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Saturday 20 February 2021

Exploring connections between the Arts and faith

My most recent series here explored the art of contemplation. Entitled Seeing is Receiving, this is a series about art and prayer but is not like any book on prayer you may have read. Most books about prayer are about the words we should speak or, if they are books of prayers, give us the words we are to speak. This is a series using words to bring us to silence. Why? Because when we fall silent we begin to see. Here is the index to the series:

Seeing is Receiving is the latest in my ongoing exploration of connections between the Arts and faith. To explore the contribution made by Christianity to the Arts is important because the story of modern and contemporary Arts 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.

My co-authored book The Secret Chord explored aspects of a similar interplay between faith and music (and the Arts, more broadly). Posts related to the themes of The Secret Chord can be found here. I have also posted an outline summary of the Christian contribution to rock and pop music. Pieces on contemporary choral and classical music are here and here.

Tracing the connections between artists that were either part of the Church and were engaged by the Church in the 20th century is an important element in the argument that the level and extent of the engagement between the Church and the Arts has been more significant than is generally acknowledged. Some of my posts tracing these connections include:
My key literature posts are:
The index to my 'Airbrushed from Art History' series of posts is as follows:

Additions to the series and related posts are as follows:

On my sabbatical in 2014 I enjoyed the opportunity to visit churches in Belgium, England, France and Switzerland to see works of modern and contemporary art. I documented these visits at http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/search/label/sabbatical and they resulted in a series of Church of the Month reports for ArtWay: Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, St Michael and All Angels Berwick, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska and Edmund de Waal.

Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.

I have also reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.

Other of my writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

My pieces for Artlyst are:

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King's X - It's Love.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 17:32
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