Rav Avigdor Miller on Art as an Ideal

A:

And the answer is – people must make a living. So if you’re capable of earning a parnasa from artwork, so that’s your answer. As a result of your artwork you’ll be able to send your children to yeshivos and you’ll support Torah institutions. 

Or it may be that some of your artwork may be used for mitzvos like making ornamental decorations for mitzvah purposes; could be. Other mitzvos too; you can do good things with that talent. But what I said was that in itself, art for the sake of art, is considered a waste of effort. 

Just because someone has a talent to paint or to draw, does that make it noble?! It’s like saying, let’s say a person has a talent for computers. So therefore will you say that it should be his ideal in life to sit all of his life and tinker with computers? No; his talent should be used to earn an honest livelihood, and maybe he’ll retire in due time to go into a kollel before he gets too old. And even while he’s working, he can make a good parnasa that allows him free time to sit and learn as much as possible. So therefore he’s utilizing it. But it doesn’t mean that tinkering in computers is in itself an ideal existence. It doesn’t mean that it’s an ideal for him to spend his life punching keys just because he’s good at it. It’s not necessary to say that. 

As much as you see that people have certain talents, that doesn’t mean that the talents are ideals in themselves. 

Here’s a man who’s an expert barber, so that means that all his life he has to be a barber? It means that his ideal in life should be to give good haircuts? It’s no aveirah of course if you’re a barber, and you can shave peoples’ heads l’kavod shabbos or l’kavod yomtiv. And you’re careful not to use a razor blade on their payos, and so on. Certainly it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t mean that barbering itself is an ideal. 

People have certain talents, so they have to do what they can to use them for the ultimate service of Hashem. 
TAPE # 592