Art for Our Sake

I read a writer this week lamenting/mocking a poet who won a prize. He thinks she's an absurd poet. He may be right. But his lament was that another poet that he admired should have changed so he could make money.

We live in a world that judges the worth of something by the economic benefit from it. Music is only valuable if someone can make a living from it. Painting and poetry are only what people pay for them. People mock those who study art or literature or music. Or they study something and lament that they cannot get a job in that field.

But could there be a reason to make music, art, poetry, literature that can't be counted in money? Could there be a reason to write poems or paint pictures even if no one pays for them?

That is how art and music and literature and architecture have advanced for thousands of years. There is something valuable about beauty even if is not worth money. The good poet does good work even if he never makes a living from it.

I hope for my kids is that they pursue art for beauty's sake. For our sake. For God's sake.