catapult magazine

[i’m putting this in “visual art” but there’s not really a clear spot in our categories for this discussion…]

i ran across “”http://communionofthearts.blogspot.com/“>the communion of the arts” the other day and wanted to get reactions to the “”http://communionofthearts.blogspot.com/2005/03/theology-of-art.html">theology of art" that was posted.

here’s a grab from the beginning of it (click the link above for more):

I distilled all I had learned into a three point theology of art (sorry not a story). Here it goes:

1. Art is a glimpse of the ineffable beauty of God

2. Art is a glimpse of the true soul of humanity

3. The artist is a servant motivated by love for his audience, who through a difficult process of training and apprenticeship acquires the heart and skill to be able to produce either singular works of power or works of craft or multiple replicatable designs in order to give his audience number 1 and/or 2 above, and this is good.

…

One of my main goals is to understand why all art is suffering in our day. I believe that ?secular? artists are being debilitated by false views of art just as much as Christians are debilitated by false views of art.

Interesting perspective, but I think it’s missing something. I think the list focuses on a vision (the “glimpses”) more so than a direction or journey. Though, to be honest, I haven’t read everything, just the quote you provided Laryn.
I had an interesting discussion with the mother of one of my students today in parent/teacher conferences about some 20th century Irish playwrights. We both agreed that we could experience and enjoy some of their misery vicariously—the “enjoying a good cry” type of feeling. And how about the cathartic emphasis of the Greek playwrights. I don’t think that’s a glimpse of God’s beauty or the beauty He shares with the soul of man.
I know this is drama, but I think the same perspective could be taken with artists like Picasso, Chuck Close and Dorothea Lange for example. Or musically with the Blues. I think good art can be painful, disturbing or downright ugly images too because of the response it evokes from us. I’m not sure the response they evoke from me centers on beauty though.
Thoughts?

i’m not exactly sure what “true soul” means… because he does address your concern to a degree later in the post:

Why do Christians often dislike difficult art? ? This is the kind of art that usually deals with the true soul of humanity in all its struggles and ugliness. This is usually related to more of the truth side of art rather than the beauty side. Because Christians misunderstand that decreasing your flesh and increasing your spirit does not mean abandoning your humanity, but rather means filling your humanity with Christ, they feel uncomfortable with honest depictions of human ugliness. But when honest depictions of the human soul lead to reflection and change this is good.

i think at first i was interpreting “true soul” as the way it should be, while he was meaning the way it is now.

This discussion could have some interesting tie-ins to the current article on music in worship.

Here’s something from another post on his site:

The most moving of all the worship liturgy I believe is the music (maybe I’m biased as a musician). We cannot go forward with the same pop worship music we now have. That music came out of the California Jesus movement of the late sixties and seventies, through the Calvary Chapel and later Vineyard movements, and then in the eighties a lot came from England, and of course this then flowed into the seeker sensitive movement of the nineties. So in other words this musical era is 30-40 years old!!
…
To a generation in love with art, but raised in a somewhat impoverished artistic era, this blast of sheer aesthetic beauty infused with the spiritual power of worship could be transforming.

I guess one of the things that’s interesting to me is the idea of art and artists being used in worship to an extent beyond the flannel banners, etc. I think most protestant churches threw visual art out with the icons and never looked back (and other forms of art seem suspect). art can serve as a kind of icon itself—a window to something deeper.

then again, to play the devil’s advocate, if all of life is worship, why don’t we have plumbers up front on sunday, joining pipes?

putting this in “visual art” but there’s not really a clear spot in our categories for this discussion…]

i ran across “”http://communionofthearts.blogspot.com/“>the communion of the arts” the other day and wanted to get reactions to the “”http://communionofthearts.blogspot.com/2005/03/theology-of-art.html">theology of art" that was posted.

here’s a grab from the beginning of it (click the link above for more):

I distilled all I had learned into a three point theology of art (sorry not a story). Here it goes:

1. Art is a glimpse of the ineffable beauty of God

2. Art is a glimpse of the true soul of humanity

3. The artist is a servant motivated by love for his audience, who through a difficult process of training and apprenticeship acquires the heart and skill to be able to produce either singular works of power or works of craft or multiple replicatable designs in order to give his audience number 1 and/or 2 above, and this is good.

Mmm, well I think that is the problem right there, this is theology not art! And sorry, if it’s ineffable, then how come he’s writing about it!!?

All very high theological ideals, but not really anything to do with art! I do, I must admit, have problems with theologians telling artists how to do art, or what true art is. If he is a theologian that is, and if he isn’t then don’t dabble in someone elses domain; if he’s an artist then talk art, don’t theologise! The glimpse of beauty albeit divine, seems more of a throwback to greek thought, perhaps, and little to do with aesthetics in the blood, sweat and tears of this life. Is art only ‘spiritual’ because it glimpses the beauty of God or ‘the true soul of humanity’?

i’m not sure i understand. are you saying that you don’t think there are any “theological” underpinnings to art?

the ineffable comment made sense to me—it was saying that some things aren’t possible to describe in words, and art can approach those things from a different angle (again, not complete).

and i think perhaps his phrase “true soul of humanity” is being misunderstood again—i think what he means by that is much closer to (as you say) “the blood, sweat and tears of this life.”

Hi!
I think if art is good theology then it is bad art. Art should be unsullied by things extraneous to it, i.e. it doesn’t need a theological justification.

Ineffable? Polanyi talks about ineffability as the inexpressable [Personal Knowledge, ch.5, ‘Articulation’]. He doesn’t align this to a mystical experience, but to a groping for the right words to say about the things we tacitly know. Art also depends on language to perform, to express, to objectify. It isn’t language-less per se. We, I think falsely, can assume that art is ‘spiritual’ when it expresses the supposed ineffable/mystical experience of something. (as if because it is ineffable it must be ‘spiritual’!) Polanyi suggest that we know more than we can tell and this being the case means that we can never communicate, in language or in art the sum total of all that we know about something. (this I think alludes to a deceit of Modernity) Hopefully, that doesn’t overstate my point, but whether writing, speaking or painting we can never express the profundity or totality of what we know. Theology has a way of bearing down on art in such a way as to make things spiritual, justifiable, that are outside the scope of art. Art doesn’t need to be burdened by ‘good’ theology and isn’t there to make sound theological statements.

‘true soul of humanity’ – perhaps I just don’t like the semantic baggage of this. I think it is cumbersome and smells too much like Formalist baggage from bygone years.

i disagree that “if art is good theology then it is bad art.” oftentimes this is true—there is a glut of sentimental, didactic “art” (including a lot which is neither good art nor good theology), but there is also a lot of art which (i believe) evidences good theology without succumbing to didacticism or giving up it’s artistic merit (eg.).

maybe i am using terms differently than you are understanding them, but when i say “theology of art” (not my phrase and probably not a phrase i’d keep—it comes from the blog post i used as a jumping off point for this discussion) i am referring to the understanding of a christian artist as to why (s)he creates art, what that creation means, what the purpose of the art is, etc. this is basically the idea that the art you create comes from your core being and belief and can’t be surgically cut off and presented as though it exists on it’s own.

so perhaps we can jetison the term “theology” for something else. i am fine with that.

as far as “ineffability,” does the fact that “we can never communicate…the sum total of all that we know about something” mean that we should not explore it in various media, each of which gives a slightly different perspective on it (none of them complete?). of course not. but i don’t see the problem in claiming that art gives a different perspective on things, and can express certain aspects of “ineffability” better.

Theology has a way of bearing down on art in such a way as to make things spiritual, justifiable, that are outside the scope of art. Art doesn’t need to be burdened by ‘good’ theology and isn’t there to make sound theological statements.

perhaps you are thinking of a certain type of theology? there are many theologies which have no problem with mystery, nuance, (dare i say “allusivity?”), etc.

maybe what you mean is that theology should not be the primary point of an art piece, not that there should be no “good theology” within the piece.

Hi again,

Let me just clarify what I meant by ‘greek’. Jeff Kursonis writes:

three classical areas of truth, beauty and goodness are represented in the three points to be somewhat poetic, while making a point, although I think all three can be seen in each point.[/i:c558a38a67]

Now I find it interesting that a christian artist is imbuing his art with (classical) pagan concepts. Are we to assume that the pagan concepts of truth, beauty and goodness are adequate measures for a christian art? Paul warns us in Colossians that we are not to syncretise our faith, that is, graft on something to the truth of the scriptures as if it were held in equal worth to it. [ch.2]

To use classical concepts to validate a christian art means that we are not working from a radical scriptural worldview, but have synthesised/syncretised that faith. From that your christian art will suffer!

Hi Laryn,

I think our postings just crossed. Nuanceful, allusive, absolutely and hallelujah! Seerveld rules!!

Ineffable? Well I’d don’t think art can be ineffable, it seems to me to be a contradiction in terms. What I would say is that there are times in front of a Kirchner, Bosch, Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer or van Gogh when my response is ineffable, I am awestruck, but perhaps we are now splitting hairs and there are very few left on my head!

Yes, drop theology, hate the word when used in the same context as art! Sorry! Theology as the primary setting off point of art, yes you are right, that is just an awful departure lounge!

Theology, like any ‘science’ is there to help us analyse our faith in context with the world and God. I don’t mind theologians finding some theological truth in art, but when they use theology as the wights and measure of good art then hey, theologian, go back to your books!! Leave art well alone. I think it was Dyrness who wrote that first of all the artist must be a good theologian (Visual Faith), then man, Dyrness has become a tyrant. God forbid that this is the right way around!!!!!! First of all the artist has to be good with their tools and develop their gifts aesthetically.

So, afer all that, total agreement????

Peace,

Well, I always thought theology tried to explain all domains – that would include art. I always thought that art expressed anything with no limit (Jessie Helms had a problem with that) – that would include theology.

Maybe the word we are grasping for is: “Mystical”. Because creating and viewing art is an [i:eb6db06523]experience[/i:eb6db06523]. Geoff mentions this word “mystical” in the same breath with Polanyi and “expressing the ineffable”. But this seems like this is just getting too complicated. Mysticism is experiencing God. Theology is explaining faith and religious experience (etc . . . ), but mysticism is living it. In my way of thinking [i:eb6db06523]everything[/i:eb6db06523] is an aspect of God and God’s creation . . . but of course people normally use words like spiritual and mystical to describe one particular frequency of experience – the light, if you will.

So it seems like we have a bit of a communications problem that starts with the regrettable habit of both the Art community and Theologions to take themselves too seriously and loose track of their disciplines place in the larger fabric. Which comes back to the regrettable habit of the Academy as a whole to loose track of practicality and direct communication. And that is an entirely different conversation.