A one-day symposium exploring that questions is being hosted at the Museum of Biblical Art on February 7th. A PDF of the conference schedule is available here. The intriguing lineup of speakers, chosen by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art, appears to be leaning toward the following answer: “There have, but they’ve been ignored.” I suppose, therefore, it would be especially unjust to ignore this symposium as well.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 1:08 PM
January 25th, 2011 | 2:11 pm
Formal art training does not encourage styles amenable to true religious art in this era. I know a woman who is a sculptor whose entire BFA and MFA programs were a constant battle against teachers who objected to the overt aestheticism and representative style of her art. And she was not grinding out “evangelical art,” but the artistic academy just didn’t want to find a place for an artist whose media included the communication of beauty and transcendence rather than obscure, transgressive messages.
January 25th, 2011 | 2:34 pm
Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ of 1951 was voted as recently as 2006 the favorite painting in Scotland. I was lucky enough to view it at the recent retrospective of later Dali at the High Museum in Atlanta. I found it a profound and moving work.
January 25th, 2011 | 3:04 pm
J. Allen,
I agree re Dali. Also, his “Sacrament of the Last Supper” is powerful and moving as well.
January 25th, 2011 | 3:16 pm
Likewise publius, I find the “Sacrament of the Last Supper” a wonderful painting, but its location in the National Gallery is just awful. Hopefully, I’ll be able to view it nearer to eye level one day.
January 25th, 2011 | 3:47 pm
I do not necessarily know enough about the visual and plastic arts to distinguish the “great” from the “good”, but anyone who is interested may want to look at the literary journals “Image” and “Ruminate”. Each of these journals, both of which are online, are based on a Christian ethos and, in addition to the literary works, they both feature the work of one or more visual artists in every issue. Of the two, “Image” is the more well-established. It is based out of Seattle Pacific University. In addition to providing high quality prints of the works of one or more artists, each issue includes either an article about or an interview with the featured artist. “Ruminate” is an independently published labor of love based out of Fort Collins, CO.
Also, a small Catholic art museum opened in the Spanish Harlem area of New York City several years ago. They have a website. I have not looked at it for a long time, but assuming it is still in operation that would be a good place to look for contemporary religious art.
January 25th, 2011 | 4:49 pm
The arts – including but not limited to visual arts – promote the progressive myth. Art history classes teach as if art were a linear progressive forward movement, where each new movement “learns” (acquires greater knowledge, thus moving closer to the future-forward “end point”).
Subversive art is viewed as leading directly to “progress” – so much so that students are actually taught an imaginary correlation: if artwork does not offend the middle class, it can’t be very good.
Anything that isn’t part of the program is viewed as “reactionary” or “stuck in the past”.
January 25th, 2011 | 6:27 pm
Okay, Matthew, but I’m really interested here in what YOU have to say about this. Hope you’ll fill us in when you have a chance.
January 25th, 2011 | 6:29 pm
I take it then that Andrei Rublev, Feofan Grec, Dionysii, or their modern heirs such as Sister Johanna (Reitlinger), Leonid Osupensky, Gregory Kroug, Archimandrite Zinon, Alexander Lavdansky, Andrei Davidov, Alexander Sokolov, Olga Klodt, Fr. Andrew Tregubov and his wife Matushka Galina, Ksenia Pokrovsky or Alexander Chashkin either don’t count or have escaped your notice. Perhaps it is not that there are no great religious artists, but your definition of what constitutes religious art and who qualifies as a religious artist is just too constrained?
January 25th, 2011 | 6:33 pm
Look at the Conference agenda, and you will see not a single panel on modern iconographers (a partial list of some of the more prominent given above), all the more ironic given the influence of iconography on some of the giants of modern art, particularly Marc Chagall. Oh, well. . .
January 25th, 2011 | 7:54 pm
I nominate Michael O’Brien as a modern great.
January 25th, 2011 | 9:55 pm
Ha ha, good last line. So who do the conference folks think are the great modern religious artists?
