Sometimes, artists are afraid to start a creative work for fear of creating bad art.
“The thought is this: how could the Holy Spirit be a part of something less than excellent?” 1
Look at Ecce Homo, read about it’s ‘restoration’ and think. In what ways might we see this being used for God’s glory? Have you ever seen technically excellent works that fail Spiritually, or the other way around? What does this mean for your art?
1. Finding Divine Inspiration, J. Scott McElroy, Destiny Image Publishers, Shippenberg Pa. © 2008 pp 195
NURTURE 
February 7th, 2019 at 10:05 am
I personally don’t think anything that is done to bring glory to God is considered a failure. I believe that if one’s motivation is set in the right direction, whatever happens, God will use to make His plans reveal themselves, though it might take a longer while than we might expect it to be. Also, I don’t think we have the right to judge what is a failure to spirituality in art because God is the ultimate judge. We may subjectively feel as if one artwork is incompetent compared to another, but who are we to call it a failure if we do not completely understand the artist’s motivation for producing the work? Even if the work may be considered underdeveloped in our eyes if the artist’s intent was to bring glory, then how could it be a failure? I think this inspires me to focus more on why I’m trying to create something than emphasizing the technical aspects of art. Why I’m trying to make something is more important than the results.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:12 am
Some people use their art skills (or lack therefore of) to make art for god. there can be wonderful artist who use their skills not to reflect beauty or to convey negative messages, like certain political art or graffiti.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:14 am
I guess that messing up would remind people that we aren’t perfect…? Like we mess up a lot (the failed restoration) and it proves that we aren’t perfect and that we make mistakes while God doesn’t. One example of good works failing spiritually would be the pharisees. Doing good works only to prove that you are good and holy ™ also better than everyone isn’t what God wants… 😦 I would probably not go over the top with my art, I don’t want to boast because that’s not good
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:16 am
Look at Ecce Homo, read about it’s ‘restoration’ and think. In what ways might we see this being used for God’s glory?
Maybe we see it in a way of how it got worse. Adam and Eve got worse after a while. Maybe it tells us how humans make errors, and it is normal, or it is needed to be like that. We make all these mistakes, but in the end as long as we stand for one thing we should be fine. We should all go back to the Lord.
Have you ever seen technically excellent works that fail Spiritually, or the other way around?
Maybe I have saw some people trying to earn money on the side of the street, but they don’t do it for the Lord. While there are another people singing in church not for money, but to praise the Lord.
What does this mean for your art?
I don’t really know what it means to my art. Maybe it means a little, but I think that it means that I should look for the inside of that art.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:17 am
Look at Ecce Homo, read about it’s ‘restoration’ and think. In what ways might we see this being used for God’s glory? Have you ever seen technically excellent works that fail Spiritually, or the other way around? What does this mean for your art?
The restoration could be used for God’s glory in many ways. For example when one examines the restoration of Ecce Homo, one will realize that it looks deformed. The extent of deformity could be interpreted as how humans are created in the image of God but yet are not perfect. One can clearly see similarities with the restoration with the original. However, Just like how we are not as perfect as god, the restoration seems imperfect.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:22 am
I think the restoration can be used for God’s glory. We can not know how God’s glory is great, but we can only estimate them how much it will be. There were several different art pieces that were trying to make God’s glory high but actually failed. This could be art, but on the spiritual side, we can say that it kinda failed.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:22 am
The holy spirit is seen through things and people. People aren’t perfect. I believe that one could love and give their life for God but maybe they don’t do great art, or writing or math and because of that, it may not be excellent. However, with the person’s faith and love you can still the holy spirit through their work. Although the restoration is called a fail I believe that the lady had a godly purpose for the restoration. Although it is a fail she hated that the painted was deteriorating and wanted to show God’s glory. I see her wanting to do this for the church as a representation of God’s glory. Yes, I think there is a lot of works that are amazing but lack spirituality and a lot of times I think that is because the person lacks spirituality. I can’t think of something off the top of my mind but I think that this painting is a great representation of something that shows God’s glory but it’s an excellent work. This reminds me that truly the best thing is to represent God through my work, I can always adjust and perfect it. But I think I need to start with making sure spirituality is in my work.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:23 am
We can see that we want to be perfect and try to restore stuff that is not close to being perfection. This Ecco’s art is an example of it because the painter was not looking for perfection and wanted the art to stay the same but someone redid the painting causing it to look worse than the original one which shows that we want to show perfection in front of Jesus. It means we should just draw what we like and not to look perfect.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:23 am
In my opinion, this piece of art is being used for God’s glory. God does not care about the outcome or the final product, he cares about the process. This woman who restored this picture did it for God, not for her own will. I have seen things that are excellent works but it fails spiritually. People only care about the outcome and the final product, people judge others based on others final outcome, not fully understanding the process or the mindset or the will. It is true that my art piece will look bad and weird because I am not professional or talented. But its the mindset that matters, and the will.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:25 am
The failed art piece shows human failure more than it shows the glory of God. The painting shows our failed human attempts to depict God/Jesus as well as sin. Sin is failing to hit the mark, and this restoration piece missed the mark by a lot. Perhaps this piece does show God’s glory but I’m just blind and not in touch with my spiritual side to see it. Have I seen technically excellent works that fail Spiritually? I don’t think so, Nothing comes to mind. But I have seen technically “meh okay” works that fail Spiritually. For (my) art to be spiritually “successful” means that it should impact and move people in a positive way.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:38 am
Abel
I think that the failed restoration can be used for God’s Glory as now more people can see what the art was before and can see the better picture of what Jesus was depicted as.
To the best of my knowledge I have not seen excellent work that has spiritually failed. I think a good example would be a very good art work that has a spiritual art work on it, but it may have been sold for unholy reasons.
My art that I would be doing should be used for the Glory of God and not for the approval of man.
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February 7th, 2019 at 10:39 am
I believe that, God’s glory does not always have to be excellent. For us, when we are trying to glorify God it is about how we give our lives to it. As a human we are all sinful it will never be as excellent as it should be. However, if we out our best effort in and try, then God will enjoy it. For God’s glory in ecce homo, although the result may have not been excellence, the person involved dedicated part of his life to try and please God. This shows what God wants, us dedicating our lives to him.
As said before I have seen things that are excellent but still glorify God because of the meaning behind it. However the opposite happens, sometimes people make it just to glorify themselves, or to get materialistic things. This is wrong as we are not doing it for God but for worldly things. This means for me I should just put my whole effort in and not do it for other people but for God.
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February 11th, 2019 at 8:47 am
I think a technically excellent work and one that is spiritually successful is not mutually exclusive. However, just because a piece of work is technically excellent does not necessarily make it spiritually successful and vice versa. An artwork might be very beautiful but carry no spiritual meaning or intent. I think that the intent behind the restoration of Ecce Homo was done out of good will and the restorer had gotten permission to restore it, she just lacked the necessary skills.
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February 12th, 2019 at 2:27 pm
I think a great point brought up by the wiki page was that Cecilia restored the fresco to how she saw Jesus, and while this goes against her job to restore the art to its original image, she became an artist in her way. I think the opposite example of this, a good work that is failing Spiritually, would be Le génie du mal and L’ange du mal by the Geefs brothers, which were marble sculptures of Lucifer that were removed for not following Christian ideals because they made Lucifer too good looking. While the pieces were visually great, they were not good for the church. I think this means that while some pieces can be great on their own, they will still not have a good reception depending on purpose or context of the piece. Cecilia’s work may have been praised if it was just her interpretation of Jesus and the Geefs brothers works may have been praised the pieces weren’t for the Catholic church.
