Watching "secular" art

We did a few readings on art and Narcisus. It made the comparison between the church only watching themselves and Narcisus, basically drawing the conclusion that the two are the same.
A good point was made, how are people supposed to grow if they are only surrounded with people who all agree with each other. How are their views challenged? How do they grow?
We had a whole class discussing "secular" art. I put secular in quotations because, as Emma pointed out in one of her past blogs, all the art depicted Jesus and biblical stories.
I think the point of the class, however, was to get us out of our "holy" bubble and be challenged by the views of other artists.

One thing I didn't agree with was the statement that Christians need to look outside of the church to get better art and have a greater understanding of the world outside.
I have two main reasons why I don't agree. When the temple was to be built God did not command the Israelites to look at the Philostines and draw inspiration from their temples and idols. God Himself gave them the most specific most artistic instructions. God is the giver of creativity and good art. And this might seem like I believe that us perfect Christians have nothing to learn from these pagans, I don't believe that a Christian must look at secular in order to create good art.
The second reason comes from my own personal experience so that would not be objective enough to include. My main view is are you saying the blind should look at the blind in order to keep wondering about what it's like to really see? Or isn't it more effective to look to the One who can see and knows that those who accept His eyes will soon see too?