Art

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

ART. —There has been in Christian history no antagonism between religion and art as such; though there have been abuses of particular forms of art, and consequent reactions against those abuses. The NT affords little guidance, for it is not concerned with the subject. It is the revelation of a Person, not of a code of rules. It deals with fundamental spiritual facts, and it was not within the scope of the writers of its books to supply disquisitions on art or philosophy or science. Such problems were left to be settled from age to age by the spiritual instinct of a Church, to which Christ promised the abiding presence of the Spirit: the NT has no more to say about art than it has to say about economics or natural science, and therefore it neither praises any of these things nor condemns them; it is concerned with that which underlies them all.

The NT is neutral also in regard to the use of art in the worship of the Temple. The Jews were not an inartistic nation, though they had not the genius for art of some other races: they had music, poetry, sculpture, architecture, and the usual minor arts of their time; and, though in sculpture they were under strict regulations for the prevention of idolatry, this did not prevent them from using graven images within the sanctuary itself, while in the ornaments of their worship they had been guided by elaborate regulations as to form and colour and symbolism. Christianity grew up in these surroundings, and did not find any fault with them. Our Lord condemned the ethical formalism of current religion, but not its art: He condemned the trafficking in the Temple, but not its beauty. Nor did His disciples have anything to say against the art of the pagan cities where they went, though they had much to say about the wickedness: they are silent on the subject, except for a few illustrations from engraving and painting in  Hebrews 1:3;  Hebrews 8:5;  Hebrews 10:1. It is in the Apocalypse alone that we have any setting forth of visible beauty; and here there is a clearer recognition of the principle of art, because nothing else could express what the writer had to show forth. It is not enough to say that the imagery of the Apocalypse is merely symbolic: all religious art is symbolic. St. John envelops his conception of the highest form of being in an atmosphere of glowing beauty; and a Church which accepted his teaching could hardly mistrust material beauty as a handmaid of religion. It is not therefore to be wondered at that Christian worship, as we know of it after the Peace of the Church, was much influenced by the descriptions of the heavenly worship in the Apocalypse (see, e.g. , the recently discovered Testament of our Lord , a.d. 350).

But, if we would find in the NT the final argument in favour of art, we must turn, as Westcott says in his great essay on the subject, to the central message of Christianity— the Word became flesh . Here is the justification and the sanctification of all that is truly human: Christianity embraces all life, and ‘the inspiration of the new birth extends to every human interest and faculty.’ The old conflict between the spiritual and the material is reconciled by the Incarnation; for by it the visible became the sacrament, or outward sign, of that which is inward and spiritual. Thus, like the Incarnation itself, ‘Christian art embodies the twofold conception of the spiritual destiny of the visible, and of a spiritual revelation through the visible. The central fact of the Christian faith gives a solid unity to both truths.’ The office of art, Westcott continues, is ‘to present the truth of things under the aspect of beauty’: the effect of Christianity upon art is that of ‘a new birth, a transfiguration of all human powers by the revelation of their divine connexions and destiny’; and thus ‘Christian art is the interpretation of beauty in life under the light of the Incarnation.’ Thus the Christian artist is a teacher, his art is ministerial, and when it appears to be an end in itself idolatry has begun; his true function is both to interpret the world as God has made it in its beauty, in the light of a deeper understanding of its meaning, and also to embody to men his own visions of the truth—‘he is not a mirror but a prophet,’ and love is his guide. Thus he is led ‘through the most patient and reverent regard of phenomena to the contemplation of the eternal’; for ‘the beauty which is the aim of Christian art is referred to a Divine ideal. It is not “of the world,” as finding its source or its final measure there, but “of the Father,” as corresponding to an unseen truth. The visible to the Christian eye is in every part a revelation of the invisible.’

Westcott, however, assumes an ‘antagonism of early Christians to contemporary art,’ and points to the central message of Christianity as establishing a reconciliation between supposed ‘elements of contrast.’ Was there, we must ask any such antagonism as a matter of history? When Westcott wrote, Christian archaeology was still in its infancy; much that we now have was still undiscovered, and that which was known was uncertain in date and inaccurately reproduced; notions still held the field which have since been disproved, as, for instance, that which credits the early Church with the wanton destruction of pagan monuments, when, as a matter of fact, the ancient Roman temples were, after the triumph of Christianity, long kept in repair at the expense of the Christian State, as the chief glory of the city.

