From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian
Subject: Re: TANGENT: Christianity and art
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:54:27 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Sep3.135926.22422@cbnews.cb.att.com> ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>
>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.
>
Very well said.  An analogy would be taking people into Times Square
to view your latest work -- call it "4 p.m. Saturday" -- and then
just stand there while they look around for 5 minutes or whatever.
They'll see all sorts of visual things -- people, buildings, sky,
smog, traffic.  You can call those five minutes of looking around
anything you like, and you can go down in history as having "designed"
this "visual canvas."  Truth is, you've organized an event to heighten
people's visual awareness; that's it.  In and of itself, that's not
a bad idea.  But it ain't a work of art.

>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.
>
Here's an opinion, for what it's worth ... I think many people turn to
Christianity out of a desire for safety in a crazy world.  Many drawn
to Christianity are also drawn to it out of a desire to do "the right
thing" as prescribed by tradition.  You therefore get many Christian
traditionalists.  I'm _not_ implying that they aren't as profoundly
"Christian" as the non-traditionalists, by the way.  But in our
culture, Christianity is seen by many as part of "the good, old
days" and "the right thing to do."  That's true.  Of course, it's also
true that Christianity is a radical departure from everything the world
and our own human nature tells us to do.

That traditionalism and fear of the world has an impact on the church,
and that -- combined with the fact that much modern art is "head" art
and requires some effort on the part of the viewer -- can result in the
kind of reaction you describe.  And yes, it drives me nuts sometimes, too.

>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.  

C.S. Lewis, for one.  Handel and Bach are two others that spring to
mind.  Annie Dillard, definitely.  Christopher Parkening.  I suspect
there are a host of "quiet" Christian artists out there, ones we don't
suspect because their faith isn't widely known.  

 



-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

I believe we are on the irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy -- but that could change.   -- J. Danforth Quayle  
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian