Jamin Bradley

I just finished a beautifully illustrated 300-page graphic novel, and I don’t have the slightest idea what it was about. Whenever I turned the page, I felt like I had accidentally turned three pages and missed important elements. I couldn’t understand when time jumped forward. Poetic references either fell flat or required too much of me to understand them. I couldn’t figure out which character was which, where the new characters were coming from, or even what the plot was. I didn’t understand the graphic motifs that ran throughout its pages or the meaning of the specific colors that were intentionally used. I was legitimately confused from the opening pages all the way to the end. I had to google the synopsis when I was done, just to find that the book was about a theme that I never once picked up on. This is especially sad because I happen to be well-studied on that theme, and would have loved to experience some powerful art on the subject.

Being a creative myself, I love poetic license and artistic risks. My favorite movies, albums, and books are the ones that break the rules and think outside the box. I want the material I interact with to force me to think. By all means, I bought this book because of its thought-provoking description and the artists’ endorsement of it as a piece of poetry.

But art that does not make any sense is not great art. Great art provokes and invites us to reconsider what we thought we knew. Great art brings us to our knees in repentance. Great art encourages us to see something we never saw before because we were too blind to it. Yes, this book deserves 5 stars for its illustrations, but one star for its incomprehensible storytelling. It would have made no more sense if all the text had been removed from it.

The artist does not have to water down their works or be direct about their point in order to make great art, but they do have to be comprehensible to their audience. A Bible scholar who constantly uses Hebrew, Greek, and theological terms on people who do not know ancient dead languages or intellectual scholarly terms, should not expect their scholarly art to make a difference. Such a scholar should stop complaining about how the church doesn’t really understand the Bible because they have chosen to let their art solidify their standing among the elite rather than to process it in a way that is accessible to the general public.

Everything has the ability to become art that inspires and grows us. May we find where the line is in creative expression and audience comprehension, lest we design something that does not affect our viewers. Such moments tend to only stroke our ego while our audience feels dumb. Such dynamics do not imply that the art is “highbrow.” Sometimes, it just means that it missed the mark.