When, some weeks ago, David P. Goldman invited me to become a contributor to this blog, I began to make lists about issues about which I might have something worth saying. They still sit in a note on my iPod touch: biblical texts, thoughts about theology or comparative religion, issues inspired by something I heard in church, an idea that arose in a Sunday School class, but didn’t fit in that venue. I had no idea that the first thing to motivate me to write was something that I know very little about. Perhaps I will display my ignorance rather than my knowledge.
Here my recently purchased iPod touch was the proximate cause—a fascinating piece of technology. In 3 months, I already have two complete study Bibles (NIV and ESV)–handy for checking up on the preacher; finger tap access to several dozen novels–right now I’m enjoying Great Expectations; 3 newspaper apps; 3 weather apps; 2 recipe apps; apps to check the Yellow Pages and find chain stores of every description; an app to keep track of my gas mileage. Sunday I used an app to remotely control a sermonette on my laptop computer, a little, cutely illustrated, piece on 1 Samuel 17, if I may say so myself.
But the app that inspires these thoughts is “Love Art,” a sophisticated multi-media presentation of some of the most important paintings in the National Gallery of London. “Love Art” presents a novice with a detailed look at the historical and critical issues surrounding 12 great paintings. Take for example da Vinci’s “The Virgin of the Rocks”: Luke Syson describes the importance of the painting, Colin Wiggins explains how da Vinci’s knowledge as a naturalist contributed to his painting of the background, and Rachel Bilinge shows us the traces of an earlier sketching behind the present painting. This particular virtual “room” in the museum then shows us 16 other paintings of the Virgin and Child, so one can see how the theme is developed throughout the history of the art of Europe. One can either look at each individually, or scan them as an automated “slide show.” The other 11 paintings are treated in the same detailed manner. “Love Art” is a tour de force integration of picture, audio recording and “Youtube”-style movies. (However, full appreciation requires ready access to larger-scale reproductions of the paintings. I found myself controlling the iPod touch with one hand, and perusing examples of the paintings on the web on my laptop.)
I have always known that knowledge of painting was thought to be part of the heritage of an educated person. Nonetheless, while I had enjoyed classical music since adolescence, “art” was a cultured medium that I neither knew how to understand or enjoy.
If we start with “The Virgin of the Rocks,” and the 16 other Madonna paintings, one can see the spirituality behind western art: as Syson says, da Vinci “makes the mysterious human and the human mysterious.” Is that not of the logic of the Incarnation, the central spiritual fact of the last two millennia in the west? Most of the Madonnas are, at least in some measure, iconic: They do not re-present nature, but transform it. They regenerate the eye, convert the temporal into the eternal.
Until, that is, we get to Sassoferrato’s “The Virgin and Child Embracing.” The blue garment of the Virgin dominates the picture. It saturates the vision. One suspects that Sassoferrato’s central point was to show (off) how much of the precious ultramarine pigment—as precious as gold, derived from the crushing of lapis lazuli—he could use. (The painting was later “restored” using modern cobalt pigment; I don’t know how much of the effect is due to this later paint.) The portrait projects an atmosphere of luxury and indulgence. This luxury (in the modern sense of the word) becomes luxuria (in the medieval sense of the word). The aura surrounding the Madonna is not one of holiness, but of sensual indulgence. The embrace of the Virgin by the Child is no longer the chaste embrace of the divine Son for his self-sacrificial mother (“be it to me according to thy word”), but is passionate, almost Oedipal.
Then we have Jan van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait”. The initial presentation is ironically called “ordinary people,” since they are not “ordinary” at all. They are very affluent: the fur-lined fabrics, the little puppy, the brass chandelier (the nearest thing to a well-lighted room in that day), the enclosed bed. What is the point of such a painting? It has no religious value. It does not present some awe-inspiring landscape that others might appreciate. The young wife is with child. This is the first in what would today be a long line of couple portraits, school pictures, family portraits.
Western, “Christian” art is possessed by a moral and spiritual instability. Art is no longer about the spiritual realm. The glorious blue of the Madonna’s garb—hopefully in Sassoferrato’s mind representing the glories of heaven—became the visual coin of human desire and pride. The luxuria placed at the disposal of the spirit now became appropriated by the flesh. The dignity injected into the human spirit by the Incarnation now slips its moral bonds, and becomes pride and narcissism.
Included in the virtual gallery accompanying the “The Arnolfini Portrait” is a film short imagining a contemporary portrait. The photographer finds the address, an large “flat” in the city and sighs. He apparently knows the type. This is a purely pecuniary transaction. It has nothing to do with “art.” He has set up in the living room; the male of the couple is still practicing his putting game. It is not going well. The female picks up the golf balls while he primps one last time. He sits down. Just as the flash goes off, his cell phone rings. He jumps up, interrupting the shot. The photographer looks at the woman is an mixture of disgust and exasperation. While her mate is on the phone, she pulls out some photographs and peruses them. The photographer readjusts the reflective umbrella which the man, in his careless haste, moved. Drawn presumably by professional interest, he looks at the photographs–they are all about her. He then cocks his eyebrow, as if to ask, what do you need me for?
But has not visual art always been about the creators—whether those who paint it or those who pay for it? Diego Velazquez’ “Venus in the Mirror,” “La Venus del espejo,” completes the circle. Dawson Carr puts it directly: “it was made for the male gaze.” But then so is a centerfold in Playboy. The voyeur—what else could we call him?—sees the back and thighs of a perfect female nude. The woman looks at herself in a mirror; Carr says that since we see the face (very obscurely), she knows we see her. He adds that the painting was originally called “A Nude Woman with a Child,” in spite of the wings on the child. It is as if Velazquez wanted to deny the pagan inspiration of his visual imagination.
But pagan it is. One can see it already in the kouroi and korai of ancient Greece–dedication statues of humans to the gods. The korai—females—are always sedately dressed in what one assumes is proper Greek style; whereas the kouroi—males—are usually nude. Their worship of the gods was magnified worship of themselves, in their ideal social roles (women in the household; men in the gymnasium and on the battlefield). In sacrificing to the gods, they worshipped themselves in these seemingly-eternal reminders of their own transcendent bodies.
And so it has always been. And the splendid beauty of the art of Europe alters that not one iota. All the Madonnas in all of Europe’s museums could never finally convert the paganism in this display of the human form. Art has finally prostituted the Madonna. Virginal surrender has become whoredom.
But then, we were warned, were we not?
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;…. (JPS 1917)
On Sunday, I will enter my plain meetinghouse, adorned only with a simple wooden cross. In the past, I had wished for more visual stimulation, something, I suppose I would have said, to pull the eye and mind upward. But in place of luscious stained glass—I have in my mind the little jewel of Bond Chapel, next to the University of Chicago’s Divinity School—there is only the transparent openness to the light of day. The stimulation is that of the solemn Word proclaimed. I will be remember and be grateful.
June 24th, 2009 |
Another thought provoking article. Forgive me for being sophomoric, but First Things rocks!
So Mr. Layman, since you will enter now a plain meetinghouse with only a simple cross, I wonder if another season might not potentially produce a different desire in you.
“… But has not visual art always been about the creators—whether those who paint it or those who pay for it … ”
Could you perhaps ten years from now see a ornately adorned cathedral and be drawn to it and not think that enjoying its beauty would be a sin of idolatry?
Or has your study of “Christian” art left you forever changed so that a simple wooden cross is all that you could bear?
I am sincerely curious?
June 24th, 2009 |
Surely a commentary such as this must include at least some mention of the vast amount of Orthodox literature from the Iconoclast era, from those on both sides of the issue the author is discussing here? It seems rather mind-boggling to leave out, in particular since I suspect that many, many readers even of this site are pretty unfamiliar with this “ancient” history, especially since it was on the far borders of Western Civilization.
June 24th, 2009 |
I thought the issue with “thou shall not create a graven image” was taking care of during the Iconoclast period in Church history.
The argument went something like: Christians may make an image because we were made in the image of God. God became man so in some mysterious way took on our image. Since God became man, he took on on image. Humanity saw God face to face without having to cover their faces like Seraphim.
I don’t think Christians sculpting statues, painting images, etc. is pagan at all. Then, again, if you think the worship of Christ is pagan then…well…You think Christians are pagan.
June 24th, 2009 |
In New England it is fashionable to execrate the simplicity and presumed barrenness of the old “Puritan” churches, though in truth the few remaining ones have a simple, austere, transcendent beauty. The Puritans took their religion neat and would be appalled at the decadent pagan excrescences of their descendant’s places of worship.
June 24th, 2009 |
David,
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment. By coincidence I saw Schiller’s “Mary Stuart” last weekend with one of my daughters, and recalled these lines:
Creative spirit held my soul a prisoner
In the fair world of wonders it had framed.
I ne’er had felt the power of art till now.
The church that reared me hates the charms of sense;
It tolerates no image, it adores
But the unseen, the incorporeal word.
What were my feelings, then, as I approached
The threshold of the churches, and within,
Heard heavenly music floating in the air:
While from the walls and high-wrought roofs there streamed
Crowds of celestial forms in endless train—
When the Most High, Most Glorious pervaded
My captivated sense in real presence!
And when I saw the great and godlike visions,
The Salutation, the Nativity,
The Holy Mother, and the Trinity’s
Descent, the luminous transfiguration
And last the holy pontiff, clad in all
The glory of his office, bless the people!
Oh! what is all the pomp of gold and jewels
With which the kings of earth adorn themselves!
They are spoken by the conspirator Mortimer, who secretly converted to Catholicism while traveling on the Continent — a conversion by art. Mortimer comes to an evil end–he is a fanatic and a hothead and is as much driven by his infatuation with Queen Mary as the cause of his religion–but Schiller meant to recount here an authentic conversion through art, I think.
I am not quite sure what to think of your argument. We Jews, of course, have no religious images. I own a painting of King David with his lyre that I commissioned many years ago, but it is a painting of a man, not anything divine. Years ago I had something that might be described as a religious experience after spending some time in front of a Raphael, but an oddly iconoclastic one: I dreamed that I was in the presence of God and turned to look at Him, but a moment before I might see Him, a profound terror overcame me, and I woke up. That’s not quite the same as looking at the old man in Michelangelo’s “Creation” at the Sistine Chapel.
Nothing occurs me that improves on Tolkien’s story of Feanor, fable of the artist who worships his own creation. If faith first converts the artist, we can have religious art of real merit, but the danger always is that the artist will use his own powers to rebel against faith.
June 24th, 2009 |
Spengler, the metaleptic event, the pneumatic irruption?
“Years ago I had something that might be described as a religious experience after spending some time in front of a Raphael, but an oddly iconoclastic one: I dreamed that I was in the presence of God and turned to look at Him, but a moment before I might see Him, a profound terror overcame me, and I woke up.”
I would have read you for ten years, in the desert, to read the above. The love of God is a mysterious thing, indeed.
June 24th, 2009 |
Our words can rebel against the faith as well, yet we do not hesitate to speak our praises.
Christianity has already put down the heresy of the iconoclasts…the Christians who supported the Muslims lost. That the Calvinists during the reformation did more damage than any Caliph could have hoped to do to the Holy Images is not something to brag about…their denial of the Incarnation and the Communion of Saints is horrific, not something to be lauded…
June 24th, 2009 |
Robert,
Whether this was love of God, or fear of God, I do not know. In the next issue of First Things we will run what I think is an excellent review of R. Joseph Soloveitchik’s book “And From There Shall You Seek,” which argues that fear precedes love and must be addressed as it were on its own terms. I found the book frightening as I’ve mentioned elsehwere.
June 24th, 2009 |
Okie,
It was from the Calvinists that the founding of New England and the First Great Awakening came — not for nothing did the British call the American revolution as it was underway “the Presbyterian rebellion.” As a Jew I do not pick sides among the mainstream Christian denominations, hoping to maintain good relations with all of them. But as an American patriot I cannot forget the great contribution of Calvinism to the founding of this “almost Chosen” land. I also can’t forget the philo-Semitism of the Calvinists that gave so many of my co-religionists a home in Holland after the expulsions from Iberia. This philo-Semitism continued through World War II. See
http://www.azure.org.il/include/print.php?id=43
June 24th, 2009 |
Mr. Cooper:
I’m grateful you found my first effort so “thought provoking.” When I sat in Bond Chapel, meditating, praying, and reading my Bible, I do not think I was guilty of “idolatry.” I am sure that the noble, grand art of the Notre Dame aided in the prayers of generations of French Christians. My words mask a deep attraction to the both “lungs” of the “Catholic” inheritance. Rather, I was trying to work through the puzzle of why an inheritance of such astonishing beauty and power could go so wrong.
I’m really continuing a discussion begun by Spengler (the one channeled by Mr. Goldman): the place to start is http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GE17Aa01.html (“Why the Beautiful is not the Good”). A list of Spengler’s other writings on the crisis of Western civilization is here: http://dunedain.net/spengler/viewtopic.php?p=5906&sid=55436e22a7014c5f7e681312d36be7a1#5906 .
Then combine that with my studies in myth (hence the reference to the kouroi/korai), and the issue fused for me.
Okie:
I do not side with the iconoclasts. I have used the great icons of the Orthodox tradition in my own devotional life in the past. The Schwärmerei of my own heritage are offensive to me. I have no wish to destroy any icons, so long as they be true icons of the faith. The question is: why, and when, do true icons become false idols? And why have the idols of the eye and the heart swarmed (!) to the service in the west in the last century or so?
June 24th, 2009 |
A interesting slip in the very last line of my comment:
I meant “surface,” although “service” might also fit.
For the question is, in our use of the pictured word, what are we serving?
June 24th, 2009 |
Yes, love/fear of God, the wife just finished a study, a great deal of OT.
I’m working on a meditation on Schelling’s interpretation of ‘Freedom as Metaphysics,” that interprets his existentialism in terms of freedom transcending the anthropological.
Your interpretation of the founding as “almost Chosen land” points to a spiritual explanation which I trust you’ll expand upon.
June 24th, 2009 |
David Layman
I’m interested in how you might distinguish these paintings from, say, Eastern ikons, and whether that comparison might lessen the intensity of an iconoclastic urge.
Also, it seems to me that the image in Velazquez’s mirror does not yet signify the worst of narcissism. Her image is vague but not distorted, and not even entirely self-referential, since we only see her face.
For complete decadence, have a look at Mannerist painters like Bronzino. In his Allegory, we have a world almost totally closed within upon itself, pleasuring itself. Humanity there is blithely stretched and pulled to suit the claims of art itself, not reason, and certainly not sincere religious faith.
So I think the “idolatry” you mention is a stretch. There are far darker visions around us.
June 24th, 2009 |
Robert Cheeks,
I used Lincoln’s “almost-Chosen” idea in this review of Fr. Neuhaus’ last book:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KC17Ak03.html
June 24th, 2009 |
David Goldman
I hope I come to a better end than Mortimer, but I sympathize with Schiller’s rendering. When I walked into St. Peter’s basilica not long ago, two thoughts contended: the ravished desire for the courts of the Lord, and the sour “gah, they could’ve spent all this on the poor!” The thoughts of Mary and Martha, roughly.
Both thoughts are noble, but not completely. Surely it’s possible to hold these two impulses in a just tension. We can love God and our fellow man. Personally, I find it difficult to denigrate one and purport to love the other. There is a balance to strike, and I don’t see that art is at fault in tipping things over. The fault lies in us.
June 24th, 2009 |
Spengler,
Delightful review, thank you. I hope to have something on July 3 remembering Longstreet’s Assualt (misnamed Pickett’s Charge) at Gettysburg on PoMoCon.
June 24th, 2009 |
Antony:
As I understand the ikon (to use your spelling for clarity of reference), it is intentionally non-representational. It is does not attempt re-visualize nature. Rather it attempts to *create* a new nature–I was trying to get at this distinction with my contrast between “represent” and “transform”.
I do not pretend to be an expert on the Orthodox ikon; but I have read the appropriate sources. To quote Nicholas Zernov, q. in Timothy Ware’s *The Orthodox Church,* new ed.,
“[Icons] were for the Russians {and, I assume, the Greeks before them} not merely paintings. They were dynamic manifestation of man’s spiritual power to redeem creation through beauty and art. The colours and lines of the [icons] were not meant to imitate nature; the artists aimed at demonstrating that men,…and the whole cosmos, could be rescued from their present state of degradation and restored to their proper ‘Image’. The [icons] were pledges of the coming victory of a redeemed creation over the fallen one….” (p. 34)
The anti-representational mode of the Orthodox ikon protected it from the dynamic I am suggesting is manifested in (what I deliberately called) “Western” art.
I repeat, I have no iconoclastic urge against da Vinci’s Virgin. And had the trajectory ended with Sassoferrato’s Madonna, I would accept the piety of a fellow Christian who deepens their faith in the veneration of this representation (it *is*, even within the limits of what can be seen on the computer, astonishingly beautiful–I would love to see to see the actual painting with my own eyes)
It is in what comes after that I see the trajectory swerve off-course.
June 24th, 2009 |
The second commandment aims at idols, not eye candy.
It seems to me that the basis for criticism of such “art” must be either (1) it distorts beauty to satisfy a disordered appetite (as pornography does) or (2) it fails to capture its subject, in that (a) it aims do depict earthly reality and does a bad job (like my child’s stick figures), or (b) it aims, like an icon, to be a window to heavenly things, but succeeds only in a wholesome depiction of earthly things.
June 24th, 2009 |
I would like to put a thought out there and see the response.
Should one even respond to a “graven image” argument in modern times?
Everyday nihilism is more and more pronounced in modern culture.
How should a faithful believer in a revealed religion respond to the belief and worship in the nothing?
Or is nihilism only a smokescreen for man’s worship of himself?
June 24th, 2009 |
We understand it. We rank it just under the “thou shalt not eat shellfish,” on the priority scale.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Layman,
Thank you for a moving reflection on an exceptionally difficult question.
God reveals himself to us in words, not in pictures. And His worship, here and above, consists of singing His praise, not painting His portrait. Something about sound and hearing and voice seems less prone to bound the boundless than light and sight and hand. I do not understand why this is so, but so it is.
June 25th, 2009 |
Like Mr. Layman, I knew a great deal about music in my 20s but almost nothing about art. Then I was smitten with Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation” series on BBC/PBS around 1970.
In defense of the Calvinist’s – and I may be on the verge of becoming one – they saw the adornment of the churches as a most potent and dangerous idolatry, even blasphemy. It was not just a superstition. Indeed, how many churches around the world today are full of beauty but empty of spirit, the one masking the other? In a largely illiterate world, art can seduce in insidious ways where words would be found out and speak a warning against themselves. The fact that our world is no longer illiterate is largely thanks to the Calvinists. The Reformed theology of Calvin is resurgent today. Evangelicalism has descended into empty emotionalism and fad-pimping without it. Spiritual warfare within the Southern Baptist Convention (with which I am not affiliated) is looming over this issue.
Long ago I read “The Humiliation of the Word” by Jacques Ellul, and it influenced me greatly even though I could not endorse Ellul’s work in general. I might actually be more receptive to it now. Ellul saw the Word degraded and perhaps rendered impotent by the rise of the Image in contemporary culture. It’s been 20 years or so … I have just resolved to read it again. Thank you for the inspiration, Mr. Layman.
(BTW, what I miss more that the art destroyed by the Calvinists are the folk songs they suppressed. Much survived in out of the way places, but a great deal of folklore is gone from Scotland and Wales.)
June 25th, 2009 |
Note thate the second commandment is about graven images, not just images. For this reason orthodox churches have only paintings, and no statues. There is a pasage in the bible somewhere that specifically mock the process of making an idol: a man takes a piece of wood and splits it in two. He burns one half for warmth, and the other half he makes into an idol and bows down before it.
Another big difference between orthodox icons and RC paintings, is that icons are abstractions that are painted according to rules specifying how each biblical person should be painted. Most of the time you can quite easily identify who is depicte, e.g. John the baptist alway has wild hair.
June 25th, 2009 |
had the trajectory ended with Sassoferrato’s Madonna, I would accept the piety of a fellow Christian who deepens their faith in the veneration of this representation
I would go much further, even accepting the piety of a fellow Christian who looked on Bronzino’s lewd, self-absorbed confections and was moved to pity and fear. It requires discipline. And such warnings are useful.
We first have to be formed to see the warning signs as such, and I think this is part of your point. You’re suggesting that there’s an inescapable, inward-looking arc to humanistic art, that given enough time, artists will forget spiritual realities, lose their spiritual aspirations, and gaze forever like Narcissus at their own reflections.
Western, “Christian” art is possessed by a moral and spiritual instability. Art is no longer about the spiritual realm.
Yes, and iconoclasm is stabilized too much by vapidity, myopia, and fear.