The question is of great importance, for modern writers frequently condemn Christianity because of its supposed depreciation of humanity. Thus the natural scientist Metchnikoff—writing, as people do, about matters which are outside his province—declares in The Nature of Man that Christianity lowered our conception of human nature, and gives as evidence this statement:—‘Sculpture, which played so great a part in the ancient world, and which was intimately associated with Greek ideals, began to decline in the Christian era,’—the real truth being, as we shall see, that sculpture had been declining for several generations in pagan hands, and that Christian artists did what they could with the decadent craft.

Now Westcott himself states that ‘the literary evidence is extremely scanty’ as regards the relation of Christianity to art; and, writing twenty-two years later, we may add that archaeological evidence all points in the opposite direction to that which he supposed. The literary evidence, indeed, proves little as to the first two centuries, though recent discoveries have increased our knowledge of the 3rd century.

The usual quotations from the Fathers—such as Westcott gives—are, indeed, ‘extremely scanty’; but the one extract which does deal directly and definitely with the subject has been curiously overlooked. It is from Clement of Alexandria in the chapter headed ‘Human arts as well as Divine knowledge proceed from God’ ( Strom . i. 4), and is quite final as to Clement’s opinion. After pertinently referring to the craftsman Bezalel the son of Uri ( Exodus 31:2-6), whose ‘understanding’ was from God, he proceeds—

‘For those who practise the common arts are in what pertains to the senses highly gifted: in hearing, he who is commonly called a musician; in touch, he who moulds clay; in voice, the singer; in smell, the perfumer; in sight, the engraver of devices on seals.… With reason, therefore, the Apostle has called the wisdom of God “manifold,” which has manifested its power “in many departments and in many modes” [ Ephesians 3:10,  Hebrews 1:1]—by art, by knowledge, by faith, by prophecy—for our benefit. “For all wisdom is from the Lord and is with him for ever” [ Sirach 1:1], as says the Wisdom of Jesus.’

Though less comprehensive than this admirable statement, the passage to which Westcott himself alludes is also extremely interesting. Clement describes a number of subjects commonly engraved upon seals to which Christians could give a Christian meaning (see Christ in Art), whilst he forbids the use of seals which bear idols, swords, bows, and drinking cups—condemning thus, not art, but idolatry, war, and drunkenness ( Paed . iii. 3). Origen’s answer to Celsus ( circa (about) Cels . viii. 17–20) is often quoted as denying the use of art. He meets Celsus’ charge that ‘we shrink from raising altars, statues, and temples,’ by saying that Celsus ‘does not perceive that we regard the spirit of every good man as an altar,’ and that Christ is ‘the most excellent image in all creation,’ and ‘that we do refuse to build lifeless temples to the Giver of all life, let anyone who chooses learn how we are taught that our bodies are the temple of God.’ This rhetorical answer cannot be taken as denying the use of art by the African Christians: it is a vindication of the spiritual nature of Christian worship, and the ‘lifeless temples’ must be referred to paganism, since there was nowhere any shrinking from the erection of church buildings. Origen is not concerned with the question of art: he merely denies ‘altars, statues, and temples’ in the heathen sense.

Even Tertullian, Montanist though he was, is clear in not condemning artists for practising their art, though he has a good deal to say about their making idols; the artist who makes idols works ‘illicitly’ like Hermogenes, who ‘despises God’s law in his painting’ ( adv. Hermog . 1). An artist’s profession was full of temptation from heathen patrons: so Tertullian warns them that ‘every artificer of an idol is guilty of one and the same crime’ as he who worships it ( de Idol . 3), since to make an idol is to worship it ( ib. 6); and he advises them to practise their art in other directions—‘gild slippers instead of statues’—‘We urge men generally to such kinds of handicrafts as do not come in contact with an idol’ ( ib. 8). Elsewhere he gives useful testimony by his incidental mention of Christian art work in the painting of the Good Shepherd and other subjects upon chalices ( de Pudic . 7 and 10).

