Performing Beauty: Jacques Maritain and the Habitus of Art

How Jacques Maritain changed the way I make art.

As an artist, Maritain's account of art as a virtue that develops through the contemplation of Being completely upended the way I approach my art. I draw, paint watercolor, and write (and sing, though that doesn't involve me creating something myself). I taught myself how to watercolor mostly by coping paintings I found on Pinterest. I learned how to draw by practicing with a "Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars" book I got as a gift in middle school. I've never taken an art class outside of school. So, for most of my artistic life, I have been focused exclusively on technique and imitation. I could always find fault with what I painted because it never looked exactly like the painting I was trying to copy. I desperately wanted to be seen as "good at art" but never acquired this disposition of contemplating the world around me and allowing the fruit of that contemplation to be imprinted in the matter of pencil, water, and pigment. As Maritain writes:

"In our time the natural gift is lightly taken for art itself, especially if it be disguised in clever faking and a voluptuous medley of colors. Now a natural gift is merely a prerequisite condition of art, or again a rough sketch of the artistic habitus. Such an innate disposition is clearly indispensable; but without a culture and a discipline, which the Ancients considered should be long, patient and honest, it will never turn into art properly so-called. Art therefore is the product of a spontaneous instinct like love and ought to be cultivated like friendship: because it is a virtue like friendship." (43)

However, on reflection, I noticed my approach to writing was very different from my approach to painting and drawing. Any writing I do, either in prose or poetry, comes from a completely different place. The novel I wrote is really an extended meditation in the form of a story on the theme of mission and calling. I would certainly never consider myself a poet, but my experience writing poetry has bee much closer to the artistic habitus Maritain describes in Art and Scholasticism. My poetry is born of contemplation. Usually there's a word or phrase rolling around in my head and it blossoms into a poem when I sit down to write. It feels more like the "spontaneous instinct" Maritain speaks of.

One instance in particular comes to mind. I had been in adoration and noticed the demographic around me. In addition to me, there were two older ladies and one younger mom adoring the Blessed Sacrament. It was really powerful because it was such a beautiful example of the vocation of women. All of us were there bringing those we love before the Lord. These women were showing up for their friends and family bringing them to the One they knew could fix whatever was wrong. A few days later, I ended up with this poem:

Like a tree she stands

rooted deep;

firm in the knowledge of

who she was, is, and is meant to be

nor storm or violent wind can shake the tree

rooted in her identity:

daughter of the king.

Her strength is firm, but firmer still

her tender heart-

making room for all to dwell within her boughs-

a branch where creatures great and small can find a home.

With open arms she receives

gifts of earth and sun

holding not, but bearing fruit,

a gift of generosity.

Grace and beauty draw us in

guiding eye ever up,

up high and heavenward.

Listen! She speaks:

"Beauty has been given me,

but look and see,

I point to One more beautiful than me."

While Maritain's account was an indictment of how I approached painting, it was an affirmation of the artistry of my writing. When I write, I don't think about the rules like I do with painting. Rather, I think about what is good for this poem. This story. Choosing to use this phrase instead of that one. Making things happen in this way instead of that way. What is it that will make this piece more of what it was meant to be? I do not desire to imitate the style of others or the forms of nature because I don't have to. I am shining light on some truth in a way that only I can. Maritain puts it in this way:

"What is required is not that the representation shall conform exactly to a given reality, but that through the material elements of the beauty of the work there shall be transmitted, sovereign and entire, the brilliance of a form- of a form, and therefore of some truth" (59)

In the case of this poem, the brilliant form is the feminine genius, the strength, beauty, and grace inherent in women. I can encounter this work and others in a new way because I know they were born of an artistic, contemplative virtue much deeper than simple talent. It changed the way I approach the works of others too. I can now more easily define why certain pieces stand apart as enduring examples of beauty and art. I understand better why we analyze art and look for meaning- we are searching for that form, the echo of artistic virtue, of a deep love and insight born of contemplation, in every piece of art. We want to know that the artist "is a man who sees more deeply than other men and discovers in reality spiritual radiations which others are unable to discern" (62), as Maritain puts it, and so allow the beautiful to lead us to truth.

I want to cultivate this artistic habitus in all my art. I want everything I make to be truly beautiful, to give delight to all who encounter it by illuminating the truth. I want to cultivate my natural skills to become like virtuous friends, forming me in a spirit of wonder and awe at the mystery of Being, the mystery of God. May the brilliant splendor of truth shine forth from my words, my brush, and my life.