800 words Essay (APA Origina）

ARTS, ETHICS, AND CHRISTIANITY 2

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October 27, 2020

Running head: ARTS, ETHICS, AND CHRISTIANITY 1

Essay

Arts involve physical expressions, human applications, and creativity theories existing in human societies and cultures. It is expressed via imagination and skills to produce experiences, environments, and objects. Arts' main constituents include culinary arts, performing arts, literary arts, and visual arts. Additionally, several artistic forms also combine performance arts with visual elements (like cinematography) or written words with artwork (e.g., comics). From prehistoric cave paintings to contemporary films, arts are critical media for both demonstrations of the relationship between humans and the environment, and storytelling, in all cultures. However, due to its nature, there has been a heated debate concerning whether arts should be ethical or not (Arts With Anna, 2018). This essay will discuss the relationship between arts, ethics, culture, and the Christian view.

The question about (whether) there exists such a thing as ethical ethics has become hard to solve. Many philosophers from ancient Greece have been fascinated by the topic (Macneill, 2014). From one perspective, some argue that art holds dominion over all the creation. Thus, only those who have achieved perfection, after passing all the other three stages of creation, i.e., Formation, Growth, and Completion, can engage in. An artist should be someone who has reached both the perception of personality and love by first becoming an ethical person.

Consequently, an artist needs also to be an ethical person. Arts are about beauty, love, and aesthetics. Accordingly, since art deals with beauty and ethics deal with love, the latter is established on the foundation of true love; both arts and ethics are inseparable (T-Parents.org, nd). However, contemporaneously, there have been questions regarding whether artists should be ethical person, and whether only those arts created by moral artists should be exhibited for public viewing. Traditionally, there exists no firmly conclusive philosophical statement to the effect that artists must be ethical.

There are artists in history whoop, (who) despite creating exquisite artworks, were implicated in various ethically-unbecoming behaviors, including incest, adultery, defiling of minors, and related sexual scandals. For instance, take the case of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). The artist advocated for an ethics-less artwork, i.e., arts for aesthetics. Thanks to his advocacies, he ended up in prison after being charged with homosexuality and ended dying in great poverty, disappointment, and dissolution. Lord Byron (1788-1824), though his case was engaging in passionate affairs with several women, had also ended up in the same agony as Oscar Wilde several decades before. (Where did you find this information out about Wilde and Byron? When you are expressing multiple ideas, even if you’re not directly quoting them, you should be citing them.) One disturbing question that one should consider is whether such artists' artworks should be removed from exhibitions because they went against the dominant cultural norms during their time. Due to their advocacy for more comprehensive ethics within the art world, several people have argued for precisely the same topic. For instance, in April 2013, The Tate museum removed from its online art collection 34 prints by Graham Ovenden. A week before the prints' removal, a Truro crown court found the artist guilty of six indecency charges with a minor (child) and one indecent assault count (Cooke, 2013).

Some works by specific artists have also been censored in the past. For instance, various cartoon works by the brilliant illustrator Tom Gauld got edited after being found guilty of engaging in an incestuous relationship with his sister, abusing his two elder daughters, and experimenting sexually with his dog. The Tate court engaged in an investigation to review whether the artworks contained Ovenden’s victims before contemplating returning them to public view. (Source?) The dominant question thus is whether it is ethically right to show work by pedophiles and artists with dubious sexual lives or not. Additionally, should the same rule of censorship also apply to perverts who are not alive? Critics argue that ethics undergoes rapid transformations and that what could be unethical in one culture, or during last year, could be ethical in the other or next year, respectively. Thus, the qualities that make one uncomfortable viewing art created by a pervert are the same qualities that make the artwork powerful (Arts With Anna, 2018).

From a Christian perspective, the arts should be ethical and should portray what is morally appropriate for a believer in Christ. Additionally, arts should represent the socio-cultural development of a people. Consequently, even artists should be ethical, display genuine love and idealism to pursue the ideals, and employ realism to express reality in line with Christ's teachings. One such an artist is Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), who exposed the fallen life in Russian society's upper class during his time while expressing true love (T-Parents.org, nd). Arts affect people's identities, communities, and their relations with both one another and the environment. Arts like those displayed in theatres (theaters) and public galleries contribute to the people's and communities' ethical life, whereas others (e.g., music) can encourage violence. Some other critics also argue that since arts means nothing outside of themselves, and thus open to subjective interpretations, they should be isolated from ethics. (Citation?) (Does this mean you are saying they should not be displayed?)

There have been two general directions defining the relation between arts and ethics. First, the proponents of arts as a physiological aesthetic factor theory suggest that the artist's primary goal is to create a particular emotional response on the hearer or viewer. However, although the focus is on the hearer or viewer's response, this type of artwork often leads to poor or unethical art. (Citation?) The second approach is founded on Plato's teachings that art is vital to culture in general. According to Plato, art should be a means to promote the state, the beautiful, the moral, and the good (Plato, 1942). The individual theories concerning the arts-ethics relationship will often lead to different paths. However, the second theory has often drawn much favor from many Christians.

Despite these debates, arts are an essential component in any cultural definition. They help define and contribute to the culture and act as unique means by sharing its philosophies, ideals, values, etc. Being at the core of culture and the individual artist, arts significantly express a culture's prevailing worldview and an artist's variant worldview to the audience (Little, nd). Additionally, since humanness is essential to its existence, arts contain the ideals of purposeful creation and imagination. In Christianity, not anything called or described as skills is permissible for Christians, i.e., it is not a must that such a result have a privileged place in culture. For an art to be legitimized in the Christian's eye, it must conform to the ideas of reality and truth. Arts, and the fact that it reflects, must be shown through Christianity, instead of primarily qualifying or showing the Christian validity through arts. Thus, to reflect the Christian worldview and the broader ethics, both the artist and their artwork must be ethical and reflect the prevailing ethics.

References Arts With Anna. (2018, September 28). Ethical Questions Of Contemporary Art Exhibitions. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from Arts With Anna: https://artswithanna.com/2018/09/28/ethics-and-arts/ Cooke, R. (2013, April 7). The Idea Of 'Ethical Art' Is Nonsense. We Have To Separate Art From Life. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/07/graham-ovenden-art Little, B. A. (nd). Christianity and the Arts. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from BeThinking: https://www.bethinking.org/human-life/christianity-and-the-arts Macneill, P. (2014, June). Ethics and the Arts. Plato. (1942). The Republic in The Best Known Works of Plato. (B. Jowett, Ed.) Garden City, NY, USA: Blue Ribbon Books. T-Parents.org. (nd). Essentials Of Unification Thought - The Head-Wing Thought: VII. Art and Ethics. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from T-Parents.org: http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/Euth/Euth07-07.htm