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Christians and Art
A musing and some links:
I wonder why it is that there is a pretty dire smattering of Christian art. Christian novels rip off the latest fads on the romance shelf (albeit within a moral framework); we don't seem to have any writers like Tolkein around any longer; we create kitschy figurines rather than memorable paintings that push boundaries; and are there any Christian playwrights?
However, one notable contemporary artist today is Makoto Fujimura. He starts his discussion about A.R.T., an acronym which encompasses the idea of artists as reconcilors (ART = awareness, reconcilation, transformation). He also has a great article called, Why Art? that is well worth a read. Does anyone else know of any notable Christian artists (of any variety) who are doing seriously unique things as they live out their calling as Christian artists?
In my own field of literature, it seems that the general public seems to feel that the 'great books', the 'classics', the 'canon', are too out-of-date, too out-of-touch with reality (hence the proliferation of books that capture you because they're page turners, a la Dan Brown). But these page-turners books don't really teach us anything; they're the modern equivalent of reality TV. They don't mark a specific point in our lives or affect us deeply. We aren't changed because we've read them.
And I guess, for me, part of what makes a good book is a book that you remember for years, that marks itself on you somehow, that changes how you think and feel. I'd like to recommend a few of these books below; I won't write about them now because I think I need to process their effects a bit more first.
Chaim Potok's The Chosen
Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief
Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Housekeeping
Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady
(And, I think it's significant that I'm not talking about any of these in my PhD. They need to remain untouched somehow).
You are so very right. It is unfortunate that Christians do not create beautiful artwork, and even more disturbing that we don't appreciate it. So many people gravitate toward the schlock that is sold as "Christian" and simply ignore beauty in art and literature because, I think, it requires time and thought to appreciate. And those who sell "Christian" art and literature are not creating but copying. In the US we have sold out to those who believe art and literature are of the world and therefore lead to pollution of the soul. That is correct sometimes but not always. Lets all get a grip.
Thanks for pointing to the Fujimura post!
If you're extending art into the music and theatre and performane art realm, a good friend of mine is a Christian artist in all of these areas. You can find more information on him and his latest piece, Project Paul, at http://www.projectpaul.com/
You might want to check out the book Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts by Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Francis Schaeffer. It has been over 20 years since I read it, but I seem to remember it did a very good job of addressing the question of why Christians have "sacrificed the artistic prominence they enjoyed for centuries and settled instead for mediocrity."
I'll definitely look up those artists and thanks for the book recommendation Debra!
Why do you think that as Christians we both can't appreciate art very well (in whatever form you choose) and therefore we don't create it well?
My initial thought is that in evangelical circles we've tended to 'dumb down' the gospel and focus instead on programmatic ministries; we do a lot but we don't contemplate -- first of all, we don't contemplate our sin or the gospel's answer to it (both personally and especially collectively) and this has drastic implications for how we respond to art (and everything else). We've become so fast-paced and we've forgotten the gospel and this has immediate ramifications for art (we copy, we don't create). (Obviously this isn't true across the board, but it is a trend that is worth point out, I think).
I think Christians are scared of art. It's easy to look at the more extreme stuff that gets presented in the media (the Turner prize for instance, or the Chapman brothers) and think "If that's stuff's art, then I want nothing to do with it". It's easy to paint all modern art as Godless nonsense and hark back to some golden era, usually pre-abstract art when art was about beautiful paintings and well-finished sculpture and forget that art isn't just about beauty and perhaps you can say as much that's true and important with a video installation or elephant dung as you can with an oil painting.
I love the Chosen, and also, speaking of art, My Name is Asher Lev.
Since I've never studied this in any detail, I'm willing to take these assertions as read, but sometimes I wonder if we underestimate the amount of good art being produced now. I think it's easy to forget about the vast quantities of mediocre art that must have been produced in times past, and oveestimate the frequency of classics, since we can see them all in a mass rather in real time as they were published.
I think there needs to be more beautiful art out there, though. "Beautiful" doesn't necessarily mean "conventionally beautiful", but so much modern art and "art culture" seems intentionally transgressive, and self-congratulatingly so - neither of which are qualities that a Christian artist should wish to emulate.
I love The Chosen, too.
I don't think Christian taste in art, or lack of appreciation for it, is any worse than that of the general public--however, that means, sadly, that it isn't any better, either. My question, though, is: should it be? As good and important as that is----is it essential?
My pet peeve is the cultivation of bad taste through marketing---Christian and secular, alike.
And my last thought is that an appreciation of good art and the creation of good art both require time. Appreciation requires time to view, listen, read and reflect. I agree with Atlantic that great art has always been rare and that it has always gotten lost in the midst of a sea of mediocrity. But with the ever increasing pace of life, the time to create and appreciate great art diminishes while mass production/marketing creates an ever increasing flood of the mediocre. So the ratio of the bad and mediocre vs. the great, while having always been big, is probably increasing.
On a positive note, though, due to increased technology and prosperity, over my lifetime, I have seen an increase in the amount of beautiful things produced at a lower cost, making them available to more people and there is much greater, easier access to classic and great art than ever before.
Great post, Ashley, and a subject near & dear to my heart, as I am somewhat of an artist myself. Great comments too.
I agree with Debra that creation of and appreciation of great art takes time, study, and work. I do think that the fast pace and gluttedness of life today is not conducive to such study. Also, we have access to so much stuff that it can be difficult to limit ourselves; I know I try to learn about so much that I gain only a cursory understanding of a lot of things rather than deep understanding of a few.
I also think that, in this day and age, we are somewhat conditioned to a superficial understanding of life and are not trained to think deeply or to appreciate subtleties and complexities, generally-speaking. Life is more a jostling contest than a row to hoe or a well to plumb.
Don't know if it is "seriously" unique, but my brother-in-law is using his gifts in jazz-influenced composition to set Scripture verses to music for children (and adults) for mnemonic purposes. There is no stereotype whatsoever in his music, which demonstrates that it's not the genre that determines whether music is "Christian" or not; it's what the music does & how it's used. His music is the epitome of authentic.
Oh, and I recommend Addicted to Mediocrity as well.
Important topic , imho.
Agree with the points of Atlantic and Debra. My own thought is that there is taste for and production of excellent art in the Christian community, but it is spotty in terms of support and appreciation. It used to be that the Church was the great patron of the arts, but if you view evangelical circles, especially, this has given way to the corrupting factor of commercialism.
It is further complicated by the annoying cronyism that is the enemy of great art.
I don't know if you can always judge art by the bar "seriously unique". I do think you can judge it by ideas of "excellence". If something is "seriously unique" it takes time to develop an understanding of it and a taste for it... and it will always have a component of "excellence" in some way. So I think developing an appreciation of the quality of excellence in the Christian community is where one must start in improving the general climate for the production of great art. If I remember my reading correctly, this is much the idea in the Schaeffer's books.
Thanks Ilona; I realise 'uniqueness' isn't probably the best perameter for artistic excellence. I simply meant that by using that phrase, that doing something 'seriously unique', meant that as Christians we weren't piggy-backing on what non-Christians have come up with or slapping a Christian veneer on the whole thing.
Schaeffer is definitely a good place to start as well as Nancy Pearcey's book, Total Truth. Both Schaeffer's work and Pearcey's seek to orient the Christian's life to the centrality of the gospel in all things (essentially what I was getting at in my earlier comment about the fact that we often dumb down the gospel and so we don't really believe it, which, in turn, has ramifications in every sphere, including the artistic one).
