tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post5367862055315280930..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Ten theological theses on artBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-15711659592747280042008-12-29T10:58:00.000-05:002008-12-29T10:58:00.000-05:00Wow, I disagree with almost everything you say. Fo...Wow, I disagree with almost everything you say. For me, I would say the following:<BR/><BR/>1. Art is anything someone chooses to look at, regardless of who created it.<BR/><BR/>2. Nature is art.<BR/><BR/>3. Perfection is arbitrary and subjective. Objectivity is merely collective subjectivity and therefore imperfect. Thus, nature, by preceding all observers, defines the perfect for us.<BR/><BR/>4. If art approaches perfection, it loses its appeal as mere imitation.<BR/><BR/>5. Redemption comes from seeing the beauty in all things, even bad art.Shawnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12703386340376056510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-8053267967950286542008-12-21T08:59:00.000-05:002008-12-21T08:59:00.000-05:00Thanks Andii, I'm flattered!Thanks Andii, I'm flattered!Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-88909161167851767882008-12-21T07:10:00.000-05:002008-12-21T07:10:00.000-05:00You've been given a 'superior scribbler' award. Ch...You've been given a 'superior scribbler' award. Check it out here http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2008/12/superior-scribbler.html<BR/>I've been enjoying your blog for a good while now and wanted you to know there was some appreciation out there!Andiihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03545699854077420349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-4299455907980226752008-12-16T19:21:00.000-05:002008-12-16T19:21:00.000-05:00Hey, Ben, I find these comments didactic. What are...Hey, Ben, I find these comments didactic. What are you trying to say and why? Art is the attempt of our frail humaness to reach beyond ourselves. I think we need to be careful about deciding if you are attempting to describe the partaker of the artistic act or the description from the side of the creator of the art. The two are skewed into one here I think.<BR/> Art happens as we respond to the world around us in an attempt to articulate the unknown or the unknowable. when words fail us art takes over whether it be visual or musical. It can offer emotional understanding of a mystery like the Triune God and offers us a ways of approach. It can stir us to social justice action and work to subvert the status quo. In that it is our endeavour to work proleptically art as it reaches beyond us is a creative act of futuring our world. This is its value and its strength inlight of the resurrection of which we cannot ever really make sense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-9740971188042355412008-12-16T18:14:00.000-05:002008-12-16T18:14:00.000-05:00to dan/poser-prophet, (at journeying in exile) gre...to dan/poser-prophet, (at journeying in exile) great response and alternative 10 thesis. i would encourage all to check it out. that is if anyone has time to spare from composing their own "ten thesis." obliged, Daniel (from whidbey, not the prophet but often a poseur).Daniel Imburgiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04011159253204822220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-5635230476116238452008-12-16T16:32:00.000-05:002008-12-16T16:32:00.000-05:00Thanks for this list; if nothing else - and there ...Thanks for this list; if nothing else - and there is much else - it generated excellent discussion. <BR/><BR/>I would say that your 10th thesis is in fact two theses, related of course, and that the 11th thesis - "The crucified Christ is the beauty of God" - needs serious and careful qualification. To say it just as you've said it is, I think, problematic. God's beauty is not exhausted by the cross, though it is truly revealed in Jesus' dying and death. Perhaps this would work: "The resurrected crucified Christ reveals the God who is beautiful."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-20513818372161958442008-12-16T11:10:00.000-05:002008-12-16T11:10:00.000-05:00Hey Ben,I've posted a response/challenge to this e...Hey Ben,<BR/><BR/>I've posted a response/challenge to this entry at my blog. I'd be curious to hear what you think (sorry to post this as a comment... I tried to email you, but I think I only have your old email address).<BR/><BR/>Grace and peace.