Saunders, S. Robert

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RELIGION AND ARTBY S. ROBERT SAUNDERSWHAT is Religion?In each of us there exists a consciousness of being, undefinedand undefinable, but a reaUty nevertheless. I call this the con-sciousness of "I am", and by that 'T am" I designate the soulwhich is my possession: the essential ego. It is this ego alonewhich comprehends a greater, and this greater soul is what Iunderstand to be God, conveniently explained by the simple words"all that is good". It is apparent that both these comprehensions,these experiences of consciousness, are spiritual in essence. Hence,contact between the spiritual "I am" which is my soul, and thegreater spiritual goodness which pervades the universe, must bespiritual contact ; the syllogism is complete. This spiritual contactis what I understand religion to be. It requires no ritual, nodogma, no order, no creed, to explain it. Religion is merely con-tact between the soul and God: that is, between the lesser spiritwithin, which is the ego, and the universal spirit within the uni-verse, which is God. The understanding of this contact is the aimof life.What is Art?Art is the precise expression of spiritual contact. It is to manthe embodiment of the experiences of his consciousness. Shake-speare was thus an artist : first, because he was capable of receivingimpressions from without, which he transmuted into the ether othis soul, and of collating—through reason and by means of hisimagination—those inner essences which formed the mysteries ofhis own soul-conceptions ; secondly, because these impressions, sotransmuted and collated, found root, and were fostered, cultivatedand developed until they became life; thirdly, because he was con-754 THE OPEN COURTrcious that there was an undefinable contact between this soul andall that it contained and revealed, and the great God-soul withinthe universe ; and, fourthly, because he was faithful in expressing,in words, what the results of this contact were, or, more plainly,he was faithful in explaining life. I have reduced the essentialsto four. The first three are important to all men because all menneed religion : religion as I understand it and have tried to expressit above. The fourth—which all men can appreciate, but few canadequately produce—is the artist's key ; it is the expression, inShakespeare's case the expression by words. By a similar processcan be explained the artist in the musician like Chopin, the sculptorlike Michael Angelo, and the painter like Turner or David Cox.We can all understand religion, and we can all be religious,because we can all—by a process of individual isolation—compre-hend contact between our inner life and our soul-conceptions, andthe underlying life of the universe. So, also, can we all under-stand art. In one confined sense art and religion are synonymous.But we do not all expound or interpret this synonym, and it isthis exposition and interpretation which is the function of theartist, and this extra facility which makes the artist.It seems intelligible to deduce from the foregoing that allartists are religious ; but that all religious people are not neces-sarily artists ; in fact, very few have ever been so. The develop-m.ent of this will, no doubt, yield ground for dispute betweenthe orthodox view of religion (the religion of Christianity inparticular), and my own view of it. I am, however, attackingonly the narrow satisfaction which is found in the man whol)ins his emblem of faith on the flag-staff of dogma and creed.Such as he requires an apologia for his present satisfactionwith life, and, confessing a belief in a heaven which is whollyincomprehensible to him, he accepts an apologia in the form ofdogma and creed. This he calls faith. If he knew an intel-ligible God, he would realize that his conception of his existence—-so far as it is intelligible to him—is false. For religion, beingspiritual contact, is not a code of law or mortals ; it is not a state-ment of a creed ; and—it is not necessarily Christianity.Why, then, is Christianity the embodiment of my religion?Or, more simply, why do I believe in Jesus? My answer is thatin him I see, not a super-divinity of exclusive origin, but whatperfect contact between the soul of man and the spirit of GodRELIGION AND ART 755can be: a contact which in the end implies unity. In otherwords, I see in Jesus the perfect Hfe suitable and attainable forme, and for all men, on earth. I conceive Christ to be the basisof my religion, because Christ interprets life for me, here and now.This is the only explanation of my Christianity ; it is very simpleand very logical.