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The carol Good King Wenceslas, set on this day, reminds us of Boxing Day’s historic connections with generosity, and especially the practice of giving gifts to the poor. These gifts were often what today in a bar or restaurant we might call ‘gratuities’; offerings given with nothing expected in return. Gratuity is a helpful word for thinking about what art represents, too. Art’s practical purpose is elusive. It isn’t obviously for anything. Some people may look to it to amuse them, some to reinforce a message. Those who like to buy art may want it to glorify themselves. But all of these ways of valuing art seem to betray it. They reduce art to a set of functions, each serving a certain human interest. It was in reaction to this that the modern idea that we should take a ‘disinterested’ view of art grew up; the idea that art must be for art’s sake and not our own. Disinterestedness, though, is a rather chilly attitude to celebrate at this season. It doesn’t capture the fascination, the delight, and the stretching of ourselves that we feel when we meet with great art. Art makes the world a bigger place than our usual narrow outlooks allow it to be. Exceeding our private ends, art feels like a gift – it speaks the language of gratuity. And what sort of a person unwraps a gift ‘disinterestedly’? Art, like any good gift, connects to our desires; we should unwrap it with excitement. There are, though, desires and desires. To borrow the words of Simone Weil, the French philosopher – art at its best is something we desire ‘without wishing to eat it’. We simply ‘desire that it should be’. We don’t thereby regard it from a chilly distance, but – equally – we make a mistake if we just want to deploy it for our own personal advantage. Good art stands over against us, like a revelation of some aspect of the world that is greater than us. And from a Christian perspective, this revelatory quality of art – its independence of the devices and desires of our hearts – reminds us that the world itself is a gift of God. Human self-assertion and consumption are the daily subtext of the news, which is why economics, politics and war jostle for the top slot. Art, when it makes the news, is usually much further down the list. But art speaks of other fundamental things in life that may go even deeper than power and greed. As Weil put it, art invites us ‘to give up our imaginary position as the centre [of the universe]’ and awakens us to ‘what is real and eternal’. Just as Wenceslas looked out, and realised it wasn’t all about him.