The World of Art

Mose Durst on Jacques Maritain, The Responsibility of the Artist

The artist and the appreciator of art cannot escape the ontological structure of human beings, structured and called by God to fulfill a divine nature of love, value, and creativity. Art and the artist must first express a fully human good before any secondary good. As Jacques Maritain has written, because an artist is a man before an artist, the autonomous world of morality is simply superior to (and more inclusive than) the autonomous world of art. There is no law against the law on which the destiny of man depends. In other words, art is indirectly and extrinsically subordinate to morality.”

Motivated by an Ethic of Love

The appreciator of art can thus approach a work of art with standards of value centered on the fulfillment of human purpose. He can demand more than technique and facility of form from art…. Art and ethics are inseparable just as beauty and love are. We have explained how a work of art must be centered on a significant human purpose. Moreover, we have explained how, given the nature of a human being, a significant purpose involves a response that God demands, the ethical command from without to love one another. All human beings actually make the demand, covertly or overtly: “Love me.” Every object in nature gives an implicit signal which says: “Care for me.”

Further, we hear the moral voice within demanding peace, love, and well-being. The voice within that demands expression and the voice without that commands response can both be fulfilled in genuine, purposeful acts of love. The significant work of art then, like any significant act in life, will be motivated by an ethic of love.

–Mose Durst, Ph. D. [Unification Culture and the 21st Century, New York: HSA-UWC] pp. 85-87.