I will tell you WHAT I have been thinking about lately, and I hope to write some things on both these subjects in the future. I have been reading a book on “evangelism” during my devotional times of late and it has caused me to think more on that subject…a subject that is quite “taboo” in our culture. So I have been formulating a “defense” of sorts, on evangelism. I don’t want to give a defense strictly from the Bible because even a cursory reading of the Bible does a good job of defending itself in that. I want to focus in on the humanity of persuasion….or evangelism…or proselytizing. We hate those words, but I would argue that they are closely united to what it means to be human – perhaps that is why they are hated so much. Frankly we “evangelize” every where, all the time…we just don’t admit it.

The other area I have been thinking about is related to the series of talks I have been listening to done by Malcolm Guite on the Inklings…CS Lewis, JRR Tokien (the more well known), Charles Williams, and – the one I’ve heard the least about but am now excited to read more of – Owen Barfield. The question Guite argues they wrestled with most was the relationship between reason and imagination. This has spurred me to think about beauty and imagination, about reason and beauty, and about art and imagination. I have posted a couple of his talks on our Facebook page (click here to access and “like” our FB page), and plan to post them all quite frankly. I’ve listened to three and have not been disappointed at all – in fact I just finished the talk on Owen Barfield today and I am on the verge of adopting him as a new literary hero (Click here for the site with the Malcolm Guite talks on the Inklings).

Finally, I thought I’d let you know of our travel schedule over the holidays. We plan to be in the Maryland area for Christmas, New Years, and on into January. We would love to connect with you all to say hello and catch up, so please send us a “Hey you!” I will be speaking at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Newark, Delaware on Friday, January 13th on the subject of Beauty. More details will be posted here and on our Facebook page. If you are in the area come on by. There are a couple of other possible dates I will be speaking but won’t post them until they get solidified. At the end of January (27th-29th) I will be participating in a weekend event called a “Forum on Beauty: Three days of Exploration”. I will be doing some speaking, but most exciting of all we will be interviewing and interacting with artists about their works and exploring the depths of all things beautiful. It will be in Rock Hill, South Carolina more details to come (click here for some details).

Happy advent, friends…unto us is born!
Kirk & Sarah

Bird and Key

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/thanksgiving.html
Of course in America the artist that comes to mind is Norman Rockwell, and you will see a lot of his work at these sites. Sarah and I last year while in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC saw a retrospective of his work from the collections of filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. It was a surprising little discovery in a beautiful Museum, one we frequent when we are in town. Summaries of that show are here:

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2010/rockwell/
Sarah and I both hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Peace from Bird & Key,

Kirk & Sarah

Makoto “Mako” Fujimura has been doing art for several decades. He grew up both in the United States and Japan.[1] He studied in both nations, doing his undergraduate work at Bucknell in Pennsylvania and his graduate work in Japan. The style he studied and does to this day is the thousand year old method called “Nihonga” which essentially means “Japanese style painting.

Makoto Fujimura

Nihonga is a method of painting where mineral pigments and precious metals, like gold, silver, or platinum are used to create beautiful art. The pigments are crushed and mixed with an animal glue and applied to a strong paper called “cloud skin” in English. This process takes a long time with the application of layer after layer of mineral or metal. It is not only time consuming but also expensive – some, including Fujimura himself, would even say extravagant – in price to make a piece of Nihonga. When done correctly and expertly though, the minerals in a piece will reflect and even refract the light causing pieces to change before the eyes. Over time the metals used will burnish and layers may even “come off” revealing different colors and thereby transforming the piece into a new piece of art.

It was while he was in Japan that Fujimura began to experience a crisis that led him on a pilgrimage. His crisis was similar to what the art world experienced in the 90’s, a crisis in beauty. He writes in River Grace:

The problem that I could not overcome with Art and religion is that the more I focused on myself, the less I could find myself. A schism grew inside between who I wanted to be and what I did. I wanted to love my wife, but I saw, more and more, the distance between us. Art as self-expression became a wedge in our relationship. Meanwhile, every day, I sought higher transcendence through the extravagant materials. I found success in expression through Nihonga materials. And yet the weight of beauty I saw in the materials began to crush my own heart. I could not justify the use of extravagance if I found my heart unable to contain their glory. The more I used them, the moodier and more restless I became. Finding beauty in nature and art, I did not have a “shelf” on which to place that beauty inside my heart.[2]

The best example of his crisis is in a story I’ve heard him tell multiple times of when he was studying in Japan. One day a mentor and friend came into his studio to see what he was working on. When seeing a piece that Fujimura had out he exclaimed, “That’s so beautiful it’s almost frightening” and he walked out, leaving Fujimura in the heavy silence of such a powerful statement. Fujimura says he destroyed the painting because he had no ability to connect such an amazing compliment to what he felt inside himself…no beauty at all. How could someone who isn’t beautiful, create such beauty? Perhaps Fujimura was sensing the loss of van Balthasar’s “three sisters”.

