I believe the way you define art will affect the art you create. African art is the first of two examples I’ll present as illustrations of this point.
Since I am concerned about the connection between faith and art the examples I have chosen are both religious in nature. I chose these two examples because
they seem to me to exemplify the two main functions of art which I’ll get into later.
Encyclopedia.com has the following to say about African art.
As the value of these works was inseparable from their ritual use, no effort was made to preserve them as aesthetic accomplishments. Wood was one of the most frequently used materials—often embellished by clay, shells, beads, ivory, metal, feathers, and shredded raffia.
Encyclopedia.com isn’t the most authoritative or complete reference source but it is readily accessible and gives a good idea of the common definition of the terms it explores.
The key idea here is that the African art works have no value outside the context of ritual. A mask or sculpture in a ritual has great significance but once it is removed physically or temporally from that ceremonial setting it is worthless.
Africa is by no means the only culture to take this view. It is essentially the logical extreme of the art-is-a-process aesthetic. If the process by which an artwork is produced is the meaningful part of the art – if the value of art lies in experiencing the process employed to create it – then the art loses its value once the process is complete.
Drama, for the most part, takes this view. With the exception of closet dramas meant to be read rather than performed, the value of drama lies in performance. The view is not extreme. Shakespeare’s plays have literary as well as performance value. Few will deny however that the power of a Shakespearian text – readily appreciable in performance – is often missed while reading the play.
In any of the arts, intellectual study and tangible experience often reveal different aspects and values in a work of quality.
Parallel to African art in its focus on the performance process are happenings. Although happenings have been documented with photographs and video recordings there can be no doubt that the impact of a happening was primarily on those who experienced the event firsthand. Even if artifacts were preserved, or a more permanent piece was constructed, they only serve as mnemonic devices for a past ritual.
In both happenings and African art, the process aesthetic allowed the artists involved to ignore the archival qualities of their materials (or the lack thereof). Both have used unstable fiber products and unprotected pigments to create temporary offerings. Temporary materials do not necessarily imply that the artistry is less carefully planned or executed only that its audience is limited by time.
The temporary nature of these works is part of their value. God instituted a temporal performance to focus on the permanent. The children of Israel were to perform yearly a sacrifice of a lamb. The process involved choosing a lamb with no blemishes, the killing of the lamb, and burning it on an altar. One point of this temporary ritual was that whatever redemptive value it held physically was limited to the length of the ritual. Once that was done another offering would be necessary because the earlier lamb was gone. The offering had to be offered continually (Exo. 29:38). The priests too were temporal and whatever value they had ceased with their death.
The temporal ritual was to point to a better priest and a permanent sacrifice. Both of these concepts are explained in the book of Hebrews. The offering or priests blessing only extends to the life of the priest or the body of the lamb. Christ, Hebrews explains, has conquered death so he is able to fulfill the priest’s office for eternity. Christ is also the Lamb of God (the Lamb from God, The Lamb who is God, not just the Lamb owned by God) who rose bodily so his offering is continual. His eyes burn like fire and his feet in revelation appear “as if they burned in a furnace” (Rev. 1:15). Unlike the lamb of the sacrifices earlier, the fire cannot burn him to ash. (A parallel can be seen in the Bush that Moses saw. It burned as though it was on fire but it wasn’t consumed by that fire. Also see the story about Daniel’s friends.)
African art is based on the fleeting value of ritual and that aesthetic impacts even the materials used to produce a given work. The temporary materials in a work of art can focus the audience on the temporal nature of something or it can point out by contrast timeless qualities. This should be an intentional choice however. Artists should not choose non-archival material because of ignorance.