world view that is shown through a body of art must be seen ultimately in terms of Scripture. The artist's world view is not to be free from the judgment of the Word of God. In this the artist is like a scientist. The scientist may wear a white coat and be considered an "authority" by society, but where his statements impinge upon what God has given us in Scripture, they come under the ultimate authority of his Word. An artist may wear a painter's smock and be considered almost a holy man, yet where his work shows his world view, it must be judged by its relationship to the Christian world view.

I think we can now see how it is possible to make such judgments concerning the work of art. If we stand as Christians before a man's canvas and recognize that he is a great artist in technical excellence and validity -- if in fact he is -- if we have been fair with him as a man and as an artist, then we can say that his world view is wrong. We can judge this view on the same basis as we judge the views of anybody else -- the philosopher, common man, laborer, businessman or whatever.
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There is a corollary to this third criterion. We should realize that if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art it can be far more destructive and devastating than if it is expressed in poor art or prosaic statement. Much of the crude art, the common product of hippie communities and the underground press, is laden with destructive messages, but the art is so poor that it does not have much force. But the greater the artistic expression, the more important it is to consciously bring it and its world view under the judgment of Christ and the Bible.
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There is a second corollary related to judging the content of an art work: It is possible for a non-Christian writer or painter to write and paint according to a Christian world view even though he himself is not a Christian. To understand this, we must distinguish between two meanings of the word Christian. The first and essential meaning is that a Christian is a man who has accepted Christ as his Savior and has thus passed from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God by being born again. But if a number of people really are Christians, then they bring forth a kind of consensus that exists apart from themselves, and sometimes non-Christians paint and write within the framework of that consensus even though they as individuals are not Christians.

There are, therefore, four kinds of people in the realm of art. The first is the born-again man who writes and paints within the Christian total world view. The second is the non-Christian who expresses his own non-Christian world view. The third is the man who is personally a non-Christian but nevertheless writes or paints on the basis of the Christian consensus by which he has been influenced....

The fourth person is the born-again Christian who does not understand what the total Christian world view should be and therefore produces art which embodies a non-Christian world view. In other words, just as it is possible for a non-Christian to be inconsistent and to paint God's world in spite of his personal philosophy, it is possible for a Christian to be inconsistent and embody in his paintings a non-Christian world view. And it is this latter which is perhaps the most sad.

The fourth criterion for judging a work of art involves how well the artist has suited the vehicle to the message. For those art works which are truly great, there is a correlation between the style and the content. The greatest art fits the vehicle that is being used to the world view that is being presented.
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We should ultimately see all art works in the light of their technique, validity, world view and suiting of form to content.

Remembering Francis Schaeffer 25 Years Later

Francis Schaeffer died 25 years ago today, on May 15, 1984, but his legacy lives on (despite a sad portrayal of him by his son Frank that has been disowned by others close to the elder Schaeffer). There are aspects of his belief with which I differ, but his willingness to engage 20th century culture made a deep and lasting impact upon many, myself included. For those who wish to learn more about the man, I commend in particular Colin Duriez's recent biography, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life.

Os Guiness gave an interview recently in which he commented on Schaeffer's legacy from his close-up, personal point of view. From a much more distant perspective, yet personal to me, I would simply say that of all the subjects upon which Schaeffer expounded, nothing touched me more deeply than his views on art.

In the Kuyperian tradition of one who declared "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'" (speech given on October 20, 1880, quoted in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, p. 488), Schaeffer too affirmed that art is not be relegated to a Christian ghetto, but that "[t]he Lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no Platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and the soul. God made the body as well as the soul, and redemption is for the whole man" (Art and the Bible, p. 1). Thus, as we are created in the image of our Creator with creative capacity, man can and should glorify God in the arts, and that is beauty -- true beauty, rightly apprehended -- is reflective of who God is, and how he works (Gen. 1.26-27, 31). "If God made the birds, they are worth painting. If God made the sky, the sky is worth painting. If God made the ocean, indeed it's worth writing poetry about. It is worth man's while to create works upon the basis of the great works God has already created" (ibid, p. 60). Art need not consist of religious iconography to glorify God, and indeed, the second commandment, as well as the seventh, do indeed regulate the proper expression of that which is God-honoring art. In fact, there is a whole universe of inspiration which is at the artist's disposal, and as "he shines in all that's fair" (a line from a hymn by Maltbie Babcock, "This is My Father's World," as well as the title of Richard Mouw's book subtitled "Culture and Common Grace"), he who creates glorifies God in heeding the apostolic injunction: "[W]hatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. 4.8).

The corpus of Schaeffer's works cover many important subjects ranging from abortion to ecology to apologetics to philosophy and so much more. But, in my personal opinion, Schaeffer's genius is especially to be found in his articulation of the Lordship of Christ over all of life, with particular emphasis upon the creative arts. And for this, I am in his debt.