Ingmar Bergman on why art lost its creative drive

Chartres cathedral on a 1950s postcard

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection

Michelangelo

The Swedish film and theatre director Ingmar Bergman refers to the building of the Chartres Cathedral in his thought-provoking essay, "The Making of Film" from 1954:

“There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by
lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from
all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and
together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They
worked until the building was completed–master builders, artists,
laborers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained
anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of
Chartres."
“Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant
in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative
drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an
umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and
degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and
his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more
or less important than other artisans; ‘eternal values,’ ‘immortality’
and ‘masterpiece’ were terms not applicable in his case. The ability
to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable
assurance and natural humility."

“Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest
bane of artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is
examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The
artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism
almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand
and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and
without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The
individualists stare into each other’s eyes and yet deny the existence
of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties
that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the
gangster’s whim and the purest idea.”

PS

Bergman´s message is good to keep in mind when we hear about the huge sums art collectors/nouveau riche people pay for mediocre works by overhyped contemporary artists.