Related articles and links |  1 of 4

The art world is an easy target for Christians. As a museum curator and contemporary art specialist, I spend a great deal of energy vigorously defending this art world against "Christian perspectives" which I regard as unhelpful and inaccurate, perspectives shaped more by the cultural politics of the Christian Right than by the Cross. But as I negotiated my way through the throngs at Art Basel in Miami Beach not long ago, I felt sharp sympathy pains for those Christians who see nothing good coming from the art world—at least, the art world of impenetrable critical theory, chic parties, corporate sponsorships, and overly ironic and cynical "edgy" art that is the stock in trade of curators, museum directors, collectors, and commercial gallery directors located in such cosmopolitan centers in New York and Los Angeles, with outposts in Miami, Dallas, Aspen et al.

As I fought my way through the hipsters to catch glimpses of massive amounts of uninteresting art crammed into booths like any other product in a trade convention, I thought about the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and I thought about how the aesthetic and the visual arts in particular embody them. I also thought about how unnecessary and irrelevant all those thoughts were to those in attendance at what is now considered the most important international art fair in the world. Perhaps this particular art world is indeed not worth defending.

So it was with relief and joy when I was back at home that I turned my attention to two art books published by Eerdmans, documenting exhibitions that foreground the important role that the visual arts play in the Good, the True, and the Beautiful; affirming the importance of the aesthetic life; and celebrating the role of art in the life of faith. The disparity between my experience at Art Basel and that of reading these books could not have been greater and more disturbing, particularly for one who is often more critical of the Christian critique of the art world than of the art world itself.

A Broken Beauty: Figuration, Narrative and the Transcendent in North American Art, edited by Theodore Prescott, is the brainchild of painter Bruce Herman, who is chair of the Art Department at Gordon College. A Broken Beauty (hereafter ABB) is a beautiful book with wonderful illustrations of compelling artwork. It also serves as the catalogue for an ambitious traveling exhibition of the paintings of fifteen artists, currently on view at the Laguna Art Museum (through February 26). Herman invited sculptor Ted Prescott to edit the book. Distinguished Professor of Art at Messiah College, Prescott has worked tirelessly to affirm the importance of art for a Christian worldview. Gordon Fuglie, director of the Laband Gallery at Loyola Marymount College in Los Angeles, curated the exhibition and authored two essays. In addition to Prescott's insightful introduction and Fuglie's informative essays, Italian Renaissance scholar Timothy Verdon as well as Northern Renaissance scholar Lisa DeBoer of Westmont College were invited to write essays. DeBoer's essay on the "comic vision" in Northern Renaissance art is itself worth the price of the book and offers much potential for crafting new Christian perspectives for writing about contemporary art.

ABB arises from Herman's commitment to the Classical-Renaissance figurative tradition and his belief in its continued viability and indeed necessity for the contemporary art world. It is through these forms that the visual arts can, once again, address the Good, the True, and the Beautiful from a framework that is unapologetically nourished by Christ, a framework destroyed when modernity severed the bond between art and the Church.

next page... |  1 of 4

share this page

February (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50