Visual Art That Imagines God #dmingml
Chauvet Cave rhino
Visual Art That Imagines God: The Imagination that gave us the Chauvet Caves Paintings and Christian Art.
((tags:dmingml)) #dmingml #dyrness #chauvet cave art
Imagine viewing visual art perhaps produced 30,000- to 33,000 years ago. The Chauvet Cave paintings in southern France are palaeolethic and may be the earliest visual art yet discovered. Paintings of animals - bears, horses, owls, lions, rhinos – predominate painted upon the stone walls. Why are they there? Are these paintings representation of meaning that go beyond the aesthetic of beauty? Did the painters interpret these animals and their depictions as having merely practical meaning, for example sources of danger, were these paintings used to teach the young as a type of pictorial dictionary, or were they representing some spiritual meanings. Perhaps all of these or none of these, yet these paintings give contemporary peoples a glimpse of a world long gone. These paintings meant something to the people who painted and viewed them. The Chauvet Cave paintings have a contemporary relevance in that they remind us that humanity have used visual arts to represent meaning from ancient time – and often this meaning have religious and spiritual meaning. This is seen in the Christian tradition in which visual art have been used to represent theological truth about God, the world and humanity.
William Dyrness in his book, visual faith: art & theology and worship in dialogue, provides a brief survey and discussion of the interaction of visual art, theology, and faith [9, 12]. His concern is primarily tracing the loss of imagination and use of visual art within the Protestant evangelical church post Reformation, particularly for use in worship and direct representation of Christian themes. Dyrness acknowledges that there has not been a total dearth of Christian art and of artists who were Christian during this time, and that there has been a renaissance of visual art used within churches during the latter part of the 20th c. Yet he believes that visual art, and the beauty and goodness that it can represent, remains estranged from the evangelical church with its attendant contribution for worship and witness [22]. Dyrness suggests this is a loss opportunity for the church for two reasons: visual art can be powerful representation of theological ideas, and that ‘the contemporary generation has been raised and nourished by images’ and as such it has an image driven imagination [22]. In other words, the church in recovering an imagination that values, creates and uses visual art [‘a new vision for the arts’, 155] may be able to engage in a renewal of its worship life and practise, and its witness to an image driven generation that finds meaning, religious and other, in the images that are produced and viewed [20].
Dyrness speaks of reclaiming an imagination that, among other things, values visual art as a significant carrier of theological and biblical meaning for the Christian church. This imagination would be explicitly Christian, a way that Christians perceive and understand God, the world and their relationship to both [adapted from Charles Taylor’s idea of social imaginaries]. If visual art carries religious meaning for Christians would it also do the same for palaeolithic peoples; might the paintings in the Chauvet Caves be ‘loaded with symbolic possibilities’ [85] including religious and spiritual meanings particularly relevant in a pre-written word culture? Do the Chauvet Cave paintings represent symbolic meaning that were the product of a cultural imagination, an imagination informed by a world full of mystery and forces neither understood nor controllable by the Chauvet people? Were they used as artefacts for some sort of worship or religious reflection? If so this would suggest that the use of visual art for religious purposes has antecedents that go back thousands of centuries. This may not be appreciated by many contemporary evangelicals [and emerging church people] attempting to use visual art in worship and witness, but it does highlight that what they are doing is not new or unique. And it brings a much deeper meaning to ‘ancient-future’!
Posterous_api Comments (8)
<tr><td>Michael,I liked your review of William Dyrness' book, visual faith: art & theology and worship in dialogue. I think your comments on it not only shade a light of what he wanted to tell his readers but also your understanding of the message within. I agree with you that "Dyrness speaks of reclaiming an imagination that, among other things, values visual art as a significant carrier of theological and biblical meaning for the Christian church."David --- On Tue, 11/8/11, rmceachern's posterous <post@rmceachern.posterous.com> wrote:From: rmceachern's posterous <post@rmceachern.posterous.com>Subject: [rmceachern] Visual Art That Imagines God #dmingmlTo: ndamukiza@yahoo.comDate: Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 8:30 PM </td></tr>
David - thanks brother...do you realise that this is the first exchange we've had re one of our postings...it seems the web stuff have kept us apart :-)
# dmingmlRodger - Great post. I wonder how we recover this Christian imagination that values visual arts? I wonder what type of resistance there would be in a congregation when the church leadership implements a process of actions steps to recover a Christian imagination for visual arts?
#dmingml I forgot - Have you read Charles Taylor's Modern Social Imaginaries? Do you recommend it?
#dmingmlI also wonder that, Tim. In my experience, we often associate "art" with liberal theology (at least this is so among the spirituality in which I was raised), so to use art borders on heresy. Yet art has been used throughout the history of the church, and used effectively to communicate deep theological truths.Certainly we can find creative ways of using visual imagery today in a church that seeks to communicate to a visually oriented culture.Is part of the issue with "visual art" the inability to "control" interpretation? In other words, we control scriptural interpretation through sermons and doctrine. Is there a fear of the inability to control the interpretation of art forms? Or, perhaps, do we church leaders too often have little experience with the arts and are afraid of not being able to understand art so as to provide proper interpretations?Either way, a neglect of art, or to shun art, is not the answer. We would do well to seek to understand artistic expression more clearly and to embrace it enthusiastically.
So Rodger, if all art is an expression of our giftedness, then I think all art must also at least connect with the source of that giftedness.
Tim - since The Secular Age is on our reading for next term I suggest it...Taylor does speak of social imaginaries in it...not as much depth as in the other book...but a good place to start. #dmingmlre your other question...the resistance will depend on a number of factors from education to how it is done to age and familiarity ...? I would think the action steps would need to lay out 1] the purpose of using the arts 2] the way visual arts etc have been used in the context you're in 3] link it with the context of the congregation, for example, how do they use arts in their homes, recreation etc 4]think through what type of art will be used...especially at the beginninng, for example, older people would find lot of colour and action and flashes etc very hard to handle, and many would find dance or modernistic art difficult...and I suspect Asian people would find western art somewhat foreign...a few thoughts of the top of my head...is this going to occur in your new congregation? #dmingml
Mike R - I would think so...and I think most artist would ascribe their inspiration and creativity to something or someone that transcends themselves...whether for them this was God or something else...my father in law is a graphic artist...and even before he was a Christian I remember him saying that when inspiration/creativity came [he described it as something that had an existence of its own] it seemed to come from the outside...now he would ascribed it to God who created the heavens and earth.#dmingml
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