This is, in fact, the conclusion to which the literary evidence leads us: the early Christians were told to keep clear of paganism, with which their daily work was often so closely involved, but they were not told to forswear art.

If we wish to find a condemnation of art as such, we must turn not to Christianity, but to pre-Christian philosophy, and—in spite of all that has been said about the opposition between Hebraism and Hellenism—not to a Jewish but to a Greek writer. Plato knew what art was; he belonged to a race with whom art was not a mere incident but a most important part of life; in describing his ideal city he had to deal with the problem of art, and he settled it by excluding the artist altogether. Beginning with dramatic art, he proceeds, towards the end of the Republic , with a consistent adherence to principle that is as rare now as it was then, to include every form of art in his condemnation. His reasons are three—The artist creates without knowing or caring what is good or bad, and thus separates himself from morality; he is an imitator of appearances, and therefore a long way off the truth; and art, whether poetry or painting or the drama, excites passions which ought to be curbed. Plato fully recognized that if painting is wrong, poetry must be wrong too; and he decided that poetry also must be excluded from the perfect city. He was right at least in this, that all art must stand or fall together; and in the light of his clear thought it is easy to see that the three movements which have appeared in Christendom—Asceticism, Iconoclasm, and Puritanism—were not really movements against art. The Christian Church never adopted Plato’s position: the ascetic precursors of Monasticism came nearest it, but they formulated no principle beyond that of complete renunciation of the world for the benefit of their own souls, and they did little or nothing to check the lavish decoration of churches which characterized their age. The Iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire were often great patrons of architecture, poetry, and the minor arts; and, though they carried their special principle down to the forbidding of pictures of sacred subjects even in books, they did not carry it beyond the question of images. The Puritans, being Englishmen, were naturally less logical than the Greek iconoclasts; thus, they accepted Judaism when it forbade images, and ignored it when it commanded ceremonial: in fact, they disliked art in so far as it embodied ideas which were distasteful to them, and no further. Puritanism was a mingling of the two earlier reactions, asceticism and iconoclasm: it can hardly be taken as embodying a principle of opposition to art.

The question is not, then, one between Puritanism and Catholicism, or between Hebraism and Hellenism, but between Platonism and Aristotelianism. For it was Aristotle who answered Plato; and he did so by pointing out that a true philosophy must make the whole of human nature rationally intelligible; for, the Universe being rationally organized, the existence of art proves that it must have a proper function in life. This is surely the philosophy also of the Incarnation: the Word became flesh, and in that the whole of human nature becomes intelligible; it is good in itself, and in its unstained perfection can become a fit manifestation of the Divine.

Sin, indeed, mars this perfection; and while sin remains, asceticism continues to have its function in the world. The love of the beautiful may degenerate into the lust of the eye, because the inward and spiritual is forgotten, and the sacramentalism of art is lost. It may then become necessary to pluck out the eye that sees, or to cut off the fashioning hand, in order to enter into life; but it is a choice of evils,—the man escapes Gehenna, but he enters into life ‘maimed.’

So, though it is better to be maimed than to be lost, better to hate art than to make it a god, hiding the eternal which it should reveal, better, indeed, to break images than to worship them; yet the fulness of truth lies not in the severance, but in the union of the good and the beautiful. They have often appeared as rival tendencies in history. Religious men have often been narrow and inhuman, artists have often been weak in will and the creatures of their emotions, as Aristotle found them; but the one-sidedness of men serves only to illustrate the manysidedness of truth. Christendom through all her struggles has loved righteousness, and has not forgotten to love art also. She has her fasts, but she has also her feasts.

It is certain as a historic fact that the early Church had no suspicion of art, but accepted without scruple the decorative motives and forms of the classical civilization to which, apart from religion and ethics, she belonged, eliminating only such themes as bore an idolatrous or immoral meaning. Limited at first in her resources, she did not for a while attain to magnificence; but all the evidence of archaelogy, which is yearly accumulating, shows that she made use of art so far as she had opportunity. Nor did she try to create an art of her own; she used the art as she used the languages of the empire. The art of the early Church is not Christian in its form, but in its inspiration.