It was from a moment like that and his discovery of the poet William Blake that led Fujimura to conclude that the only source of such beauty is God himself – incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Where Fujimura’s heart couldn’t carry the beauty and extravagance he created, God’s heart could.

But what is it about his art that is a crossroads of theology and art?

First, you see it in his chosen method. Both the distant past and immediate present are apparent in his work. The school of painting, Nihonga has been around for over a thousand years. Fuimura – in his medium honors the past by utilizing this tradition. But he uses it in a very contemporary way. At first glance his paintings would seem unintelligible because he uses colorful swipes and pooled water stains to attain his goal – a very contemporary style; past and present are together.

Christianity is similar in honoring the past and present. The past is respected because of reliance upon historical record of the life of Christ and even the blessings that God has bestowed in the past[3]. The present is also important to Christianity, living for God and others is encouraged over and over again much like the layers in one of Fujimura’s paintings.[4] The Bible encourages thanking God always for what He has done in the past in order to live in the present.

Second, theology and beauty cross in Fujimura’s work in the technique he uses to progress from an empty canvas to a completed work. Multiple times he has described the method he goes through as a meditative prayer.[5] Many times he has the Bible open and near a piece he is working on almost as if he wants to lift the words from the page change them to a color and swipe them on the paper. He has even “hid” Scripture in his works under layers of mineral or metal where you can try to read them immediately or wait until a layer disappears before you see them (this could take decades or centuries even).

cover of Gravity & Grace by Simone Weil

Third, you see the crossroads in the subjects of his work. Two examples come to mind – a series of works he did many years ago and a recent series that was produced. The first series he calls his “grace” series which he completed in the mid 1990’s.[6] Many of these works (and I think others since then he titles with the word “grace”) are loosely based on Simone Weil’s book Gravity and Grace. Weil had her own encounter with God that affected much of her later writings, and those writings have impacted Fujimura’s own ideas that he put to paper.[7]

A more recent series that Fujimura has done that is indicative of a meeting between theology and beauty is his Rouault series. The Museum of Biblical Art recently showed work by the late 19^th early 20^th century painter George Rouault. Alongside Rouault’s work the MoBIA commissioned Fujimura to do paintings inspired by the Rouault works to be shown. Rouault was a Catholic Christian in France who was trained as a stained glass maker but turned to painting instead. His works are primitive, with thick lines and simple subjects, but striking in their emotional expression because of the subjects he chose.

Finally a last example of Fujimura’s work being a crossroads for theology and Beauty is his own words. There are many words I could put here of his writings over the years but these short lines seemed most appropriate as they were written in the days after 9/11 – a time of particular stress for all including the Fujimura’s.[8]

Create we must, and respond to this dark hour. The world needs artists who dedicate themselves to communicate the images of Shalom. Jesus is the Shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of war, but wholeness, healing and joy of fullness of humanity. We need to collaborate within our communities to respond individually to give to the world our Shalom vision.[9]

So Fujimura, by his work and his words, is a crossroads for theology and Beauty. He is remaining true to his conclusions about what is true about the world and yet at the same time fully engaged in the current social climate and how to influence for positive change. The art world and the church would benefit from inviting Fujimura, and other artists like him, into their communities to speak to how beauty, art, and God make for better human beings.

Beauty and its pursuit (art) are important. Knowing where beauty comes from is important – perhaps even essential for human thriving. If beauty only resided in the heart and mind of a human being and nowhere else, then it would be conceivable that beauty would be anything a human being would put their hand to – good or ill.

From a Judeo-Christian worldview the source of all things good, true and beautiful is the triune God of the Bible. If He made all things, then he must be the source of all goodness, truth, and beauty; it is from his being that these things flow. It is from His character that we can find both the objective and subjective aspects of beauty. If there was not a transcendental source for goodness, truth, and beauty then it would be difficult to find any basis for life other than what I think or the next guy thinks or the next guy…or the next. And then all we would have is noise, not beauty.

