Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art and Architecture

For some time I have been arguing on this blog that, as Daniel A. Siedell suggested in God in the Gallery, "an alternative history and theory of the development of modern art" is needed, "revealing that Christianity has always been present with modern art, nourishing as well as haunting it, and that modern art cannot be understood without understanding its religious and spiritual components and aspirations." In my Airbrushed from Art History series of posts I have highlighted some of the artists and movements (together with the books that tell their stories) that should feature in that alternative history when it comes to be written.

Books such as The Image of Christ in Modern Art, Art, Modernity & Faith, Beyond Belief, Christian Art, God in the Gallery and On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art, have all, to some extent, surveyed aspects of an alternative history of modern art revealing "that Christianity has always been present with modern art." However, the Second Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art and Architecture delivers a more comprehensive telling of this alternative history than any previous publication has managed.

The Reverend Tom Devonshire Jones, the editor of this Second Edition, has been aided by over a dozen expert contributors, fully updating the text for the 21st century. Areas that have been expanded upon include the artwork, artists, and innovations of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries (such as the relationship between Christianity and film). Coverage includes art from around the world, with new entries upon the Christian art of North America, Latin America, Australasia, and of the non-Western world, as well as Christian artistic interactions with other religions, including Judaism and Islam.

The story told primarily involves the influence of Christianity on the artworks produced (as with the influence of icons on the work of Kasimir Malevich), the commissioning of artists by the Church or the contribution to the development of modern art by artists who were Christians. The story is told here mainly on a country by country basis and tends to focus on individual artists but nevertheless does cover most of the major movements within which the influence of Christianity was felt - Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Futurism, Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. Also included are excellent descriptions of art from the non-Western world where the focus is rightly on individual artists rather than movements. These descriptions are accurate, comprehensive and concise with insights into the issues faced and the approaches used by those artists included. 

Despite this, there are occasional instances where artists and movements which could have been included are absent. Cubism, for example, is neglected because the work of Albert Gleizes is overlooked in the section on France, although his tutees Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone do feature in relation to the art of  Ireland. Expressionism gets a brief mention in the section on Germany but without mention of work by artists like Emil Nolde and Christian Rohlfs which contains significant engagement with Biblical topics. The decoration of churches in Switzerland (led by Alexandre Cingria) is also overlooked, except in relation to the work of Gino Severini. Folk or Outsider Art is also absent and this has significance because, in the North American context, Outsider Art represents an engagement with the visual arts by the Protestant traditions of the Church and also because in periods within the West where Christianity seems to have lost the intellectual imagination there remain in Folk Art signs that it has retained the Folk imagination. For me, perhaps the most glaring omission is in relation to Eastern Europe where, other than a significant entry on Russia, most modern Eastern European art is overlooked. The influence of the Nazarenes and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Hungary and the sacrum period in Poland are both, I think, worthy of mention, while mention of artists like Kondor Béla, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Walter Navratil and Jerzy Nowosielski would have given a greater sense of the influence of Expressionism on modern Christian Art.    

To explore the Christian contribution to modern and contemporary art in the way which is undertaken in The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art and Architecture is important because the story of modern and contemporary art is often told primarily as a secular story. To redress this imbalance has significance in: encouraging support for those who explore aspects of Christianity in and through the Arts; providing role models for emerging artists who are Christians; and enabling appreciation of the nourishment and haunting which can be had by acknowledging the contribution which Christianity has made to the Arts.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Plant and Band of Joy - Angel Dance.