Most of the earliest Christian art that has been discovered is in the Catacombs of Rome. This does not mean, as Westcott supposes, that the Church of Italy was artistic while the rest of the Church was not; still less does it show, as is popularly imagined, that the Roman Christians used the Catacombs as their churches and permanent hiding-places. The art of the Catacombs has survived because it has been preserved underground; but it was not the only art, and the early Christians worshipped above ground like everybody else, except in the case of occasional services for the departed. But hardly anything has survived of the art above ground: in literature we have only hints that stir but do not satisfy the imagination,—as when Eusebius tells us ( Historia Ecclesiastica viii. 12) that in times of persecution the churches were pulled down (as by Diocletian in 302), and mentions that the church at Nicomedia, destroyed in 303, was of great size and importance ( de Mort. Pers . [Note: Persian.] 12, ‘fanum illud editissimum’). At a time when not the buildings only, but the very books of the Christians were destroyed, it was in the burial-places—immune by Roman law from molestation, and hidden away from the ravages of sun and air, and of barbarians ancient and modern—that works of art survived; and to the Catacombs we must turn for our evidence. There is every reason to suppose that the art which we find there is typical of that of the whole Church; for (1) the Christian Churches were bound together by remarkably close ties in the first three centuries; (2) the symbolism of the Catacombs is shown by the early literature to have been that of the rest of the Church also; and (3) there was a uniformity of art throughout the empire, of which Rome was the cosmopolitan centre,—an Italian city indeed in which most of the art was executed by Greeks.

Enough description for our present purpose of the paintings in the Catacombs will be found in the article on Christ in Art. To that article, which deals with Christian art on its most important side (the Christological), reference may also be made for illustrations from the other arts which are here more briefly mentioned. It will suffice here to make a few general statements. (1) Pictorial art is found in the earliest catacombs, belonging to a period before the end of the 1st cent., as well as in those of later date; (2) the first Christians must have been fond of art to use it so freely in the dark: the cubicula of the Catacombs, which were only visited occasionally, and where nothing could be painted or seen except by lamp-light, must represent art at its minimum. Yet that art is both good and abundant. (3) Among the very earliest examples, figures are included as well as merely decorative subjects of animals, flowers, etc. (4) The art is the highly developed art of the Roman Empire, which was at its height in the 1James , 2 nd centuries, and declined after the reign of Hadrian. (5) The art of the Catacombs is therefore Christian only in that it generally represents Christian subjects, and that it acquires almost at once a certain marked character of mystic symbolism which is peculiar to the ages of persecution. Certainly there is something about this early painting which at once distinguishes it as Christian. Its authors were intent on expressing ideas,—not the technical theology of an ecclesiastical system, but the faith and hope of ordinary Christian people,—therefore they use suggestion and symbol, and are fond of a conventional treatment even of Scripture subjects, and thus their work is marked by a quiet reserve that excludes all reference to the sufferings and death of the martyrs, and dwells upon the life and power of Christ, not upon His death and passion. This art is marked by simplicity, happiness, and peace; it deals only with such OT and NT and other subjects as could bear a mystical interpretation in connexion with the deliverance and happiness of the departed through the power of Christ and the grace of the sacraments. It is sometimes of a high technical order and of great beauty, though the difficulties of its execution led to its being often sketchy in character. Born full-grown in the 1st cent., it passed in the 2nd into this second mystical period, declining after the 2nd cent. gradually in technique, as the pagan art was declining. After the Peace of the Church in the 4th cent. it passes into its third period, when its symbolism is more obvious, more didactic and dogmatic.

Sculpture naturally does not appear so early as painting. The dark catacombs were no place for its display, though in them it has its beginnings in the graffiti or incised designs which are common on the tombs. These were easily to be seen, and could be wrought on the spot, which was an important consideration in days when it was difficult to order Christian sculpture from pagan shops. It would be an easier matter to have executed in the public studios a subject that could bear a pagan interpretation; and thus it is that we do find a statue of the Good Shepherd which probably belongs to the 3rd cent., though one would naturally expect Christians who lived in pagan times to be shy of the use of statuary. In the 4th cent. the growing custom of burial above ground, coupled with the prosperity of the Church, encouraged the use of sculptured sarcophagi (cf. Christ in Art). Excellent carved ivories arc also found at this period, but art had been steadily declining since Hadrian’s time, and after the 6th cent. no good sculpture of any sort is found. There was no opposition to it in the West, but in the East the Iconoclastic controversy (716–867) led to the wholesale destruction of ‘images,’ whether painted or carved; and though it ended in the restoration of pictures, there was a tacit compromise by which statues were not restored, in spite of the decision in favour of ‘images’ by the Second Council of Nicaea (787). This renunciation of statuary in the Eastern Church grew into a passionate aversion to its use inside a place of worship,—an aversion which continues still.