\Miat, again, is the association of Christianity with art, andhow are they connected? Simply in this: that to me Christ wasthe supreme artist. The common consideration of art is confined,in the minds of most people, to literature, music, sculpture,painting. Every so-called critic of art has so limited his con-ception of art. But, through a long period of soul-searching,1 have made a discovery new to myself, which I cannot find inbooks, nor in the expression of any other artistic medium. Itis this: art being, as I understand it, the expression of life, itis, in its complete sense, expressed in Jesus Christ and in himonly.Art exists for me whenever there is appreciation and under-standing manifested in my soul as the result of contact with theappreciation and Understanding experienced by the artist. Forexample, the moment which the ego which I possess under-stands (through reading The Cherry Orchard) something, how-ever little, of the understanding which Tchekov's personal egoachieved, and which he expressed in that work, then at thatmoment the seed of art germinated, and for me that particularevidence of it must henceforward develop and so live. Suchan experience is the apology for literature, while similar ex-periences are the apologies for music, sculpture and painting.And, what is most important of all, precisely the same type, ofexperience is my apologia for my Christian religion, which iscontact with true life through the contemplation of Truth, madesoul-visible through Jesus Christ, the supreme artist.Now I suggest that anyone who does not understand religion,that is, who does not understand what is spiritual contact be-tween his soul and the spirit of God, can add nothing usefulto the consideration of this subject. People attempt to regardthe aesthetic application of art as if it were the alpha andomega of a concise subject. A person who listens to musicand merely feels a satisfied exultation of body, and so acceptsa sedative instead of a cure for the mental diseases of life, or7.'6 THE OPEN" COURTwho looks at a fine building and sees only its proportions, or whoobserves a beautiful woman and can attach importance to herphysical attraction only, such an one is as incapable of under-standing art as he is incapable of understanding religion. Hecan be likened to that type of religionist who thinks that byexpressing a verbal acknowledginent of Christ he will haveeternal life. For to say "I believe in Jesus", is not enough: tosay "I will be as he was" becomes all-sufficient. That is thedifference between the pseudo-religious and the truly religiousman.In reaching the stage of my present conviction, it was neces-sary to undergo a completely subversionary process with regardto my mental attitude to the aesthetic principles of art. If bythe general term "aesthetics" is meant the appeal of the beautifulto our physical senses, then the beautiful in art is almost value-less, and when it promotes lust of any kind it is obviously evil.Such beauty goes only skin deep, though the fault lies, not withbeauty, but with ourselves. Where true art really lives, beautyis the hand-maiden of the soul.Consideration of the aesthetic appeal of a beautiful buildingfor worship provides a super-example of the manner in whichmen cheat themselves. So long as men and women live inhovels, work in hovels, think in hovels (if at all), dream anddie in hovels, so long the beautiful building wherein religionis always assumed to be an especially potent force (as if any-thing spiritual could be enclosed in walls) is a lie. Everybeautiful church is ugly, because there is no connection betweenthe building and true religion, any more than tliere can be con-nection between that impostor known to some men as beautyyet which is wholly material, and the real beauty which is known10 the revealers of truth and which is essentially spiritual. Forhow can there be connection when there is no life? Where"Beauty is Truth", aesthetics are lost in the mire of their ownmaking, sunk by the realities of life. Keats knew better thanmost people. For religion is life, and art is life, and a beautifulchurch in the slums is an impossible attempt to unite life anddeath as one. It is a colossal example of the false and thecheat. The pseudo-Christianity of to-day is propped-up but dead;the creeds are dead; all man made religious laws are dead. ButRELIGION AND ART 757Christ, who alone understood what spiritual contact inipHes,lives : to realize the paradox is to cheat ourselves no longer.Men must be born again in spirit. They will then under-stand that art is truly the handmaiden of religion. The longyears of groping and searching for truth, the ensuing processof spiritual gestation, and the final upheaval will be worth it,after all.

Religion and Art.

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Religion and Art.

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