From: ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman)
Subject: Re: TANGENT: Christianity and art
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 13:59:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.030727.29410@ucunix.san.uc.edu> tothmd@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Michael David Toth) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.200954.16453@cbnews.cb.att.com> ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>>In article <87594@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

>>For Schaeffer, "order" meant linearity and
>>adherence to chronology in literature, adherence to strict 
>>counterpoint and harmonies in music, and photographic representations
>>in the visual arts.  Given that, it's not surprising that his 
>>artistic heros are Shakespeare, Bach, and Rembrandt.  
>>
>>Obviously I'd be foolish to downplay the astounding achievements of
>>Shakespeare, Bach, and Rembrandt.  But order didn't cease to exist
>>at the end of the last century, as Schaeffer would have us believe.
>>It simply took on a different form.  Thus, for example, in 
>>William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," we have four 
>(stuff deleted)
>>someone's imagination.  Faulkner takes Schaeffer's love of linearity
>>and adherence to chronological sequence and blows it to hell and back.  
>>Did he destroy order?  Of course not.  He created an entire family
>>history and an extended commentary on the disintegration of 
>>American southern culture, and he wrote some brilliant prose in 
>>the process.  
>>
>It's not a destruction of order, but a more complex order.  And when you
>think of a God who is outside of time in a non-linear eternity yet still
>active in time, perhaps Faulkner is closer to a more "divine order" than
>Franky Schaeffer's.  :-)

First, a minor clarification here.  We're actually dealing with two
Schaeffer's in this discussion:

1) Francis Schaeffer, noted Christian author ("The God Who is There," 
"He Is There and He is Not Silent," "Escape From Reason," "Art and
Reason," etc.), founder of the Christian community L'Abri in
Switzerland, and filmmaker ("Whatever Happened to the Human Race"), and 

2) Frankie Schaeffer, his son, noted Christian author ("Addicted to
Mediocrity," "A Time for Anger"), and an authoritarian dolt who 
repeatedly confuses his personal views with God's truth.

Both Schaeffer's have written about Christianity and art, but I find
papa's views to be more balanced and well reasoned.  I have great
respect for Francis as a Christian thinker, although I disagree
with some of his conclusions about art.  Frankie should find a day job.

>>The same kinds of arguments can be made for some of the innovations
>>that have taken place in the visual arts and in music.  I *do*
>>think that a line needs to be drawn between order and chaos, and I'd
>>agree with you that blank canvases and John Cage's 4'33" (from
>>which Shaeffer borrowed heavily for his scene of the piano player
>>in Times Square) fall on the "chaotic" side of the line.  I just
>>think that the dear knickered one was a little *too* disdainful
>>of modern culture. 
>>
>(For those unfamiliar, Cage's "4 min. 33 sec." featured Cage at a piano
>concert sitting down at a piano for 4:33 of "silence")
>
>Hmmm.  The most common interpretations of the Cage piece I've heard
>concerned it being a re-evaluation of what "music" was - that the sound
>of the environment, the audience rustling & breathing, etc., when
>focused on as a set of sounds was not unlike selecting sounds that make
>up a traditional music composition.  That's a far cry from chaos, just
>trying to create an environment to think and re-evaulate our
>expectations.  But yes, Franky is such an ethnocentric weenie that he
>still probably couldn't appreciate it.  

That seems consistent with what I've heard and read about Cage's piece
too.  As philosophic statements go, I think it's fine.  I would 
question what "selection" or "ordering" really takes place in such a work,  
though.  It seems to me that 4'33" is all about randomness - from the
people who wander in off the street to view the performance, to when
those people rustle their papers or cough, to the outside sounds of
birds or city noise that might filter in to the performance area.
I know that Cage was asking us to re-think our expectations of music.
But I have a hard time getting away from one basic notion - music
implies that sounds will be produced by the performer of the music.
I'll grant that Cage made an interesting and valid philosophical 
point.  But to call such non-sounds "music" is to play semantic games
that I'm not willing to play.  