Among the minor arts may be mentioned that of gold-glass , which commenced early in the 3rd cent., and has preserved for us many Christian pictures and symbols. Miniature illustration came into general use in the 4th cent. in MSS [Note: SS Manuscripts.] of books of the Bible; it was not decorative like that of the Middle Ages; the miniatures were separated from the text, and were devoted to giving pictures of the Scripture events described, much as in present-day book illustration. The handicrafts of pottery, metal, and jewel work, etc., gradually adopted Christian symbolism,—thus it first appears on lamps in the 3rd century. The magnificence of church plate after the Peace of the Church almost passes belief. An early instance is given in the Pilgrimage of Sylvia (a.d. 385), which was discovered in 1888.

‘It is needless,’ she says, describing her experiences in Syria, ‘to write what was the ornamenting on that day of the Church of the Anastasis, or of the cross in Jerusalem or in Bethlehem; for there you would see nothing but gold and gems or silk; for if you see the veils, they are all of silk, with stripes of gold; if you see the curtains, they are the same. Every kind of gold and gemmed vessel is used on that day. It is impossible to relate the number and weight of the lights, tapers, and lamps and other utensils. And what shall I say of the adornment of the fabric, which Constantine, with all the power of his kingdom, in the presence of his mother, honoured with gold, mosaic, and precious stones?’

With this may be compared the gifts, recorded in the Liber Pontificalis , which Constantine made to certain churches: among them he gave to St. Peter’s ‘3 golden chalices with emeralds and jacinths, each having 45 gems and weighing 12 pounds’; and ‘a golden paten with a tower of purest gold, with a dove adorned with emeralds and jacinths, and 215 pearls, weighing 30 pounds’; while to St. John Lateran he gave no fewer than 174 candlesticks and chandeliers of various sorts, as to which Flenry reckons that altogether they furnished 8730 separate lights. These figures suggest a magnificence of the surroundings of worship that is far removed from the simple two-handled cup of the 2nd cent. fresco of the Fractio Panis . None the less, the fact that Constantine’s gift was made shows that there was no tradition of dislike to such magnificence. Such descriptions bear out the general impression that the early Church made free use of whatever richness of art her opportunities could provide, though when necessity required she was content, as Jerome says, ‘to carry the body of Christ in a basket of osiers and His blood in a cup of glass.’

Mosaic art , of which there are extant such splendid examples in the churches of the Imperial cities, Rome and Ravenna and Constantinople, followed upon architecture, and flourished between the 4th and 7th centuries. Its magnificence and durability make it to us the most characteristic feature of the Christian art of that period. The principal subjects represented are the great figures of Christ enthroned, figures of the Apostles and other saints, apocalyptic and other symbolic subjects, scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and pictures of imperial personages and bishops.

In architecture there have been many theories as to the origin of the basilica. It is now very generally agreed that the Christian church is a development of the classical atrium , the central colonnaded court of dwelling-houses in the Imperial age. The earliest gatherings for worship took place in the atrium of some wealthy convert, and were thus surrounded with all the greater and lesser arts of the period. Now, the Greek and Roman temples were constructed for a worship in which both the altar and the worshippers stood outside. The Christian worship began in the home ( Romans 16:5 and perhaps  Acts 2:46), and the purpose of the earliest churches was to hold a large number of worshippers before the Lord’s Table; thus, though the style was that of the age, the manner of its use was different from the first. The basilica is a distinctively Christian building, marked out by its oblong shape, clerestory, colonnaded aisles, and apse. It was probably in process of development in the centuries before the Peace of the Church,—we read, e.g. , of church buildings in the newly found Canons of Hippolytus, c . 220–250 a.d.,—though no extant edifice is known (unless the startling theory just put forth by Dr. Richter and Mr. C. Taylor in their books on S. Maria Maggiore in Rome comes to be accepted—the theory being that this church and its mosaics belong to the 2nd century). The churches destroyed by Diocletian were rebuilt under Constantine, and it is to the Constantinian period that the earliest surviving basilicas belong, whether in Italy, Syria, or Africa. In the East there was later one marked development, the use of the dome, which culminated under Justinian in St. Sofia, and has continued to be characteristic of the Greek and Russian churches down to our own day. In the West the basilica continued unchanged till the 8th, and in some parts till the 10th cent., when it was modified by the growth of what is called Romanesque architecture, of which Gothic is but a development; but the main features of the basilica—nave, clerestory, aisles, projecting sanctuary, and often transepts—remain unchanged to-day.

The decline of Western art in what are called the Dark Ages is often attributed to Christianity and its supposed hatred of human nature. The truth is, that while Byzantium maintained a high culture far better and longer than used to be supposed, the whole Roman civilization well-nigh disappeared under the invasions of the northern races; these peoples were converted and gradually civilized by Christianity, and, as their civilization grew up, their art developed from the barbaric stage till it culminated in the perfection of Gothic. That art in its development had the limitations of the young races; it developed more rapidly in architecture and architectural carving than in painting or statuary; but all this has nothing to do with Christianity, as writers like Taine suppose—‘If one considers the stained glass windows, or the windows in the cathedrals, or the rude paintings, it appears as if the human race had become degenerate, and its blood had been impoverished: pale saints, distorted martyrs, hermits withered and unsubstantial,’ etc. ( Phil, de l’Art , 88, 352, 4th ed.). Passages like this are beside the mark; the art of the Middle Ages was full-blooded enough, and was admirable even in its rude beginnings, when it had not learnt the most difficult of lessons—the representation of the human form. In architecture and the kindred arts the Middle Ages brought a new revelation of beauty into the world,—an art that stands alone, not only for its lofty spirituality and technical excellence, but also for its homely democratic humanity.

Beyond this it is not necessary to go, since we are not dealing with the history of art in general, but only with the relation between it and Christianity. It has been necessary to sketch the beginnings because of the widespread idea that Christianity started with an aversion to the fine arts, and was reconciled to them only as worldliness increased upon her. Modern archaeology has proved this idea to be mistaken; and, having pointed out what is now known as to the early use of art by the Church, we need not follow the subsequent history of painting and sculpture, of architecture and the handicrafts, in their developments and decadences, except to say that, though art in the Christian era has been sometimes rude and sometimes pagan, it has at its best—when most perfect in technique and most imbued with spiritual purpose—excelled all else that the world has been able to produce: even the perfect statuary of Greece was outrivalled by such an artist as Michael Angelo, who reveals not only the body but the soul within the body also. The best Christian art is better than anything that has gone before, because it has more to express.

Christendom, then, began its career in natural association with art; and art is Christian, not by reason of any peculiarity of style, but when it is informed by the Christian ideal. Art is not an end in itself, but a language; the greatest artificers, like the greatest writers, are those who have the greatest things to say, and the fineness of any art is, as Ruskin says, ‘an index of the moral purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses.’ Pagan reaction has, indeed, more than once taken refuge in art, as it has also taken refuge in science; but the fault does not lie in either. There must always be reaction when the Church refuses to recognize the truth of science or the seriousness of art. And art is serious, for it is one of man’s primal gifts, and, like nature, one of his most constant educators. Art is necessary because, in Ruskin’s words, ‘life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality’; and though, as he found, religious men in his time despised art, they despised it at the peril of religion. He was himself the greatest exponent of the religious mission of art and of its moral value. And his conclusion was that the root of all good art lies in ‘the two essential instincts of humanity, the love of order and the love of kindness,’ the one associated with righteousness, the other with charity. The ‘love of beauty,’ he proceeds, ‘is an essential part of all healthy human nature, and though it can long coexist with states of life in many other respects unvirtuous, it is itself wholly good,—the direct adversary of envy, avarice, mean worldly care, and especially of cruelty. It entirely perishes when these are wilfully indulged.’ If this be so, it is indeed of the gospel, and excellent in so far as it is close to the spirit of Christ. If this be so,—and no man had a better right to make bold generalizations on the subject than Ruskin,—artists and preachers can agree in his conclusion that the great arts ‘have had, and can have, but three principal directions of purpose: first, that of enforcing the religion of men; secondly, that of perfecting their ethical state; thirdly, that of doing them material service.’