We believe that what is beautiful in this world…possesses a total dimension that also calls for moral decision. If this is so, then from the beautiful the way must also lead into the religious dimension which itself includes man’s definitive answer to the question about God and, indeed, his answer to the question God poses to him.[10]

[1] You can find his story in two publications one called The Restaurant of the Soul, and the more recent River Grace.

[2] Fujimura, Makoto. River Grace. New York, NY. 2007, p6.

[3] See Luke 1:1-4, I Chronicles 16:8 & 12 are a couple of examples.

[4] See Deuteronomy 30:19, II Kings 18:32, Matthew 22:36-38, Romans 12:1-2

[5] See his recent book Refractions published by NavPress 2009 for accounts of this. I’ve also heard him personally say this.

[6] Some are found in his gallery catalog release called Images of Grace, published by the Dillon Gallery in 1997.

[7] Some of Weil’s thoughts on her encounter with God can be found in her book Waiting for God. There is debate as to whether she was actually a Christian or just a dabbler, I have not read enough of her work to draw a conclusion, but even then it is not up to me.

[8] The Fujimura’s lived in a loft a mere 2 blocks from Ground Zero and at the time his studio was just 10 blocks away.

[9] Fujimura Refractions p51

[10] Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, p 34

The Trinity 1635, Jusepe de Ribera

That being said, is perceiving integrity, proportion, and radiance in an art work truly enough to see and know full Beauty? I don’t think so. I came across many descriptions of beauty from people in the art world that are similar to Nehamas’ quote in the last blog post. Some descriptions were almost other worldly, or transcendent.[1] The latter half of Elaine Scarry’s quote I used earlier ends with a description of Beauty’s immortality, “What is beautiful is in league with what is true because truth abides in the immortal sphere.”[2] If Truth is in the immortal sphere and Beauty is united with Truth then Beauty is also in the immortal sphere.

I have shown some characteristics of Beauty that have their foundations in Aquinas’ short exposition in the Summa. Maritain and his fellow “Neo-Thomists” base their perspectives on Aquinas, and even Fuglie, whom I’ve cited quite a bit, bases his thinking of Beauty on Aquinas. But, what is at the heart of Aquinas’ position on Beauty?

Christus-Ravenna icon

The context of Aquinas’ statements on Beauty is the 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Aquinas saw the source of Truth, Goodness and Beauty as a transcendent source, as well as a personal source, he thought the source was God. Aquinas’ Beauty is theologically based:

Comeliness or beauty bears a resemblance to the properties of the Son. Beauty must include three qualities; integrity or completeness – since things that lack something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness – we call things bright in colour beautiful. Integrity is like the Son’s property, because he is a Son who in himself has the Father’s nature truly and fully…Right proportion is consonant with what is proper to the Son inasmuch as he is the express Image of the Father; thus we notice that any image is called beautiful if it represents a thing, even an ugly thing, faithfully…Brightness coincides with what is proper to the Son as he is the Word, the light and splendour of the mind.[3]

Aquinas’ definition of Beauty hinges on a belief in God. Beauty is something that is transcendent, bigger than us, beyond but not outside our understanding—rather like God.

Aquinas and the Neo-Thomist – when talking about Beauty – usually did so in concert with Truth and Goodness, together sometimes called the “transcendentals”. Both Truth and Goodness are characteristics usually attributed to God.[4] As I quoted von Balthasar earlier, he believed that the loss of Beauty paralleled a loss of knowing and doing what is good. He elaborated on the relationship of Truth, Goodness and Beauty:

Beauty…dances as an uncontained splendour around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another. Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. No longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face like a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. We no longer dare believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order to more easily dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.

Von Balthasar’s warning about Beauty—though directed at religion (the church)—could also caution the art world. This is why Truth and Goodness are important—because Beauty is important. Scarry called Beauty sacred, unprecedented and lifesaving—three characteristics that seem very close to describing God.[5] This is why theology needs to participate in reforming the art world’s concept and content about Beauty, and why the church and the art world need to be in dialogue.

Thomas Aquinas

So what is beauty?