This gets back to a point I made in an earlier post.  A lot of
twentieth century art seems intent on making a philosphical point.
In Cage's case, the point seems to be that music is always filtered
through our own perceptions and expectations of what music should
be.  Point granted.  And he made the point so well that the word
"music" ceases to have any meaning.  I have a hard time justifying
this as an appropriate artistic expression.  It's anti-art.  Art
implies creation, not negation.  And I think that's where I have
to draw the line.  Plays without dialogue, music without sounds,
"found" art such as sewer covers and broken bicycle wheels - all
communicate valid philosphical statements.  But I won't call 
them art.

>And a while some of them MAY be expressions of nihilism or something,
>most abstract color field work is intended to primarily express raw
>emotions, and in the case of painters like Mark Rothko and Barnett
>Newman, there was a distinctive spirituality behind those forms.  Newman
>was Jewish but did a lot of investigation into Christianity and he did a
>"Stations of the Cross" series of canvasses of broad areas of color.
>Again, based on what I've read of Franky Schaeffer's, I doubt if Franky
>would even try to learn how to interpret a Newman painting.

I don't know why many Christians have such a hard time with abstraction,
but they do.  I have one close family member and one close friend
who have managed to pay the bills by painting for a living.  They
are both Christians, they have both thought long and hard about
the relationship between art and Christianity, and their paintings are
very abstract.  They win prizes at shows, have their paintings 
displayed in museums, and have achieved a fair amount of critical
acclaim in the art world.  And you know what?  Their Christian 
friends view their life's work with a mixture of distrust and 
bewilderment.  My sister-in-law told me that a woman in her church   
recently told her that if she was really following the Lord she would
be painting beautiful landscapes that reflected the glory of God's
creation.

This stuff makes me want to pull my hair out.  I consider myself an
evangelical Christian, and I value my brothers and sisters, but 
I honestly have to wonder whether Christian artists shouldn't
do themselves a favor and abandon the evangelical movement en masse.
Somehow, somewhere, theologically conservative Christians got left
in an artistic backwater.  I know there are exceptions, and I thank
God for them, but I really have to seriously question whether 
evangelical Christianity will ever produce a painter, author, or
musician of the first rank.  And with the Franky Schaeffer's and 
Bob Larson's of the world expounding their narrow views and 
attracting hordes of followers, it's hard to be overly optimistic
that the situation will change in the future.

>>>>Bob tells us (and Francis Schaeffer would agree) that certain forms of
>>>>art are inappropriate for Christian expression.  The witness and work  
>>>>of Christian artists tells me differently.  So which themes/styles
>>>>are inappropriate?  And why?
>>>
>>I agree on all counts.  But you're talking about the message of
>>art, not its form.  What I'm really trying to get at is whether 
>>there are certain genres of music, literature, or the visual
>>arts that are more appropriate for Christian expression than
>>others.  Realizing that this is sometimes an unresolvable
>>dilemma, I'm trying to keep the message separate from the 
>>form, at least for this discussion.
>>
>I guess the most appropriate expression depends specifically on what's
>being expressed.  In the _Art Rageous_ collection of essays, Steve Scott
>draws illustrations from Nathan confronting David about his immorality
>with a narrative about shepherds and an unjust ruler, Jeremiah doing a
>sort of street theater/performance art thing with clay becoming hard &
>unusable in the sun to convey the state of Israel, and Christ turning
>the tables (literally) in the temple and talking about destroying the
>temple and rebuilding it in three days.
>
>Each form that each statement took was related to its intention and a
>knowledge of its intended audience.  But one of the most profound
>insights I've heard in AGES could be found in Christ's statement, which
>most of the people in the temple TOTALLY misinterpreted, and Jesus made
>no attempt at that time to clarify.  SOMETIMES FOR THE MOST IMPACT, IT
>IS MORE IMPORTANT TO INITIALLY BE MISUNDERSTOOD.  (it's a slight topic
>diversion, but a really amazing point, IMO)

Hey, it's my motto for posting to this newsgroup ;-).

