Christian Art Quotes

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist's subject be religious to be Christian? I don't think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful ~ R.C. Sproul

We are at home here. Alienation is unnecessary. Contact with reality at a deep level is part of the Christian's life. He enters into reality, rather than escaping from it. The flight from reality is a mark of Eastern and classical mysticism, not of Christianity. ~ Hans Rookmaaker

If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with our work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. ~ Brett McCracken

What is Christian in art does not lie in the theme but in the spirit of it, in its wisdom and the understanding of reality it reflects. ~ Hans Rookmaaker

Let every Christian be a gardener so that he and she and the whole of creation, which groans in expectation of the Spirit's final harvest, may inherit Paradise. If we Christian's truly treasure the hope that one day we, like Adam and the penitent thief, will walk alongside the One who caused even the dead wood of the Cross to blossom with flowers, then we must also imitate the Master's art and make the desolate earth grow green. ~ Vigen Guroian

Thou art beaten that thou mayest be better. ~ John Bunyan

Few Christians go into media or the arts today, or see it as a primary mission field or battlefield. But it is. ~ Peter Kreeft

A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and I don't believe in it. You do yourself and everyone else a big disservice when you start thinking about it as 'Christian art.' That's why most Christian art is bad. They don't put a premium on the 'art.' ~ Zachary Levi

St. Hierotheos, the great teacher quoted by Dionysius in his book on Divine Names: "As form giving form to all that is formless, in so far as It is the principle of form, the Divine Nature of the Christ is none the less formless in all that has form, since It transcends all form.... ~ Titus Burckhardt

It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? ~ Voltaire

The great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up; it died because faith was being transformed into piety. Now, the same conquest of the outside world that brought in our modern individualism, so different from that of the Renaissance, is by way of relativizing the individual. It is plain to see that man's faculty of transformation, which began by a remaking of the natural world, has ended by calling man himself into question. ~ Andre Malraux

Education is the art of helping young people to completeness; for the Christian, this means education is helping a young person to be more like Christ, the model of all Christians. ~ Basil Moreau

Christian art, like obscene art, is surface level. ~ Anonymous

The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament. ~ Andre Gide

Christian art today should be twentieth-century art. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

It is the Lord's work, and it must be done; my Lord has bidden me do it, and in his strength I will accomplish it." Christian, art thou thus "with all thine heart" serving thy Master? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Not only do they offend thee, O Lady, who outrage thee, but thou art also offended by those who neglect to ask thy favors ... He who neglects the service of the Blessed Virgin will die in his sins ... He who does not invoke thee, O Lady, will never get to Heaven ... Not only will those from whom Mary turns her countenance not be saved, but there will be no hope of their salvation ... No one can be saved without the protection of Mary. ~ Bonaventure

From the 9th to the 15th centuries, the area which is now modern Spain was home to the greatest peaceful agglomeration of cultures ever known in the post-literate worldEven more remarkable than the flowering of art itself was the confluence of cultures that produced it: under the rule of Islam, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived and worked together in relative harmony. ~ Maya Beiser

It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked. For many centuries, in Christian art, depictions of hell offered both of these elemental satisfactions. ~ Sontag, Susan

The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for "religious" art or "Catholic" art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth. ~ Jacques Maritain

The Christians to the lions sold out every night. ~ Ray Davies

I'm beginning to see that there's a difference between art that trusts beauty's simple power to point people to God and Christian art that's consciously propagandistic. My Uncle Kenny, with whom I spent most of my time in Italy, said something profound
that you can make art about the Light, or you can make art that shows what the Light reveals about the world. ~ Ian Morgan Cron

There's obviously always danger in making music or art for art's sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift. ~ Steven Curtis Chapman

As Christians, we must see that just because an artist -even a great artist- portrays a worldview in writing or on canvas, it does not mean that we should automatically accept that worldview. Good art heightens the impact of that worldview, but it does not make it true. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height. ~ Joseph Addison

What I like about baroque is the reemergence of pre-Christian religion. The art of baroque mixes ancient pre-Christian myths with Christian imagery and each reflects upon the other. ~ Camille Henrot

That the arts are corrupt does not mean that Christians can abandon them. On the contrary, the corruption of the arts means that Christians dare not abandon them any longer. ~ Gene Veith

Rumors and reports of man's relation with animals are the world's oldest news stories, headlined in the stars of the zodiac, posted on the walls of prehistoric caves, inscribed in the languages of Egyptian myth, Greek philosophy, Hindu religion, Christian art, our own DNA. Belonging within the circle of mankind's intimate acquaintance ... constant albeit speechless companions, they supplied energies fit to be harnessed or roasted. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

"Let the dead bury the dead." There is not a single word of Christ to which the Christian religion has paid less attention. ~ Andre Gide

It is necessarily so, since every traditional art obeys a particular spiritual economy that limits its themes and means of expression, so that an abandonment of that economy almost immediately releases new and apparently unlimited artistic possibilities. ~ Titus Burckhardt

The art of love is God at work through you. ~ Wilferd Peterson

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten? ~ Vance Havner

Carnal reason is an enemy to faith: it is ever crossing and contradicting it. It will never be well with thee, Christian, so long as thou art swayed by carnal reason, and you rely more upon thy five senses, than upon the four Evangelists. As the body lives by breathing, so the soul lives by believing. ~ Thomas Brooks

If cathedrals had been universities If dungeons of the Inquisition had been laboratories If Christians had believed in character instead of creed If they had taken from the bible only that which is GOOD and thrown away the wicked and absurd If temple domes had been observatories If priests had been philosophers If missionaries had taught useful arts instead of bible lore If astrology had been astronomy If the black arts had been chemistry If superstition had been science If religion had been humanity The world then would be a heaven filled with love, and liberty and joy ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

In the world's history certain inventions and discoveries occurred of peculiar value, on account of their great efficiency in facilitating all other inventions and discoveris. Of these were the art of writing and of printing, the discovery of America, and the introduction of patent laws. The date of the first ... is unknown; but it certainly was as much as fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; the second-printing-came in 1436, or nearly three thousand years after the first. The others followed more rapidly-the discovery of America in 1492, and the first patent laws in 1624. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I don't really believe in political art. I feel in my heart the purpose of art transcends cultural and class and politics. I think something like the Sistine Chapel is something that goes beyond just being a Christian thing. It transcends its Christianity and becomes sort of a universal beauty. And I think that's true of music and art and literature. ~ Sean Lennon

Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators. ~ Ben Hecht

Christ is our temple, in whom by faith all believers meet. ~ Matthew Henry

There is no better way to live God's way than to have His Word in your heart and mind. ~ Elizabeth George

We ask the Blessed Virgin for the gift of conversion for all Christians, so that they may announce and give a faithful and coherent witness to the perennial evangelical message, which indicates to humanity the path to an authentic peace. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

The techniques should not be practised simply so they can be performed in the kata. Since karate is a fighting art each technique and movement has its own meaning. The karateka must consider their meaning, how and why they are effective, and practise accordingly ~ Shigeru Egami

The Christian life doesn't get easier as one gets older. ~ Alan Redpath

The art of good teaching begins when we can answer the questions our students are really trying to ask us, if only they knew how to do so. ~ Deborah Meier

Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity, and passion to that art, learns to value the work of her hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows. ~ Jennifer Chiaverini

The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation. ~ D.L. Moody

The politician is ... trained in the art of inexactitude. His words tend to be blunt or rounded, because if they have a cutting edge they may later return to wound him. ~ Edward R. Murrow

I'm extremely profane, unconsciously so, when I see something great for the first time; I don't know why, but beauty and profanity are related to me in the same way. It may be that I want to think of art in the vernacular, but I have no control over what comes out of my mouth when my eyes take in great beauty ... it might just be the reason I avoid going to museums with elderly ladies. ~ Vincent Price

Anybody looking at the history even of the 20th century would not single out Islam as the bloodthirsty religion; it was Christian/Nazi/Communist Europe and Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu/atheist Asia that set records for mass slaughter. ~ Nicholas Kristof

Well, I mean, taking time for your art is taking time for yourself, isn't it? ~ Lana Del Rey

No nation has ever produced great art that has not made a high art of cookery, because art appeals primarily to the senses. ~ Willa Cather