A good source for characteristics of beauty is Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. Several key advocates of the arts in the Church have referenced Aquinas as a guide to thinking about beauty.[1] In the Summa Aquinas writes:

Beauty must include three qualities: integrity or completeness – since things that lack something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness – we call things bright in colour beautiful.[2]

Fuglie recounts that in the 20^th century while the art world was humming along ignoring the content of beauty, there were several key “Neo-Thomists” who espoused Aquinas’ characteristics of beauty; one of those was Jacques Maritain.[3]

Jacques Maritan

Maritain – in his book Art and Scholasticism – explained Aquinas’ summary of beauty this way:

If beauty delights the intellect, it is because it is essentially a certain excellence or perfection in the proportion of things to the intellect. Hence the three conditions Saint Thomas assigned to beauty; integrity, because the intellect is pleased in fullness of Being; proportion, because the intellect is pleased in order and unity; finally, and above all, radiance or clarity, because the intellect is pleased in light and intelligibility.[4]

What Aquinas/Maritain meant by integrity was not merely an “integrity” consistent with the artists skill and materials, but also the particular time the artists did their art. For example, the art of Picasso had a level of integrity because it remained within the boundaries of his medium…he wasn’t doing multimedia pieces, and the subjects he was creating were expressions consistent with the philosophies of the time and his own personal worldview. Had Picasso done his works in earlier centuries they may not have carried as much integrity due to being out of sync with the culture.

What is meant by “proportion” is in the work itself. Are the subjects in proportion to or harmony with one another within the art work? For example, Picasso’s “Guernica”. At first glance, some might observe that there is little in the work that seems in proportion because everything,—including persons, animals, and objects—is distorted…out of proportion. But remember that EVERYTHING in the work is out of proportion, so there is a harmony or proportion of distortion. Second, there is harmony between the subject and the distorted treatment of the painting. Picasso was portraying the physical horror after the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by emphasizing some aspects over others. Again, Picasso is showing a proportion or harmony of distortion. Third, there is harmony with the subject emotionally in Guernica. Imagine being in Guernica as this bombing is taking place, wouldn’t the world seem out of proportion as the bombs fall?

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

As for “radiance”, Fuglie states that Aquinas/Maritain gave precedence to this characteristic.# Fuglie continued by quoting Maritain:

This mode of apprehending beauty is knowing “the splendor of the form on the proportioned parts of matter”; or alternatively, “it is a flashing of intelligence on matter intelligibility [harmoniously] arranged.” Maritain implies that radiance or clarity is knowable best when the mind is simultaneously relaxed and alert. By guiding our intellect to a contemplative state we set a “tripwire of anticipation” in our intellect to apprehend the integrity, harmony, and radiance that await our discovery in a work of art – or conversely, that are found to be absent.[5]

So radiance takes into account the other two characteristics. I believe the key point concerning radiance is the “tripwire” Fuglie mentions. Does the work hit you in some way? Picasso’s “Guernica” certainly shows—by history’s response to it—both, positive and negative that it does have “radiance”. I believe truth is certainly integral here. One of the “hits” a radiant work of art must do is hit you as true. “Guernica” seems to do just that.

None of Aquinas’ characteristics of beauty are beyond the reach of the current art world. In fact, they need to be explored and adopted in order for beauty to make its full return. It appears that Aquinas’ “radiance” is not far from the art world’s psyche, as Danto – when asked for a definition of beauty – said “you know it when you see it.”[6] Danto could have been saying that a beautiful work of art is one that hits you, perhaps one that has truth in it. Scarry wrote: “What is beautiful is in league with what is true…”[7] Alexander Nehamas describes an encounter with beauty that smacks of Danto’s statement:

Imagine yourself…on a street, in a restaurant or a gallery, at a party, during a lecture, a concert, or a game. You cast your eyes around, recognizing perhaps some people you know, stopping for a moment to glance at an outfit or two, lingering when you notice people talking to one another, distinguishing, so to speak, foreground from background, those you are especially aware of from others who mean nothing to you. And then, all of a sudden, everything becomes background – everything but a pair of eyes, a face, a body, pushing the rest out of your field of vision and giving you a moment of awe and a shock of delight, perhaps even passionate longing. For a moment, at least, you are looking at beauty.[8]

Nehamas is describing an encounter with Aquinas’ radiance – Fuglie’s “tripwire” – he is describing an encounter with beauty. “Radiance”, integrity and proportion are all needed to truly see and understand beauty

What is significant about the art world’s rediscovery of and the church’s growing interest in Beauty? First, I think it is indicative of human nature. As human beings we long to experience good – particularly beautiful—things in life. The initial paragraph of Father Thomas Dubay’s book, The Evidential Power of Beautysays this:

Every human person is drawn to beauty. A night sky can thrill, as can an exquisite orchid, a Mozart concerto, or a lovely face. John Henry Newman, an intellectual and literary giant, would on occasion weep with delight as he played his violin. The more gifted among us are sometimes so vibrantly alive that even created splendors touch them deeply. Because their receptive capacities to be enriched by and responsive to reality are deep, they grow to a maturity far beyond the usual. They live life to the hilt and themselves become works of art – to borrow a phrase from Saint Paul (Eph 2:10)[1]

Second, is the opportunity for dialogue between two parts of society that have shared little interest in each other for the last 100 years. A few years back I helped run an IAM conference on “Artists as Reconcilers” where Yale Seminary professor Dr. Miroslav Volf spoke. In the course of his research he found out that the then head of Yale’s art department, Richard Benson, had been asked what the relationship between art and the church was. In short, Benson’s reply was that there was no relationship; Volf summarized Benson’s thoughts stating, “art is fundamentally transgressive, religion is fundamentally conservative, the two are at odds with one another.”[2]

Theologian Miroslav Volf

Perhaps they are not as far apart as Benson thinks. The Church and the art world have an opportunity to dialogue about art and beauty and learn from one another – the Church, to learn how to make art, the art world to learn what is the true source of Beauty. As one who believes there is a supreme Creator who has His hands in history, I truly believe this parallel interest in Beauty is not an accident.

At this point it might be appropriate to bring some definition to beauty. This is no easy task as it has been pursued for many millennia, and I for one am not assuming that I could bring any new insight into the matter. Also, our limitation as human beings is not an insignificant factor.

We must accept the fact that we are talking about a concept that may ultimately be beyond our comprehension. However, I am not willing to concede that we cannot know anything about Beauty because we cannot FULLY grasp every aspect of it. I believe we can apprehend beauty, see and understand it, but I do not believe we can know everything there is to know about beauty. This is not unlike the other two transcendentals Beauty is usually accompanied by – Truth and Goodness.

Can anyone really say they know all Truth? Can anyone know all Goodness? We can know Truth, and Goodness, and we can know them truly, but knowing all Truth and/or Goodness comprehensively is problematic.[3] Is it wise to simply dismiss any possibility of knowing Truth, Goodness and Beauty because we can only know part and not the whole? I don’t think so.

I would assert it is the same with my knowledge of God. I can know God truly, I can apprehend Him, but to say that I know Him comprehensively would mean I would need to be God to know Him completely, and that’s just impossible.

Much of the Church may not have been exercising any creative expressions of Beauty in teh 20th and 21st centuries, but they do have the intellectual and theological content on which to base Beauty. This is a great boon for the art world, who seem to lack the ability to define Beauty beyond “You know it when you see it.”

As a result of this self diagnosed lack of beauty, the art world began to hold conferences and seminars that addressed the topic (SEE Fuglie). Others, including Danto, wrote of the subject of beauty. However, there seemed to be a lack of integrity to their content. It wasn’t that what they were saying wasn’t true, but—after almost a century of usurping traditional views of beauty—the art world lacked the vocabulary to articulate that which was lost. Fuglie summarizes this well:

Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote about what happens when a world loses beauty:

In a world without beauty—even if people cannot dispense with the word and constantly have it on the tip of their tongues in order to abuse it—in a world which is perhaps not wholly without beauty, but which can no longer see it or reckon with it; in such a world the good loses its attractiveness, the self evidence of why it must be carried out.[2]

Whereas the modern art world could claim the loss of beauty as an inadvertent action, the loss of beauty…and art…in the Protestant Church would find a harder time claiming ignorance (but that’s a topic for another day). Regardless of how the art world and the Church arrived at their prospective points, both seemed to have shared the timely rediscovery of beauty.

In the Nineties—while Scarry, Hickey, Danto, and the rest of the art world were tackling this new concept of beauty—seeds of the importance of beauty and art planted back in the 60’s and 70’s by such individuals as Francis Schaeffer and Hans Rookmaaker were finding fertile ground among Christians in the arts. The same year that Elaine Scarry was making her laudable defense of Beauty at Yale, Steve Turner a British poet and journalist did several lectures to groups of artists who were Christians in Nashville.[3] Those lectures later became his book Imagine: A vision for Christians in the arts.[4] Turner, spent some time at L’Abri, the noted community started by Francis Schaeffer in Switzerland. And it was there that he, and others[5] were exposed to a worldview that looked at art on its own terms, in light of God and the Bible. They desired to see art made by Christians freed from the constraints of solely being used in church worship and evangelism as religious tools. Instead, they longed for the work to enhance the beauty of His creation and church.[6] Also, in the Nineties, noted painter Makoto Fujimura—after finishing study in Japan—moved to New York City where he founded the International Arts Movement (IAM). The purpose of IAM is to create the “world that ought to be” through encouraging people to wrestle over issues of art, faith, and humanity. Its rise as an organization has paralleled Fujimura’s—who has become a leading spokesperson for the Church and the arts (but more about him later).[7]