January 25th, 2011 | 10:22 pm
To answer your question. WE NEED PATRONS!
January 26th, 2011 | 12:17 pm
What about the Saint Louis Jesuits?
In the words of Borat: “NOT!”
January 26th, 2011 | 1:05 pm
Palestrina begat
J.S. Bach begat
Mozart begat
Charles Wesley begat
Ludwig Van begat
Dan Schutte.
January 26th, 2011 | 2:02 pm
The music of Dan Schutte and the St. Louis Jesuits was and remains indispensable. Mozart’s Requiem teaches us to fear death, Handel’s Messiah teaches us to respect the Passion, and Dvorak’s Stabat Mater teaches us to grieve, but no one teaches faith like the St. Louis Jesuits.
January 26th, 2011 | 2:04 pm
How ’bout the 55 rooms of work at the Vatican in their Collection of Modern Religious Art – it includeds close to a thousand works of art by 250 major modern artists? How ’bout the works at St. Louis University? How ’bout Gaudi’s architecture and sculpture? Dali’s Nuclear Mysticism period is mostly religious. How ’bout Dali’s Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), Temptation of St. Anthony, his 3 Madonna of Port Lligat works, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, Leda Atomica, They Will All Come from Saba, in addition to his works already mentioned by others, above? What about the recently discovered crucifix which he made as a gift for the friar who performed an exorcism on him in 1947? How ’bout all of Warhol’s religious works? His Last Supper Cycle includes nearly 100 works. He was an eastern Rite Catholic and his secular works are clearly influenced by iconography. Chagall’s stained glass in Reims Cathedral and Chichester Cathedral? Their is definitely some out there.
January 26th, 2011 | 2:07 pm
*there
January 26th, 2011 | 2:32 pm
“How ’bout all of Warhol’s religious works? His Last Supper Cycle includes nearly 100 works. He was an eastern Rite Catholic and his secular works are clearly influenced by iconography. ”
We try not to talk about Andrij Warhola.
“Chagall’s stained glass in Reims Cathedral and Chichester Cathedral? ”
Now, Chagall was really influenced by iconography, but my big question is this: why no real iconographers? As I demonstrated, there are plenty out there, and much of their work is brilliant. Is iconography not really art? If it isn’t, what is it?
January 26th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
“As I demonstrated, there are plenty out there, and much of their work is brilliant. Is iconography not really art? If it isn’t, what is it?”
Another permanently aggrieved member of a minority whose only real politics are identity politics. The kind who scans a conference program only to find out whether one of his own kind is included. The subject itself doesn’t matter, just the identity group.
January 26th, 2011 | 8:54 pm
Stuart, I’ve had serious Orthodox folk tell me that iconography shouldn’t be treated as “art” but as something else. So maybe the people running this conference are respecting that view.
January 27th, 2011 | 3:01 am
As I get older, I like the art of Georges Rouault more and more. I also like the icons of Vladislav Andreyev.
I also like the religious art of Gerhard Richter, especially his window at Cologne Cathedral.
I think that Vincent van Gogh said it was easier for a nonbeliever to produce religious art in a religious society than for a believer to produce religious art in a secular society. I think it had to do with the lack of self-consciousness (and flak, probably).
January 27th, 2011 | 7:36 am
I am serious Orthodox folks, and icons are indeed art–they are “sacred art”, which means that they should be considered in a conference of this sort. I suspect the problem is the theology of sacred images and the belief that the artist must subsume his personal feelings and beliefs into the canon of iconography. In the minds of many academic artists, critics and art historians, this makes iconography “not art”, since art is about the artist.
January 27th, 2011 | 7:40 am
Just to elaborate a little more, I do have very mixed feelings about icons displayed as art in art galleries. That is not their proper milieu–icons are meant to be venerated both privately and liturgically, and therefore one must be able to pray before them, to touch them, to kiss them. Hard to do with an armed guard looking over your shoulder. On the other hand, without such displays, icons would never have become familiar to millions of people outside of the Eastern Churches, and, without their protection in museums, many beautiful and sacred images would have been destroyed during the Communist era.