Literature.—The same authorities mainly as for the article on Christ in Art. Special use has been made in the present article of: W. Lowrie’s Christian Art and Archaeology (1901); Westcott’s essay on ‘The Relation of Christianity to Art’ in his Commentary on the Epistles of St. John (1883); A. J. Maclean’s Recent Discoveries Illustrating Early Christian Life and Worship (1904); an article on ‘Art and Puritanism’ by J. W. Mackail in Saint George , vol. vii. (1904); while out of the multitude of Ruskin’s works the concluding extract is taken from his Lectures on Art (1887).

P. Dearmer.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

ART . Among the Hebrews the fine arts, with the possible exception of music, were not seriously cultivated (cf. Architecture). The law of   Exodus 20:4 constituted an effective bar to the development of the plastic art in particular. As to the nature and workmanship of the early ephods (  Judges 8:27;   Judges 17:5 ) and teraphim (  Genesis 31:19 ,   Judges 17:5 ,   1 Samuel 19:13 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), as of the ‘graven images’ and the later ‘molten images,’ we can only speculate. Sculpture in wood, but of PhÅ“nician workmanship, both in relief (  1 Kings 6:18;   1 Kings 6:29 ) and in the round (  1 Kings 6:23 ff.), found a place in the Temple of Solomon. The only specimens yet discovered of ‘genuine Israelite’ sculpture (according to the discoverer, Professor Sellin) are the beardless human heads (cherubim?), foreparts of lions and other motifs that adorn the unique altar of incense from Taanach (illust. PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1904, 390).

Of painting there is no trace in OT. The coloured representations which Ezekiel saw with abhorrence on the Temple walls were not true paintings, but, as the original implies, figures chiselled in outline, with the contours filled in with vermilion ( Ezekiel 23:14 f., cf.   Ezekiel 8:10 ). The decorative work on pure Hebrew pottery was practically confined to geometrical designs. Of the minor arts, gem-engraving must have attained considerable development (  Exodus 28:11 ). The finest product of modern excavation in Palestine in the domain of art is probably the Hebrew seal with the lion marchant found at Megiddo (see Seals). Mention may also be made of the filigree and other gold work implied in such passages as   Exodus 28:11 f. The products of the Hebrew looms must also have shown considerable artistic merit (  Exodus 26:1 ). See, further, Jewels, Music, Seals, Temple, Spinning and Weaving.

A. R. S. Kennedy.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) Skillful plan; device.

(2): (n.) Skill, dexterity, or the power of performing certain actions, acquired by experience, study, or observation; knack; as, a man has the art of managing his business to advantage.

(3): (n.) A system of rules serving to facilitate the performance of certain actions; a system of principles and rules for attaining a desired end; method of doing well some special work; - often contradistinguished from science or speculative principles; as, the art of building or engraving; the art of war; the art of navigation.

(4): (n.) The employment of means to accomplish some desired end; the adaptation of things in the natural world to the uses of life; the application of knowledge or power to practical purposes.

(5): (n.) The black art; magic.

(6): (n.) Those branches of learning which are taught in the academical course of colleges; as, master of arts.

(7): (n.) Learning; study; applied knowledge, science, or letters.

(8): (n.) The application of skill to the production of the beautiful by imitation or design, or an occupation in which skill is so employed, as in painting and sculpture; one of the fine arts; as, he prefers art to literature.

(9): (n.) Cunning; artifice; craft.

(10): (n.) The systematic application of knowledge or skill in effecting a desired result. Also, an occupation or business requiring such knowledge or skill.

(11): The second person singular, indicative mode, present tense, of the substantive verb Be; but formed after the analogy of the plural are, with the ending -t, as in thou shalt, wilt, orig. an ending of the second person sing. pret. Cf. Be. Now used only in solemn or poetical style.

King James Dictionary

'ART, The second person, indicative mode, present tense, of the substantive veb am.