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-64838271294690302312008-12-16T09:53:00.000-05:002008-12-16T09:53:00.000-05:00Jeremy Begbie:"As far as divine beauty is concerne...Jeremy Begbie:<BR/><BR/>"As far as divine beauty is concerned, in chapter one I spoke of God's beauty as the beauty of ecstatic, outgoing love for the other. We can now stress that this outgoing love is nowhere more palpable, nowhere more acutely or sharply defined, than in the 'way of the Son of God into the country'; here the intratrinitarian agape 'goes out' to that extremity of darkness into which our rebellion leads us, in order to win us back. This is emphatically not to say that the crucifixion as an event of torture and death is really beautiful and not ugly, if only we would change our perspective. That would be gross sentimentality. But it is to say that in and through this particular torture, crucifixion and death, God's love is displayed at its most potent. The 'form' of beauty here is the radiant, splendid form of God's self-giving love. As Cardinal Ratzinger put it: 'in his Face that is so disfigured, there appears the genuine, extreme beauty: the beauty of love that goes to the very end.' This is what Barth meant when he claimed that 'God's beauty embraces death as well as life, fear as well as joy, what we might call the ugly as well as what we might call the beautiful.' He was not proposing that ugliness itself is in fact beautiful or that ugliness belongs in some way to God's own being, but that God's saving love has stretched out to redeem that which is ugly. Compare Balthasar: '[God's beauty] embraces the most abysmal ugliness of sin and hell by virtue of the condescension of divine love, which has brought even sin and hell into that divine art for which there is no human analogue.' In other words, there can be nothing sentimental about God's beauty, because it has engaged with the worst and shows itself most vigorously as it engages with the worst."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-63176435062735746482008-12-16T03:51:00.000-05:002008-12-16T03:51:00.000-05:00"The crucified Christ is the beauty = doxa of God"..."The crucified Christ is the beauty = <I>doxa</I> of God" - that's the Johannine gospel alright.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-17393082995658920902008-12-16T03:00:00.000-05:002008-12-16T03:00:00.000-05:00The phrase "the crucified Christ is the beauty of ...The phrase "the crucified Christ is the beauty of God" is haunting me.<BR/><BR/>I think I need the resurrection.Joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11823464329012635376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-35701220917174138382008-12-16T02:17:00.000-05:002008-12-16T02:17:00.000-05:00Excellent. Very provocative proposals. I think w...Excellent. Very provocative proposals. I think we are still very much in the prolegomena stage of theologies of art. In any cae, let's not get carried away. Auden has two very wise things to say on the subject. First:<BR/><BR/>it's as well at times<BR/>To be reminded that nothing is lovely,<BR/>Not even poetry, which is not the case.<BR/><BR/>And second: Art "is, in the profoundest sense, frivolous. For one thing, and one thing only, is serious: loving one's neighbor as one's self."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-75279299626373600842008-12-15T22:31:00.000-05:002008-12-15T22:31:00.000-05:00Great stuff Ben. 3 2 reminds me of something Trevo...Great stuff Ben. 3 2 reminds me of something Trevor Hart has often said: that art 'adds value' to nature.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-54597109059919864382008-12-15T20:43:00.000-05:002008-12-15T20:43:00.000-05:00To pick up on what Ryan's comment, Dewey's Art as ...To pick up on what Ryan's comment, Dewey's Art as Experience has some great opening chapters on the connection between art and common life.::aaron g::https://www.blogger.com/profile/03849988327077565616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-29884401290904524512008-12-15T20:24:00.000-05:002008-12-15T20:24:00.000-05:00I think most talk about ART gets pretty highfaluti...I think most talk about ART gets pretty highfalutin pretty fast. Often by then it's not clear what activity you're actually talking about--usually it narrows down to 'Advanced Painters' and 'Modern Composers.'<BR/><BR/>Any theories about art (and 'good' art and 'bad' art) should capture the following (not exhaustive): Dr. Seuss, Ogden Nash, knitting, Japanese flower arranging, African body painting, basket weaving, fairy tales, tattoos, paperweights, YouTube and, possibly, cooking food.