It *is* an amazing point, and I'm inclined to agree with Steve Scott.
There's certainly historical precedent for it.  Anybody care to 
wager how many well-known artists have died penniless and destitute?

>So depending on what you have to convey, a grungy punk song, an acoustic
>ballad, or an instrumental may be appropriate forms, or maybe even a
>non-musical form altogether would be most appropriate. 

Okay, but what are some of the guidelines for determining the most
appropriate form to be used given specific content?  Somebody
brought up Plato here the other day (I lost track of the attribution,
but I appreciated your post, whoever you are).  Plato argues that 
form is dictated by content.  And his ideas have had an enormous
impact on our culture and the history of music.  Today, that means
that a tender expression of love is more likely to be packaged 
with a major-key melody and sweet flutes and violins than with 
distorted electric guitars and raw, screaming vocals.  Conversely,
expressions of nihilism are generally not accompanied by Percy
Faith or Lawrence Welk.  

But some of the most successful works of music have been those that 
have juxtaposed content and form.  Bob Dylan's latest album, "Under
the Red Sky," is a collection of sing-song nursery rhymes and 
simple melodies about nuclear war and global destruction.  It works
wonderfully, and it works precisely *because* the music doesn't
"fit" with the lyrics.  I could name dozens of other examples 
as well.  

So the content/form union breaks down in a lot of cases.  I'm not
sure if that is what Steve Scott is arguing, but it's certainly
consistent with Plato's ideas.  And I'm saying that Plato is,
at best, only half-right.  There are simply too many instances
of great art where the tried-and-true theories don't apply.

>>To bring this down to at least a semi-practical level, I'm interested
>>in questions such as:  Is it appropriate to present the Christian
>>life using a) surf music? b) rap?  c) punk?  d) industrial?  e) free
>>jazz?  f) reggae?  And so on.  I'd argue that it's appropriate. 
>>
>I think we're roughly in agreement that Franky Schaeffer's limitations
>of "chaos" in art require some boundaries.  Free-form Jazz, or music
>that lacks any formal structure, to that mindset, is inappropriate.

Minor nit-pick again:  Free-form jazz has a formal structure.  You
might take a look at Ornette Coleman's concept of "harmolodics"
to see what I mean.  That structure often means that different
musicians are soloing in different keys, though, or that the bas
player may be playing in a different time signature than the 
drummer.  But the theory itself is fairly well-defined and
rigorous.  It sounds chaotic, but it's really no more chaotic
than Rothko's or Newman's paintings.

>It's interesting to note that at first glance, the "dada" art movement
>(or "anti-art" movement) in the 1910's-1920's seems to be totally
>destructive and nihilistic.  But to really look into the movement, some
>members DEFINITELY fit that description, but overall there was a real
>sense of morals.  Amid WWI, there was a total disgust with the world's
>state, and the breakdown of tradition and unjust systems is actually a
>pretty positive action.  A lot of "random" art came out of the movement,
>but mostly in search of something that was more expressive of their
>frustration of the situation at large.  And a lot of the absurdist
>elements in this stuff was there to reinforce the philosophies.  But,
>yes, to some of these people but DEFINITELY not all, life was nothing
>more than a bad joke, and their art was a reflection of that.
>
>So, if "chaotic" art is an effective expression of frustration,
>helplessness, and desire for change and reevaluation of standards, 
>then for someone who has found no alternative but to trust in a Higher 
>Being, it seems pretty appropriate as a form of expression to
>me.  (For the modern Christian music equivalent of early 20th Century
>dada, check out Breakfast With Amy, particularly the latest "product
>#bvcd 3482 (love gift)" and Fluffy, particularly the first, "Fluffy Luvs
>You")

Also Tonio K.'s "Amerika," which starts with a Dada sensibility
and ends up with a Christian sensibility.  Great album, as you know.

>>>Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
>>>
>>Andy Whitman
>>AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
>>att!cblpn!ajw  or
>>ajw@cblpn.att.com
>
>Michael Toth
>tothmd@ucunix.san.uc.edu 

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
att!cblpn!ajw  or
ajw@cblpn.att.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian