Some Thoughts on Art as Religion

Millinerd has been a close and perceptive reader of God in the Gallery and has been following my recent blogs on art and religion. He raises some important observations in a recent post regarding how I conceive of this relationship and its implications, which have helped me considerably to think through some issues in more detail. And so what follows is my attempt to clarify further my perspective.

Following Roman Catholic philosopher William Desmond, I suggest that art, religion, philosophy, and science are kin, emerging from a common origin, that is, wonder at the mystery of being itself.  Artistic, religious, philosophical, and scientific practices are particular and distinctive embodiments of this common experience. Their kinship is the reason why these cultural practices are often at odds with one another. I do not, however, regard Christianity to be merely a religion among other religions. It is the lens through which such kinship itself becomes visible. Christ not only fulfills all religions, He also fulfills all art, philosophy, science, literature, film, music:  all human practice that seeks to understand and give meaning and significance to the world. So, artistic, religious, philosophical, and scientific practice is meaningful precisely because of Christianity, whether its practitioners recognize it or not. Christianity, however, is embodied as a cultural practice, and therefore can be understood in ways that are similar to other cultural practices. 

My approach, then, is to stress the religious nature of all cultural practices, especially art. What is this religious nature? I focus on two aspects. First, it consists of the necessity of belief for art to work; and second, it includes art’s liturgical and sacramental nature. This is the framework within which I understand the development of modern and contemporary art, criticism, and theory. Forging a relationship between artistic and religious practice, to my mind, offers a productive way to reflect on modern and contemporary art in a Christian manner that is mutually enriching.

Millinerd worries that it is a little too easy for me to be critical of conventional Christian art and writing and so he calls me to be mindful of the dangers of exaggerating its problems while giving too much grace to the contemporary art world. He might be right. God in the Gallery can indeed be read as a punch to the nose of the Christian community with the clenched fist of the contemporary art world. But I consider it is only a counter punch to the constant bludgeoning that modern and contemporary art has received by Christian artists and writers. My purpose is to call thoughtful Christians to a more artful form of pugilism. 

Rookmaaker’s Modern Art and a Death of a Culture (1970) enabled Christian artists and commentators on art to turn their marginalized positions into a virtue as they went about building a Christian simulacrum of the contemporary art world, which relied on a distorted view of modern and contemporary art. I will be satisfied if God in the Gallery does nothing more but force Christian artists and commentators to criticize “modern art” and the contemporary art world in a more interesting and productive way, which relies more on the Christian tradition and less on contemporary secular attitudes which masquerade as “Christian.” For mocking the excesses and idiocies of the contemporary art world is one of the easiest of American pastimes.  And so I try to offer a stronger opponent, one a little harder to knock down and thus one that can test and therefore more fully reveal the strength of Christian thought. 

The contemporary art world is neither more nor less problematic than any other form of culture, from entertainment and fashion, to college athletics, higher education, and journalism. Or, to put it differently, in the form of a question, is the contemporary art world any more inhospitable to Christian practice and presence than, say, Wall Street? I am the first to express my dismay and disgust with much that occurs in the contemporary art world. But I am also dismayed and disgusted by much of American Christianity and I can easily produce a list of complaints about the Church just about as long as that of the contemporary art world. And I hope that some aspects of the contemporary Church, like the contemporary art world, will simply die. But no list of complaints will lead me to leave the Church to pursue my faith. And this is how I feel about modern and contemporary art.  Just as there is no salvation outside the Church, there is no art outside the contemporary art world. 

My criticism of a smug, self-satisfied Christian art and writing does mean that I tend, as Millinerd observes, “to paint a sorry picture of Christian college art departments today.” But that is only because I have such high aspirations for them. I am convinced that all art departments suffer from a profound identity crisis, caused in part by their collective refusal to recognize the religious structure and nature of artistic practice, a structure and nature that I will explore in a future blog post. Christian art departments, which exist to train students to participate Christianly in the contemporary art world, have an opportunity—and responsibility—to transform studio art education in this country. That some such departments would rather joust at the windmills of the contemporary art world is tragic.

Comments

[millinerd]

Thanks for this very thoughtful reply Dan. I have earlier expressed my appreciation for your seeking to move beyond the liberal Protestant paradigm toward which Nicholas Wolterstorff (you have elsewhere suggested) is both critical and captive.

But in light of your provocative statement that "there is no art outside the contemporary art world," I'd be interested in whether you find Wolterstorff's Art in Action (that argues otherwise) convincing to any degree.

[daniel a. siedell]

I try to speak of Christian perspectives without falling into "Reformed" ruts and I try to speak of "art and religion" without falling into a warmed up liberal Protestantism. Given both their ubiquitous presence in Christian discourse and the profound influence they have exerted on my thought, it's a precarious balancing act.

Wolterstorff offers a very helpful and interesting reflection on "art as contemplation," in which he means "museum art," but then regards it as just one such manifestation among others. I am not sure if I disagree with him so much as offer a completely different approach. I tend to view all contemporary artistic practice to be derived by "art as contemplation," and my book is an attempt to focus unashamedly on museum art. I do not like Wolterstorff's description and subtle denigration of contemplation in "Art and Action." However, his more recent work has begun to redress that deficiency.