“Say What?” Monday Catechism Series #6 - What is Art?

A new series on this blog. Each Monday I’ll be posting a gem from our Catechism of the Catholic Church that is interesting or remarkable.

This week's interesting catechism is about art.  The catechism defines art as "to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing."  Art is a distinctly human activity similar to God's activity in creating.  We need more good artists!

2501  Created "in the image of God," man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.

+JMJ

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