Academia was also a part of this growth in the interest of beauty and art in the Church. In 1997, Jeremy Begbie founded the “Theology through the arts “ project at St. Mary’s College the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. This program—along with his speaking, writing, and teaching—is becoming a strong basis for articulating a fuller theology of beauty as related to the arts and the Church.[8]

Since 2000 the growth of resources and interest inside the Church has grown steadily. Beyond that, a myriad of conferences by IAM, and Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) have grown in influence.[9] Books by authors like Andy Crouch, Nancy Pearcey, sociologist JD Hunter, plus lesser known works by TM Moore and David Hegeman contribute to the forming of a theology of the arts. The periodical Image Journal—with the tagline “Art, Faith, and Mystery”—was launched in 1989. This journal and their sponsored events—like “The Glen Workshop” held annually in Santa Fe, New Mexico—are setting a foundation of critical theological and philosophical thinking about art and culture, and are also influential in the production of cultural artifacts…beautiful art.[10]

to be continued…

Just a quick update about last nights event at Space 157 in downtown Rock Hill, SC. Friday Arts Project invited their friends and acquaintances to their studio space for a lecture and discussion on the topic of “Beauty” (with a capital “B”). I (Kirk) lectured for a time and then we had an open discussion. My three points on Beauty were: What is Beauty? Where does Beauty come from? And why is Beauty important? About 40-50 people showed up and our time of interaction was quite vigorous – there was genuine inquiry with responses from one another’s thoughts on the topic of Beauty. I hope discussion continues among the attendees.

Our previous post, “The Place of Beauty”, is the first of a series I am doing that is the source of a lot of my lecture last night. I would love to hear responses.

Thanks to Friday Arts Project and all the peeps at Rock Hill…thanks for the opportunity. Shout out to IAM for highlighting us on their FaceBook page and Blog.

The lecture and discussion were recorded, and when we have them ready we will post them. We are so grateful for your interest in BirdandKey.

Kirk and Sarah

For the last two decades there has been growing interest in the arts within the protestant church. The voices of artists who are Christians from a Protestant tradition have been present in the 20^th century through such persons as Hans Rookmaaker, Francis Schaeffer, Nicholas Woltersdorf, and the like.[1] But it has only been in the last 20 years that those voices have become more apparent. In fact the increased interest in the arts by the Church has gotten to the point where the questions are progressing from “What is art?” and “Is it important?” to “Who are artists?”[2]

This is significant, especially from a tradition that includes the “iconoclasts” in its history. Nevertheless, if this is a movement that is to have any sustainability, then more work has to be done in the area of theology in regards to aesthetics, beauty, and art. There is still a fear of representationalism within the Protestant tradition, and that fear is not unwarranted. But I believe it should not immobilize the Church, but challenge it to approach aesthetics, beauty, and art with a vigilant confidence.

What I want to do here is explore recent history of the art world in general and their recent “rediscovery” of beauty. I will try to define beauty (as much as it can be defined) and the related theological implications. And finally, I will show how the art of Makoto Fujimura is a tangible example of the crossroads of beauty and theology (probably one of the best examples today).

There are two things to keep in mind while reading this paper. First, as I have done my research on this topic I’ve realized how broad and deep it can and should go. This both excites and perplexes me, especially the number of resources I uncovered. I realize that the rest of my life will be filled with the exploration of such resources as I pursue beauty. This essay is NOT an exhaustive treatise—far from it—but one I hope to continue to add to and adjust for the rest of my life.

Second, I am biased—as I believe all people are. Each one of us looks at the world from a particular perspective, influenced by a myriad of ideas, experiences, and worldviews. My particular bias is Judeo-Christian. I am highly guided by the life, words, and works, of Jesus of Nazareth—the Christ. I believe his life, death, and resurrection have immediate consequences to all parts of life—most especially, as I hope to show, the place of beauty.

In the latter part of the last century the art world began to recognize a discernable amount of malnutrition in its philosophical “bones”. Gordon Fuglie recounts a moment—in the late 1980s, at an art conference of prominent dealers, artists, and critics—where an attendee asked respected art critic, Dave Hickey, what he thought would be the big issue of the next decade—the 1990’s—for the art world. Fuglie recounted, “For some reason still unknown to him (Dave Hickey), he snapped to attention and heard himself say, ‘The issue of the Nineties will be beauty.’ ”[3] This was quite an intriguing statement to make considering the assumed objective of art is to express and visualize the beautiful. Apparently, Hickey was stating the need for something that appeared to have been absent from the art world’s diet for a century.

Arthur Danto, in his book “The Abuse of Beauty” summarized it this way:

The philosophical conception of aesthetics was almost entirely dominated by the idea of beauty, and this was particularly the case in the eighteenth century – the great age of aesthetics – when apart from the sublime, the beautiful was the only aesthetic quality actively considered by artists and thinkers. And yet beauty had almost entirely disappeared from artistic reality in the twentieth century, as if attractiveness was somehow a stigma, with its crass commercial implications…“Beautiful!” itself just became an expression of generalized approbation, with as little descriptive content as a whistle someone might emit in the presence of something that especially wowed them.[4]

69th Regiment Armory Building in Manhattan

This “disappearance” of beauty was also evident in academia. In her book On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry wrote of “The banishing of beauty from the humanities…for distracting from social justice…”[5] Her book was based on lectures she gave in 1998 at Yale University. She was attempting to make the case that beauty was in fact essential for the carrying out of justice, a case she felt she needed to make in order to teach aesthetics at Harvard where she was a professor. Danto exposed this “banishment of beauty” more clearly when he wrote:

So it was no great loss to the discourse of…art (or beauty) when early Logical Positivists came to think of beauty as bereft of cognitive meaning altogether. To speak of something as beautiful, on their view, is not to describe it, but to express one’s overall admiration. And this could be done by just saying “Wow” – or rolling one’s eyes and pointing to it. Beyond what was dismissed as its “emotive meaning”, the idea of beauty appeared to be cognitively void – and that in part accounted for the vacuity of aesthetics as a discipline, which had banked so heavily on beauty as its central concept.(my note)[6]

Entrance to the Exhibition 1913, New York City

The Logical Positivists started their rise to influence in Europe right after World War I—especially during the 1920’s and 30’s. Interestingly, some art critics and historians cite the Armory show of 1913 as the onset of new perspectives on beauty in the 20^th century—a viewpoint that has been, and is still being found lacking.

to be continued…

The other day a friend told me that the governor of Kansas was shutting down all arts programing for the entire state. You would have thought – from the tone of the statement – that the arts were dying or dead in the Jayhawk state. This kind of thing is not the only time I’ve heard of this happening – for the last four years since our “Great Recession” started in 2007 arts funding seems to have been a victim of scarce finances. I remember having discussions with some of my art friends at the start of the recession lamenting the fact that art programs would be the first to go. It appears we were right.

In 2005 I accompanied my friend, painter Makoto Fujimura to Washington DC to an event specifically designed to connect high income business people with artists in order to stimulate a culture of patronage. Simply put we were inviting the money holders to invest in beauty by supporting artists. During the day-long event, Mako was part of a panel discussion. At one point, a question was posed, “What would an artist do with $10,000 and what would they do with $1,000,000?” I will never forget his answer – to this day it still haunts me and I quote it often where appropriate. After a nervous laugh he said, “In many ways, for an artist $10,000 is too much, and $1,000,000 is not enough.” Frankly, I don’t remember anything else he said at the point and I certainly couldn’t come close to recalling what the other panel participants stated – nothing else needed to be said.

We have to remember at times that there is a difference between art and beauty, between the created thing and creativity itself. These pairs are tied very closely together, but they are not identical. We must remember that art and the created thing are not as important as beauty and creativity.

Our current economic climate is a case in point. All the governments of the world, every corporation and school district could decide tomorrow to defund their arts programs; every penny could be removed from artistic programs everywhere but beauty would not be touched – creativity would remain unmoved.

Why?

Beauty and creativity transcend the paltry functions of cultural structures. They are not dependent on the temporal or the fleeting. If they were, then all of us who are artists or involved in the arts ought to find a favorite seat in our nearest pubs and pickle our livers until we die.

Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica wrote that beauty must include three qualities: “…integrity or completeness – since things that lack something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness – we call things bright in colour beautiful.”[1] Many have used Thomas’ three characteristics not only as a way to think about beauty but also as a defense of the importance of beauty for a human being and society in general. Afterall, one doesn’t want to be an incomplete human being. A person wouldn’t want to be out of proportion in their personal life and in the warp and woof of existing cultural institutions. As for brightness – Robert Barron – in his book The Strangest Way – writes of how we need to escape our “taupe existence” – human beings need to avoid a dull life. But some have forgotten the context of Thomas’ characteristics of beauty.

