What I meant about transcending the artist’s personal religious commitments was to question the view that art is just self-expression, a purely subjective aesthetic exercise. Should Christian art go beyond the worldly perception that ‘art is self-expression’? I think it should, but to do that you need a communal dynamic, but we are a long way from that.
“…whether art is a process or an end product”? I would say that it is a process towards creating an end product, not one or the other. The end product can be a drawing, a painting or a sculpture, but whatever it is, it is not complete in itself, but opens up a dialogue, a conversation between the object and the viewer and/or between itself and other works of art. It can be a response to someone else’s art, as we have seen recently with the MatissePicasso exhibition. Good art isn’t the end of the matter, it is the beginning, it elicits a response, be it one of wonder, of questioning, of rejoicing, of grieving. To this end art is open and not closed. For me bad art is a one-shot stop, you see it once and that’s fine, but when you go back you feel it has nothing else to say, other than what you have learned already. Call it superficial art!
geoffh
Mar 24 2003
03:44 am
Hi Grant,
What I meant about transcending the artist’s personal religious commitments was to question the view that art is just self-expression, a purely subjective aesthetic exercise. Should Christian art go beyond the worldly perception that ‘art is self-expression’? I think it should, but to do that you need a communal dynamic, but we are a long way from that.
“…whether art is a process or an end product”? I would say that it is a process towards creating an end product, not one or the other. The end product can be a drawing, a painting or a sculpture, but whatever it is, it is not complete in itself, but opens up a dialogue, a conversation between the object and the viewer and/or between itself and other works of art. It can be a response to someone else’s art, as we have seen recently with the MatissePicasso exhibition. Good art isn’t the end of the matter, it is the beginning, it elicits a response, be it one of wonder, of questioning, of rejoicing, of grieving. To this end art is open and not closed. For me bad art is a one-shot stop, you see it once and that’s fine, but when you go back you feel it has nothing else to say, other than what you have learned already. Call it superficial art!Geoff