A church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly counter-intuitive to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west. ~ Timothy Keller

To understand Occupy Wall Street, you have to understand artists. Art is freedom - freedom of expression - and its message has resonated through society for centuries. ~ Peter M. Brant

Just as a detective builds a case by adding evidence, or a physician arrives at a diagnosis by considering multiple symptoms and tests, anyone can arrive at a meaningful conclusion based on a cumulative case. One of the strongest evidences that Christian theism's truth-claims are correct rests in its ability to account for and justify the many diverse and undeniable realities of life. ~ Kenneth Samples

I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican. ~ Diego Rivera

Hey, if a gunslinging stranger comes along, just go right ahead and hand over Deb to him. I'd as soon my wife not leave, but he can have Trace's. ~ Mary Connealy

What is nature? Art thou not the living government of God? O Heaven, is it in very deed He then that ever speaks through thee, that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me? ~ Thomas Carlyle

If your choice enters into it, then taste is involved - bad taste, good taste, uninteresting taste. Taste is the enemy of art, A-R-T. ~ Marcel Duchamp

The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only-he can't help doing it. ~ Alma Gluck

Rejoice. Rejoice. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Art isn't held with the same high regard as it is after success. In any country, in any language, you're a loser if you're making music until you prove otherwise. ~ K'naan

Without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama. ~ Mark Rothko

Its culture: the fruit of its life, the product of its own efforts in thought and art. This culture is not international. It is the expression of the national genius, of the blood. The culture is international in its brilliance but national in origin. Someone made a fine comparison: bread and wheat may be internationally consumed, but they always bear the imprint of the soil from which they came. ~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Rags-to-riches story? I've heard that gospel before, no thanks. I find no greater inspiration than the riches-to-rags story of redemption, the story of God leaving His golden throne to pursue a wretch like me. ~ T. William Watts

There's a lesbian aesthetic, just as there's gay camp, but I don't know if there's such a thing as 'lesbian art.' ~ Catherine Opie

And you can do far more for us from America than you can from here, where you're just another defenseless Christian. So if you really want to help, Inas, then you'll go to the very best school you can get into and earn the best grades you can. ~ Zack Love

To a high degree we are, through art and science, cultured. We are civilized - perhaps too much for our own good - in all sorts of social grace and decorum. But to consider ourselves as
having reached morality - for that, much is lacking. ~ Immanuel Kant

The otherworldliness of the Christian life ought, Luther concluded, to be manifested in the very midst of the world, in the Christian community and in its daily life. Hence the Christian's task is to live out that life in terms of his secular calling. That is the way to die unto the world. The value of the secular calling for the Christian is that it provides an opporunity of living the Christian life with the support of God's grace, and of engaging more vigorously in the assault on the world and everything that it stands for. Luther did not return to the world because he had arrived at a more positive attitude towards it. Nor had he abandoned the eschatological expectation of early Christianity. He intended his action to expres a radical criticism and protest against the secularization of Chrisitanity which had taken place within monasticism. By recalling the Christians into the world he called them paradoxically out of it all the more. That was what Luther experienced in his own person. His call to men to return to the world was essentially a call to enter the visible Church of the incarnate Lord. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She is in Paris, in Parisian clothes, getting ready to go out with a Frenchman she picked up in an art gallery!

She pulls her hair back into a loose knot, puts on her lipstick, sits down on the bed and laughs. ~ Jojo Moyes

There is little hope of the repentance and redemption of certain some until they have committed one or another of the many wrong things of which they are daily, through a course of unrestrained selfishness, becoming more and more capable. ~ George MacDonald

I need you more, Anastasia. These last few days have been purgatory. All my instinct tell me to let you go, tell me I don't deserve you. ~ E.L. James

Don't believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word. ~ Jerry Bridges

I am confident and I work so hard to be confident. If I wasn't talented, then I wouldn't be as confident. ~ Christian Siriano

One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it. ~ Nick Hornby

It's strange, but once you learn to fight, you seem to attract enemies ... Sooner or later, those who master the art of combat must end up fighting. ~ Nahoko Uehashi

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life. ~ Thomas Mann