But, in any case, the conference would be discussing art, not displaying it.
January 27th, 2011 | 10:35 am
Stuart, I know you are serious Orthodox folks — and not all serious Orthodox folks agree on this, evidently. So your beef seems to be that *your view* is not the one adopted, because in light of the arguments I’ve heard, it can’t be said that Orthodox practice is universally agreed on the question of treating iconography as “art” in the sense this post is talking about.
January 27th, 2011 | 1:45 pm
No, Pentamom, I think you misunderstand. I don’t know of any Serious Orthodox Folks who do not think iconography is a valid subject for an academic seminar, and I don’t know any who would object to the description of icons as sacred art. There are Orthodox who object to the display of icons in museums as though they were “only” painting, and with that I do, to a large extent, agree (albeit reluctantly).
My problem is a seminar that is willing to discuss “modern artists” influenced by iconography, but is unwilling to discuss iconography at all. And I believe that has to do with fundamental way in which the artistic establishment views the role of the artist. In that paradigm, the artist uses his medium to express his view of the world. A artist who produces religious art, therefore, is making paintings, sculptures, collages, mobiles, or multi-media productions that express his view of religion or religious subjects. In the end, it’s about the artist.
The iconographer, on the other hand, is not interested in expressing his vision of Christianity or events within Christianity–he’s concerned with expressing the truth as contained within the Tradition of the Church, by working within a defined canon of materials, composition and style.
That does not mean the iconographer is a mere copyist–though I have run into that perception among artists and art critics (and to be frank, it’s largely true about the majority of iconographers–but then, it’s true about the majority of secular artists, as well). The great iconographers, while subsuming themselves within the canon, also have the ability, through subtle variations or alterations of color, composition or expression, to reveal entirely unexpected truths within their icons–witness, e.g., the famous Rublev “Old Testament Trinity” as compared to more mundane renderings of the same subject.
As I noted, there are many extraordinary iconographers at work today–the renaissance in the field is unparalleled since the 15th century. They are legitimate artists, working in a legitimate medium that deserves to be placed on the same plane as more widely accepted modern artists, many of whom are decidedly mediocre or whose work is so academic and opaque as to be accessible only to fellow academics.
And there, I suppose, is another source of difficulty: the Academy is hostile to the spirit that motivates and inspires the iconographer, because it presents an insurmountable challenge to academic art.
January 27th, 2011 | 4:29 pm
Is the symposium really “unwilling” to discuss Orthodox iconography (as Stuart Koehl puts it), or is it just not on the schedule? I don’t have spinach scheduled for dinner, but I’m not unwilling to eat it.
Iconography lies somewhat outside of Western art as it developed over the last eight hundred years. In fact, it looks very much like Western art before it developed over the last eight hundred years. That could make for an interesting discussion, but hardly a natural or necessary one.
January 27th, 2011 | 5:27 pm
“Is the symposium really “unwilling” to discuss Orthodox iconography (as Stuart Koehl puts it), or is it just not on the schedule? ”
We are the product of our choices. The organizers of the symposium chose to have presentations on quite a number of PoMo favorites, as well as minor artists of whom no one outside of the hothouse world of modern art has ever heard–all with the kind of pretentious, deconstructionist themes I have come to expect from such gatherings. Yet a form of modern art–and icons, being produced today in both the West and the East do qualify–seen by and accessible to the “masses” is not considered worthy of discussion.
“In fact, it looks very much like Western art before it developed over the last eight hundred years. That could make for an interesting discussion, but hardly a natural or necessary one.”
That might hold water if these same art critics were not falling all over themselves to say how much modern artists from Chagall to Picasso to Warhol were influenced by iconography. Apparently, it’s OK to discuss artists who are influenced by it, but not OK to discuss those who produce the real thing.
February 2nd, 2011 | 7:04 pm
Because Mike asked, I have some thoughts at First Things on both the division between icons and art galleries as well as Dali and Warhol, both mentioned above.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact