The artist as prophet

Popular among the Romantic Poets in England and their Trancendentalist comrades in America, was the idea that artists, be they painters, writers, poets or musicians, were prophets in society. Their duty was to bring the increasingly dull populace, enamored with money and industry, back to the love of nature through metaphor and simile. I would like to turn this secularist idea on its head and say that the prophets, especially those in the Old Testament, were artists. We can see this in the Christmas season with the singing of the beautiful words of Isaiah and David, as well as some of the minor prophets. The problem with so many modern artists is that they see art purely as self-expression, surprise, surprise, and forget that mimesis is the mirror of poesis, which is found alone in God, the only real creator ex nihilo. We artists imitate and if we love God Who is Beauty, we shall be prophets. Without love, there is no true art, merely propaganda. Without love, there is no true prophecy. To be continued...