I admire and respect the ikon traditions immensely for attempting to render spiritual and eschatological realities. These are communities and traditions with high spiritual and artistic standards. Even so, ikon imagery is easily and often commodified, and there are other dangers. Ikonic representations, like architectural austerities, can be so severe as to be unattractive. They lack Alberti’s ‘hooks’ into the familiar and fleshy world. They are also rather strictly constrained by mannerism, which comes from their communitarian traditions. The danger in this is that any eschatological reality would be lost in a barrage of visual mannerisms that signify tradition more clearly than spiritual reality.
Lest you think I’m too permissive, I do share your distaste for religious art that shows excessive interest in flesh at the expense of spirit. That kind of art is myopic, superficial, and under-achieving. I don’t think it’s as dangerous as some think, and I’m reluctant to make any historical or phenomenological generalizations about any of it.
how many churches around the world today are full of beauty but empty of spirit
That is not the fault of beautiful art. The fault lies in humanity’s excessive eagerness to consider itself flattered when it does not merit it.
June 25th, 2009 |
The energetic discussion has been most gratifying.
A question to Mr. GALLIHER (and it is *not* rhetorical):
(NB: in talking about “art” I stipulate I am talking about the ‘high classical’ tradition, what is to the visual arts, what Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are to music…)
What if *all* “western” art, is objectively disordered?
That is, what if—and I think my original posting was intended to raise this issue—the very enterprise somehow breaks some deep moral-spiritual barrier, that, once breached, will lead to ever deeper violations of Law/Torah?
As Wolfie observed, the conventions of the Orthodox ikon were an attempt to prevent such breaching.
I agree with GABRIEL’s point about nihilism, however, what if nihilism is simply the end of a trajectory that begins much earlier?
I simply cannot evade the spiritual link that, in spite of the millennia between them, and the superimposition of “Christendom”, ties together ancient Greek kouroi/korai and, say, van Eyck and Velazquez.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Layman,
A wonderful first post.
It may be apocryphal, but I once heard that Composer Edward Elgar, a devout Catholic, said “I always knew God was against art.” Soon thereafter, he wrote his Cockaigne Overture (a favorite of mine.)
It is very easy to make an idol of almost anything – including one’s thoughts about God. (I have seen it done, and, I fear, have done it myself – often.) If one takes Franz Rosenzweig’s “God, Man, Nature” formulation seriously, there may be no help for it. A constant need of correction seems to be part of a divinely intended tension in which we all must live. By having nature between us and Himself, and thus NOT subjecting us to his constant and immediate Presence, God allows the possibility that we will find respite is something less than Him. Some may need to pluck out their offending eyes. Others can, perhaps, can tread the particular serpents and scorpions of beautiful structures, pictures and music. (I hope so, since I am an arts person myself.)
In The Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis first expressed his idea that, if you are a pagan, “the pictures” may be all the “Gospel” you get and you must do your best from that starting point. His protagonist, John, was just that kind of pagan, and his stoical, ethical companion, Mr. Vertue at one point had to be led by him, as he had gone blind from the conundrum of mere “rules.” (“The world cannot be as it seems to be. If there is something to go to, it is a bribe, and I cannot go to it: if I can go then there is nothing to go to.”)
But I hold with “you and Spengler” (David^2 – as it were) that the Beautiful cannot be the Good. There is a Beauty of Holiness, but I see no necessity for it to work the other way. A Unity of the Beautiful and the Good might something for the other side of the eschaton. We may get glimpses of it here, but beauty can lull as well as inspire, and “no marvel, even satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”
June 25th, 2009 |
Quoting:
” (quote from me:) ‘how many churches around the world today are full of beauty but empty of spirit’
That is not the fault of beautiful art. The fault lies in humanity’s excessive eagerness to consider itself flattered when it does not merit it.”
It can also be the fault not of the art but of reliance on art, when the spirit is rejected. (I have recently come out of a high church episcopal parish). It is similar with people who say they cannot say the creed but can sing it. “Art” in general can give depth to expressioin, but it can also provide a safe distance.
June 25th, 2009 |
David Layman, thank you for addressing my comment as a real concern and not merely an insult…I realize now that the comment seems a bit blunt, but I did not intend it that way.
I still think the fear you bring up, although correct to constantly bring up, is unavoidable. Look at the great measures St. Thomas goes to point out how much our speech, if we are not willing to admit the apophatic shadows that must be cast with every word about God, can easily fall into an anthromporphsim which is just much an idol as any image we make of Christ or His Saints. I think I like how Mr. Goldman puts it, that fear comes before love, and if that is what this post is ultimately about, then I will nod in agreement. However, I do think there is a very fast connection between Islamic iconaclastic hatred of images and the same movement within Calvinism. I do not think its mere historical accident…I think it is because both have a Volanturist conception of God…if we take the Analogy of Being seriously, I think we can understand Western Religious Art much better.
To Mr. Goldman, I would say that most of what I find lamentable about America has a lot to do with its Calvinist foundations, and specifically in a realm of thought where you have written so eloquently: the “city on the hill” sure strikes me as Gentiles trying to be a chosen nation, and as an Ultramontane, I think this is exactly something a Pope with Universal Jurisdiction gaurds against.
I do ask this though: from a Jewish perspective, in light of what you have said, how do you justify the Ark of the Covenant being commanded to and indeed having Cherubim on the Mercy Seat (I think that’s where it is off the top of my head…I know there were golden angels, Cherubim or Seraphim, on the Ark of the Covenant)? Certainly, Angels are spiritual beings from Heaven, and yet God commanded the Jews to render them in Graven form on the very Ark. What about the images that appeared throughout the Temple? I must admit, that the prohibition against Graven images seems to be quite pointedly for God as God, to prevent what I think was even the good intentions, for instance, in the book of Judges, where a Levite Priest sincerely wished to offer sacrifices to God, but used an idol made of silver. At anyrate, I would be interested in your thoughts about this.
Again, thank you for taking my comments seriously.
June 25th, 2009 |
Let me try to submit a comment one more time:
I do appreciate Mr. Layman for responding to my comment. I realize in hindsight that it may have sounded more like a put down than a comment, but I did have a point I would like to make. I do appreciate your clarifications, although if the gist of what you are saying is that we must be careful (or fearful, as Mr. Goldman accurately points out), then I agree, but only say that the same goes with our words. St. Thomas’s wrangling between the catophatic and apophatic nature of theological speech points to the Holy Fear we must have when we approach God with anything we are capable of approaching Him with…words, art, ourselves, etc. However, we must do these things, and I think St. Thomas’s ruminations on the Analogy of Being give us key understandings as to why this is the case. I do not then think there is a problem with “western art,” but with the temptation to be gods, and this will pertain always and in all places and in all things.
To Mr. Goldman, I must say that the calvinist pillars of our country are precisely where I worry about it most, particularly in the area of thought you have spoken so well of in a former article, ie when Gentiles attempt to act like they are a chosen nation, when only the Hebrews can lay claim to such a title. As an Ultramontane, I think the Papacy is one of the most sure-fire answers to such Galican impulses, but I think it permeates most of the reformation…it is true that Catholicism has been tempted again and again by the same thing, and the Popes themselves have fallen prey to it, but again, I think it is Papal theology in the end that holds the tide against. I also think such things are linked to the current discussion, as I think Volunterism (both Calvinist and Islamic) conceptions of God cause these troubles, but that is an issue for another time.
I will ask you this question though: as a Jew, how do you rectify the prohibition against images with the fact that golden statues of angels adorned the Ark of the Covenant? (Cherubim on the Mercy Seat, I think, but it could be Seraphim elsewhere…I must admit I am not sure off the top of my head). Also, was not the temple filled with images of things as well? Specifically with the Ark, if anything other than God is in heaven, surely it is His angels, and being that Old Testament Hebrews regarded a visit from an angel as seeing God “face to face,” this seems like no small thing that angel statues adorned the very Ark of the Covenant. I always thought the prohibition against graven images was against ones of God Himself, to try and quash even the good intentions of someone like the Levite in the time of the Judges who sacrificed before a silver statue of a bull…even though he meant the sacrifices for the True God. Either way, I am interested to hear your response, and I thank both of you for taking time to respond to perhaps a brusque comment…
June 25th, 2009 |
Let me try to submit a comment one more time:
I do appreciate Mr. Layman for responding to my comment. I realize in hindsight that it may have sounded more like a put down than a comment, but I did have a point I would like to make. I do appreciate your clarifications, although if the gist of what you are saying is that we must be careful (or fearful, as Mr. Goldman accurately points out), then I agree, but only say that the same goes with our words. St. Thomas’s wrangling between the catophatic and apophatic nature of theological speech points to the Holy Fear we must have when we approach God with anything we are capable of approaching Him with…words, art, ourselves, etc. However, we must do these things, and I think St. Thomas’s ruminations on the Analogy of Being give us key understandings as to why this is the case. I do not then think there is a problem with “western art,” but with the temptation to be gods, and this will pertain always and in all places and in all things.
June 25th, 2009 |
To Mr. Goldman, I must say that the calvinist pillars of our country are precisely where I worry about it most, particularly in the area of thought you have spoken so well of in a former article, ie when Gentiles attempt to act like they are a chosen nation, when only the Hebrews can lay claim to such a title. As an Ultramontane, I think the Papacy is one of the most sure-fire answers to such Galican impulses, but I think it permeates most of the reformation…it is true that Catholicism has been tempted again and again by the same thing, and the Popes themselves have fallen prey to it, but again, I think it is Papal theology in the end that holds the tide against. I also think such things are linked to the current discussion, as I think Volunterism (both Calvinist and Islamic) conceptions of God cause these troubles, but that is an issue for another time.
I will ask you this question though: as a Jew, how do you rectify the prohibition against images with the fact that golden statues of angels adorned the Ark of the Covenant? (Cherubim on the Mercy Seat, I think, but it could be Seraphim elsewhere…I must admit I am not sure off the top of my head). Also, was not the temple filled with images of things as well? Specifically with the Ark, if anything other than God is in heaven, surely it is His angels, and being that Old Testament Hebrews regarded a visit from an angel as seeing God “face to face,” this seems like no small thing that angel statues adorned the very Ark of the Covenant. I always thought the prohibition against graven images was against ones of God Himself, to try and quash even the good intentions of someone like the Levite in the time of the Judges who sacrificed before a silver statue of a bull…even though he meant the sacrifices for the True God. Either way, I am interested to hear your response, and I thank both of you for taking time to respond to perhaps a brusque comment…
June 25th, 2009 |
To Mr. Goldman, I must say that the calvinist pillars of our country are precisely where I worry about it most, particularly in the area of thought you have spoken so well of in a former article, ie when Gentiles attempt to act like they are a chosen nation, when only the Hebrews can lay claim to such a title. As an Ultramontane, I think the Papacy is one of the most sure-fire answers to such Galican impulses, but I think it permeates most of the reformation…it is true that Catholicism has been tempted again and again by the same thing, and the Popes themselves have fallen prey to it, but again, I think it is Papal theology in the end that holds the tide against. I also think such things are linked to the current discussion, as I think Volunterism (both Calvinist and Islamic) conceptions of God cause these troubles, but that is an issue for another time.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman, I will ask you this question though: as a Jew, how do you rectify the prohibition against images with the fact that golden statues of angels adorned the Ark of the Covenant? (Cherubim on the Mercy Seat, I think, but it could be Seraphim elsewhere…I must admit I am not sure off the top of my head). Also, was not the temple filled with images of things as well? Specifically with the Ark, if anything other than God is in heaven, surely it is His angels, and being that Old Testament Hebrews regarded a visit from an angel as seeing God “face to face,” this seems like no small thing that angel statues adorned the very Ark of the Covenant. I always thought the prohibition against graven images was against ones of God Himself, to try and quash even the good intentions of someone like the Levite in the time of the Judges who sacrificed before a silver statue of a bull…even though he meant the sacrifices for the True God. Either way, I am interested to hear your response, and I thank both of you for taking time to respond to perhaps a brusque comment…
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman, one last comment. As far as the Calvinist pillars of America, I must admit that I do worry about them, but precisely for reasons you have written about so profoundly: I worry about any group of gentiles that sees themselves as a chosen people. As an ultramontate, I see the Pope with universal jurisdiction as the best chance we have at guarding against that. I do think Calvinism’s tendency to see itself as a nation and its iconoclastic impulse are related, much in the same way as I think two similar tendencies appear in Islam: both, to my mind, have Volunturistic conceptions of God. Again, as I say to Mr. Layman, I think the Analogy of Being is an important guard against this…
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman, one last comment. As far as the Calvinist pillars of America, I must admit that I do worry about them, but precisely for reasons you have written about so profoundly: I worry about any group of gentiles that sees themselves as a chosen people. As an ultramontate, I see the Pope with universal jurisdiction as the best chance we have at guarding against that. I do think Calvinism’s tendency to see itself as a nation and its iconoclastic impulse are related, much in the same way as I think two similar tendencies appear in Islam: both, to my mind, have Volunturistic conceptions of God.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman, one last comment. As far as the Calvinist pillars of America, I do worry about them, but precisely for reasons you have written about so profoundly: I worry about any group of gentiles that sees themselves as a chosen people. As an ultramontate, I see the Pope with universal jurisdiction as the best chance we have at guarding against that.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman, one last comment. As far as the Calvinist pillars of America, I do worry about them, but precisely for reasons you have written about so profoundly: I worry about any group of gentiles that sees themselves as a chosen people. As an ultramontate, I see the Pope with universal jurisdiction as the best chance we have at guarding against that. I do think Calvinism’s tendency to see itself as a nation and its iconoclastic impulse are related, much in the same way as I think two similar tendencies appear in Islam: both, to my mind, have Volunturistic conceptions of God.
June 25th, 2009 |
Okie,
Anthropomorphisms abound in the Bible, and the mainstream interpretation is that because our mind is incapable of understanding the personality of God — and we understand God as a person rather than an abstraction — we attribute to him human characteristics (“face,” “hand,” “outstretched arm,” etc.) as we struggle to perceive him. Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim of Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot are specific prophetic images that require interpretation.
June 25th, 2009 |
I would also like to ask what, if anything, distinguishes Jewish from Muslim iconoclasm. I ask in all honesty, knowing nothing about it.
June 25th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman,
I understand that, and that is why I don’t worry about the Divine Images. What I am asking though is about the concrete fact that graven angels of gold were on the Ark of the Covenant…or are you saying that the description itself is anthropomporphic, and no such angels existed on the Ark? If they literally existed on the Ark of the Covenant, I think this has something important to say about how we distinguish between what is idol making and what is religious art…
June 25th, 2009 |
It appears that the National Gallery has just made changes to their web site, that has broken at least one of the links (the van Eyck). However, the new format is significantly superior, since it allows for almost infinite zooming. This is especially useful for the Sassoferrato, which previously was only available in a small size.
So in the order described, here are the links to each of the paintings on the National Gallery’s own site:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/leonardo-da-vinci-the-virgin-of-the-rocks
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sassoferrato-the-virgin-and-child-embracing
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-van-eyck-the-arnolfini-portrait
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/diego-velazquez-the-toilet-of-venus-the-rokeby-venus
On the reader’s lower right of the painting, click the “expand” button. The “zoom in” button will then be at the top, (still on the right hand side), the “zoom out” is at the buttom. One can also click on the slider, or move around the (I don’t know what to call it) area selector at the lower right. Just in time for your detailed inspection.
Look at the face of the Child on the Sassoferrato. I remain convinced that he is “up to no good.” The Virgin is looking away demurely, trying to evade his suspect encouragement.
June 25th, 2009 |
Okie,
There is, indeed, a tension in the Jewish tradition regarding the prohibition of creating and worshipping graven images on one hand, and G-d commanding the manuafturing of the Ark cover with golden Keruvim on the other.
One distinction that is made is that the Keruvim are not G-d. The Torah, in many places, notes that G-d spoke “from BETWEEN the Keruvim”, i.e., not through them, making clear that the golden Keruvim and G-d are separate.
Nevertheless, there is a prohibition of making any graven images, or drawings, for the purpose of devotional activity. So we go back to the question: why is making the Keruvim allowed?
The most common answer is that it is possible for G-d to make limitation on him own commandments. The same G-d who forbade idol worship commanded Moses to make the golden Keruvim. It’s a paradox, but not a contradiction.
In fact, the Keruvim are one of many paradoxes related to the Tabernacle (and later the Temple), such as:
1) Special sacrificial offerings are mandated on the Sabbath, even though both slaugtering and stoking a fire are prohibited activities on the Sabbath.
2) The special clothing of the High Priest includes the forbidden mixture of linen and wool.
3) Sacrifical offerings on any kind are allowed ONLY at the Tabernacle (and later the Temple). A Jew building an altar and offering an animal on his own breaks a Bibilical prohibition.
June 25th, 2009 |
ANTONY:
Some general comments that require evaluation by a specialist: one obvious difference is that for much of its existence, Jews in Christendom were a minority. They had enough difficult avoiding the disapprobation of the Christian masses; they weren’t going to trigger further antagonism by directly taking on the popular veneration of images. (Jews living in Islam of course were in a different situation, since Islam was already iconoclastic.)
In contrast, from at least 700 CE onwards (I don’t credit earlier stories), Islam was an expansive faith that wanted to compel the participation of the Christian (and Jewish) majorities in the lands they conquered. Muslim iconoclasm therefore had a harsh political and military edge.
OKIE:
I don’t think we can *explain* the commandment against graven images within the context of *already existing images*. Clearly, there was a debate *going on within ancient Israelite religion* about the propriety of images. Besides the “angels” on the ark, there was the bronze serpent, attributed to Moses in the wilderness (when the Israelites were attacked by serpents), and destroyed by a later Judahite king (drawing quickly on memory, Josiah or Hezekiah). It was almost certainly an “apopatraic” image: a charm to chase away sickness or harm, which eventually had to be destroyed. So were primitive images in the *early* tradition that were erased from the tradition, both textually and physically.
I conclude that commandment against images was the *conclusion* of this “iconoclasm,” a development that took place both theologically (by coming to new insights), and concretely (by actually destroying certain images of veneration). However, I don’t know where the “angels” on the ark came from or what happened to them. I suspect they were a very primitive vestige that were tolerated, and once iconoclasm became a fixed tradition, their existence was moot, since they had been destroyed, one assumes by the Assyrians or Babylonians.
As always, the victors write the history.
June 26th, 2009 |
Hey, have you seen this news article?
New details about Michael Jackson’s Death Emerge
I was wondering if you were going to blog about this…
June 26th, 2009 |
David Layman,
My youngest daughter is three. At night, when I sing to her, she sometimes holds my face in her hands much like the Christ child in Sassoferrato’s painting. She loves me. The look on her face is often serious and searching. How much more serious, I think, is the face of Sassoferrato’s Christ. Looking on the beauty and fidelity of his mother, knowing (perhaps dimly) that he was born to pierce her heart with a sword, the Christ child should neither have less thoughtful an expression nor more tenderness in embrace.
The splendor of Mary’s robes can also signify nobler things than the mercenary desire to please an artistic patron. Venerating her seems to require the impulse of gift-giving, and rich gifts, to give her honor. I would suggest, then, that it’s possible to see these things in more than one way. And if that is so, then it’s difficult to construct a linear history, however interesting and thought-provoking such linear histories may be.
It’s a pleasure to read your reflections.
June 26th, 2009 |
Tzurah, thank you for the response. I know how Catholic Theology deals with the Holy Images, but I always wondered what Jews made of that fact about the Ark.
June 26th, 2009 |
Mr. Goldman — You asked:
What if *all* “western” art, is objectively disordered?
That is, what if—and I think my original posting was intended to raise this issue—the very enterprise somehow breaks some deep moral-spiritual barrier, that, once breached, will lead to ever deeper violations of Law/Torah?
***
I was in over my head with my first comment; I am putting on scuba gear to respond to this question.
I wonder whether centuries of learned and holy reflection on the commandments has yielded conclusions that would shed light on this. I am too ignorant to say.
My instinct is that, although all human enterprises are tainted by sin, pictorial art is not inherently disordered in a way that other arts are not. The excesses of western art do not indict painting any more than the perversity of haute couture indicts the art of making good clothing. I would think otherwise if I found that Jewish and Christian cultures outside the post-Renaissance west broadly stigmatized representational art. But really I know nothing of that history.
If we conclude that some art is wholesome, the next question is, how do we tell whether a given work of art is wholesome? (A very different question from whether it is successful.) The only way I can think of to make that judgment is to investigate the work’s relationship with its audience. We easily identify pornography in this way, discerning the connection between the nasty picture and the wicked attitude of those who buy it. I have no clue, though, how to evaluate the reactions evoked by, say, the Mona Lisa, or to judge whether those reactions are wholesome.
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