Comeliness or beauty bears a resemblance to the properties of the Son. Beauty must include three qualities; integrity or completeness – since things that lack something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness – we call things bright in colour beautiful. Integrity is like the Son’s property, because he is a Son who in himself has the Father’s nature truly and fully…Right proportion is consonant with what is proper to the Son inasmuch as he is the express Image of the Father; thus we notice that any image is called beautiful if it represents a thing, even an ugly thing, faithfully…Brightness coincides with what is proper to the Son as he is the Word, the light and splendour of the mind (my emphasis).[2]

Is it surprising that Thomas’ context was the carpenter from Nazareth, the Son of God, Jesus?

This analysis of beauty is why Mako can answer the money question the way he did. Monetary amounts matter little when beauty and creativity endure transcendently – and for him they are embodied in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Elaine Scarry once wrote, “What is beautiful is in league with what is true because truth abides in the immortal sphere.”[3] Therefore, according to Scarry’s logic, beauty is also immortal – it will last forever. In the Christian tradition, Jesus is now immortal after his resurrection from the dead – that is both true and beautiful.

You may not agree with me – that beauty and creativity are embodied and sourced in Jesus of Nazareth – you would not be alone in that belief, and I respect that. However, the issue still remains for you regarding the transcendence of beauty and creativity. Where does it reside for you? How you answer will affect how you respond to the increase or decrease of monetary resources in arts programs in national and local levels. If beauty and creativity are not transcendent, then the money would be the only thing that matters and losing $10,000 would be just as unsettling as gaining $1,000,000.

CS Lewis addressed a similar issue in his sermon on “Learning in Wartime”. At the time the issue was martial, not monetary. Should one even bother with learning and education when a war rages and people are dying? The defunding of arts programs falls far short of the death of a human being but the tension is the same. What is the point of pursuing beauty when no one seems to care – and their lack of regard is exhibited by the removal of money? Lewis opened his talk and summarized brilliantly:

A University is a society for the pursuit of learning. As students, you will be expected to make yourselves, or to start making yourselves, in to what the Middle Ages called clerks: into philosophers, scientists, scholars, critics, or historians. And at first sight this seems to be an odd thing to do during a great war. What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? Or, even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we — indeed how can we — continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?[4]

We are in a similar situation, and we should learn from Lewis’ reasoning. Why should we still pursue good and beautiful things in times of difficulty? Lewis answers:

If you attempted, in either case, to suspend your whole intellectual and aesthetic activity, you would only succeed in substituting a worse cultural life for a better. You are not, in fact, going to read nothing…if you don’t read good books you will read bad ones. If you don’t go on thinking rationally, you will think irrationally. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions you will fall into sensual satisfactions.

Difficulty does not give society permission to pursue bad art or no art at all; in fact hard times demand more beauty – whether in life or art.

With the loss of financial support from public institutions we ought to approach these times as an opportunity to strive for beauty and it’s objects – poems, screenplays, sculptures, paintings, etc – to thrive in the hands of both gifted and (as most of us are) common creators. Whether we participate in this or not makes no difference. If we ceased creating due to hopelessness it would matter little. In this visible world our lives would diminish in beauty a bit but the unalterable transcendence of Beauty would remain and eventually rear its head like a phoenix from the ashes.

Von Balthasar described Beauty as being closely united to her two sisters Truth and Goodness. He warned that Beauty would not be long separated from her siblings. In fact, she in her exile would take both Truth and Goodness with her in an act of what he called “mysterious vengeance”. A world that scorns Beauty eventually does the same to the True and the Good. Von Balthasar later states that those who lose Beauty are not only unable to pray, but also unable to love.

If Beauty is dependent on an institution’s resources then it is easily lost. But if it is dependent on some transcendent principle, or as I argue here – God, then no amount of an institutions resources matter. They certainly can help – as we have seen over the last several decades – but they ultimately aren’t needed by an eternal Beauty because by definition an eternal Beauty is infinitely resourced.

So I say to you artists, and supporters of the arts to pursue Beauty. When they take away your money – paint! When they tell you it’s useless – sculpt! Use whatever is at hand to create beauty because it IS worth the effort.

As I wrote this essay I am reminded of that passage in the Christian Bible where Jesus in his last days was entering Jerusalem and greeted by throngs of admirers chanting his name and yelling “Glory to God in the Highest!!!” – everyone seemed to favor him. Yet there was a group of leaders there who reprimanded him for the ostentatious display of praise directed at him. It was too much, they said. They wanted the admiration taken away and they told him so.

His reply? “I’ll use rocks.”