<BR/><BR/>...and not just Cezanne, Henry James, Shakespeare, Mahler and Jean-Luc Godard.Ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03351833852259152398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-83714291017781871382008-12-15T20:08:00.000-05:002008-12-15T20:08:00.000-05:00to theologyandculture, hey no offense taken, just ...to theologyandculture, hey no offense taken, just having fun. i confess i edited out the def.s from my dict. that i cut and pasted in my post to skew the meaning toward a playful critique. One of the challenges of using 'texts' (of any kind) to prove a point (even a "painfully obvious") one. BTW your site is excellent. best and obliged, DanielDaniel Imburgiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04011159253204822220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-52340065650910328092008-12-15T18:30:00.000-05:002008-12-15T18:30:00.000-05:00Daniel:"display a copious amount or degree of a pa...Daniel:<BR/><I><B>"display a copious amount or degree of a particular quality or thing"</B></I><BR/><BR/>Contextually, this is (painfully obviously) the one and only meaning I am conveying with the word "drip." I could have similarly said, "It's fascinating to see this list, mainly because it <I>"displays a copious amount or degree"</i of the postmodern aesthetic.<BR/><BR/>I sincerely meant nothing negative whatsoever- I, myself, subscribe more to postmodernity than otherwise. It's just interesting to think that if we were making such a list in any other time period, all of this would be nonsensical; we would have totally different aesthetics.</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-17863179754098323762008-12-15T18:19:00.000-05:002008-12-15T18:19:00.000-05:00Good post. Though, I am thinking about seeing natu...Good post. Though, I am thinking about seeing nature as flawed, opposed to art as more perfect.<BR/><BR/>Art as a reconstruction of reality? "Medium is the message?" vs. the message itself? Interesting...Natanael Dislahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02398071558454738803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-6340469898365995852008-12-15T16:42:00.000-05:002008-12-15T16:42:00.000-05:00theologyandculture said..." It's fascinating to se...theologyandculture said..." It's fascinating to see this list, mainly because it drips so much of the postmodern aesthetic." And I don't mean that as a bad thing...." <BR/><BR/>Now there is a ideological back aching for the post-modern lash!! <BR/><BR/>"drip |drip| verb<BR/>ORIGIN Old English dryppan, drȳpen, of Germanic origin; related to Danish dryppe, also to drop<BR/>his hands were dripping with blood.<BR/>• [ trans. ] cause or allow (a liquid) to fall in such a way : the candle was dripping wax down one side.<BR/>• figurative display a copious amount or degree of a particular quality or thing : the women were dripping with gold and diamonds | [ trans. ] her voice dripped sarcasm.<BR/><BR/>2 informal a weak and ineffectual person.<BR/><BR/>3 Architecture a projection or groove on the underside of a cornice, windowsill, or molding that prevents rain from running down the wall below. Compare with dripstone .<BR/><BR/>Thesaurus <BR/>drip verb<BR/>1 there was a faucet dripping dribble, leak.<BR/>2 sweat dripped from his chin drop, dribble, trickle, drizzle, run, splash, plop; leak, emanate, issue.<BR/>2 informal : that drip who fancies you bore; ninny, milksop, namby-pamby; informal creep; wimp, sissy, wuss, candy-ass, pantywaist. <BR/><BR/>("not that there's anything wrong with that").<BR/><BR/>obliged, danielDaniel Imburgiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04011159253204822220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-44935417466362177002008-12-14T22:33:00.000-05:002008-12-14T22:33:00.000-05:00I am purposefully non-Postmodernist, myself. But,...I am purposefully non-Postmodernist, myself. But, I do feel that some of the contemporary art creeds evolve from art history and look a lot like Post Modernism.<BR/><BR/>The best crit. of PM art creed is the current trend towards aesthetics and small "r" realism. We are indeed supposed to be past PM-ism, anyway, aren't we?Casey Klahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08020906666248399435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-56755171756141783922008-12-14T18:50:00.000-05:002008-12-14T18:50:00.000-05:00I just finished a course, surveying the entirety o...I just finished a course, surveying the entirety of Art History throughout the Western world. It's fascinating to see this list, mainly because it drips so much of the postmodern aesthetic.<BR/><BR/>And I don't mean that as a bad thing- it's just interesting.<BR/><BR/>If we lived in any other time period (Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romanticism, Impressionism, Expressionism, etc.), this list would look radically different. It is just fascinatingly postmodern, aesthetically speaking.<BR/><BR/>Just some thoughts =D.<BR/><BR/>-AaronAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-27973952319568828582008-12-14T14:38:00.000-05:002008-12-14T14:38:00.000-05:00thanks Casey, i will check it out. will you be co...thanks Casey, i will check it out. will you be coming over for the hanging? let me know, perhaps i will drop by. my email is dannya54@whidbey.com <BR/>obliged, DanielDaniel Imburgiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04011159253204822220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-23529741928614553672008-12-14T11:18:00.000-05:002008-12-14T11:18:00.000-05:00Daniel, nice to met you. You'll have to ask Wendy...Daniel, nice to met you. You'll have to ask Wendy to see my work. My pastels will be hung in January, though.<BR/><BR/>Nice to meet you, too. Hey, I am off now to query "resurrection" in the search box of this present blog!<BR/><BR/>Samuel takes the authors to task. I find a particular Godly beauty in Christ's death on the cross - redemptive behavior; submission. But the resurrection is indeed the foundational element of our salvation. <BR/><BR/>Well, I have read some posts, and I should say I hold off any negative judgment. The ten thesis (somehow referred to as theological) on art are provisional; as he says, "an attempt at..." Give the man a break, and perhaps I will try my own ten thesis, although I haven't discussed theology in-depth since graduating Bible College in @1980.Casey Klahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08020906666248399435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-41098588417007485472008-12-14T01:23:00.000-05:002008-12-14T01:23:00.000-05:00note to Casey Klahn: liked your post, i see you a...note to Casey Klahn: liked your post, i see you are from washington and that you have shown at the Karlson/gray gallery here in langley on Whidbey Island where i live! nice to meet you, DanielDaniel Imburgiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04011159253204822220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-168314078642476382008-12-13T19:41:00.000-05:002008-12-13T19:41:00.000-05:00Where is the resurrection? The pattern in your the...Where is the resurrection? The pattern in your theology (on this blog), Ben, of focusing on the crucifixion apart from and not in the light of the resurrection strikes me as dangerous and distorting. <BR/><BR/>The distortion and agony of the Christ on the cross are reflections, even the embodiment of, the distortion and agony of sin, the destruction of which is why God undertoook the task of redemption. To fail to link distortion and agony with sin - not in a moralizing sense, mind, but at least theologically - seems to verge on a celebration of disorder and disruption for its own sake. <BR/><BR/>I'm not against "ugly" art as such, but ugliness for its own sake is not beautiful in any sense. The "for the sake of" and "in the light of" seem crucial when considering "grotesqueness, fragmentation, and dissonance," in art and theology. Crucixifion is for the sake of redemption and stands in the light of resurrection of the body and the restoration and recreation of the created order. Without these things the death of Christ seems to be less than that to which the Christian faith bears witness because it would exist outside of the mininuml contextual determination given it by the Christian faith. <BR/><BR/>Sorry if I am singing a one note tune here . . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-39518974956086078392008-12-13T18:45:00.000-05:002008-12-13T18:45:00.000-05:00Art may be a representation, and expressive, and a...Art may be a representation, and expressive, and a construction of form. The "form" part lies in the formal realm of art, while the first two aspects relate to metaphysical parts of art.<BR/>Good stuff here. I'm glad I found your blog as I have theological training, but now I'm a Fine Artist. By the way, the art blog world (where theology is lesser known stuff) is very very small compared to the broader blogosphere. I am out exploring out-of-niche today.<BR/>Creativity is the chief nexus between art and God, I think.Casey Klahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08020906666248399435noreply@blogger.com