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February 12th, 2019 at 6:39 pm
My personal perspective is that the quality of art is very personal. I should throw the question, who determines if art is good or not? Fear of creating bad art is just a mindset that will push you away from creating something good in your own eyes. To me it doesn’t matter what other people think of your art in terms of quality; as long as you stand by it and believe it is quality then it is very much quality. Think of abstract art–it is meant to be messy and make no sense, but that doesn’t make it less “art”. In terms of the questions about God’s glory, how this can be determined in art is the purpose of its creation and the message it is trying to deliver. It is easy to find a beautiful art piece that goes against the glory of God, but that doesn’t mean the opposite is true. If you fail to recreate Jesus’s image and make him seem like something entirely different, try giving it a different purpose. Honor God through His creations, don’t have a one track mind that you are going to deliver a false message with your art if you “fail” at it.
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February 12th, 2019 at 7:44 pm
A quote that describes this restoration for God’s glory is in this quote, “it represented one woman’s vision of her saviour, uncompromised by schooling.” This gives us more context to the restoration attempt done of the painting, as not one wanting to disrespect the original work but rather with the intent of wanting to restore it, even though she did not have much art experience. There have definitely been artworks that were considered “good”, but didn’t accurately or even portray spirituality at all. Art can be very influential, however, so this means we must try to represent Christ the best we can in our artworks.
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February 12th, 2019 at 11:05 pm
We could see this being useful for God’s glory by maybe trying to make people question why the two painting is similar but very different, which can lead to questions about creation may be. I have seen excellent works that can be viewed both spiritually and not. This reminds me that the art I create can be viewed in many ways and I can create my art in a way that can glorify God.
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February 12th, 2019 at 11:30 pm
I think creating those “restoration” art shows that being used for God’s glory doesn’t always have to be 100 percent perfect and it is different for every people. Because everyone met God in different ways, some people might have not met him yet even though they follow God. Some people might think that God is perfect, but some people might think different ways. I think Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent Van Gogh have excellent technique of oil painting. However, when he was working on this art his spirit (or mental) wasn’t perfect. However, even though the painter (or the artwork itself) fails spiritually, for me, I think it is one of the ways that they can express themselves. Because there is no rule in art, however, the meaning of the artwork and the purpose of the artwork is more valuable.
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February 12th, 2019 at 11:56 pm
I think the work, Ecce Homo, is bringing people to God which helps God’s glory. I think that because of the popularity of Ecce Homo or as many people call it Ecce Mono, I think that was able to bring a lot of popularity to Christianity. I think this way because the elderly woman did it with good faith trying to restore what did not live up to the Savior’s greatness. I’ve seen technically excellent works that failed spiritually or the other way around like my friends or my work because we start to criticize ourselves as we grow older and stop focusing on the focus which should be God and focus on the look or aesthetic of the art piece. I think that means that in our work we should capture what we want to convey spiritually not aesthetically.
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February 13th, 2019 at 12:10 am
In what ways might we see this being used for God’s glory?
Although our work is not perfect, we do our best to portray God and reflect our effort to show God’s glory. God knows we are fallible, so He understands me when we make mistakes. I think it doesn’t make a problem producing a bit less perfect artwork, what matters is our effort and sincerity. Even though the original work may be perfect, we learn from art restoration that humans are not perfect, not that it should be negatively criticized and abandoned. When we want to present our work to God or when we work for God, we make something a model and try to follow it. Does it prove ourselves that we are incompetent? No. We just can’t make anything perfect, but we can do our best to do something to present our unbounding love to God.
Have you ever seen technically excellent works that fail Spiritually, or the other way around?
I’ve seen not excellent works that portray spirituality successfully. For example, the Last Supper, may not be the best artwork due to human fallacy, but it successfully shows Jesus’ last supper before his death. Whether a spiritual artwork restoration is successful or not is controversial, but if it correctly represents the original artwork and the situation described in the Bible, then its a successful one. Again, God would not necessarily want a
What does this mean for your art?
It means that even though I may not be perfect compared to professional artists, I can be as specific and accurate in portraying the original artwork.
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