Responses to 'Airbrushed from Art History?' (2)

In his comments about the 'Airbrushed from Art History?' series of posts, Richard Davey wrote firstly that:

"You contradict yourself from the start. Christianity and religious influences have not been airbrushed from art history, as the books and exhibitions you cite demonstrate."

The books and exhibitions that I have cited to date in this series constitute a miniscule proportion of those that address Modern and Contemporary Art as a whole. None of the books and exhibitions that I have cited so far comprehensively address Christian influences on Modern and Contemporary Art and I am unaware of any book or exhibition that seeks to do so.

Books and exhibitions on particular movements will reference Christian influences, as with the books on Symbolism that I have cited thus far, but this is generally as part of a sub-set of influences and usually in terms that are somewhat disparaging e.g. Robert Goldwater's argument that the "clear religious message" of Émile Bernard and Maurice Denis is deterimental to the art or Michelle Facos' statement that the "Catholic revival in art and literature ... frequently descended into xenophobia."

Several of the authors that I have cited make the argument that I have summarised in the phrase 'Airbrushed from Air History.' For instance, in the second post I quoted Mark C. Taylor as arguing that the way in which the influential art critic Clement Greenberg defined the terms of debate "effectively obscures the self-confessed spiritual preoccupations of the very artists whose work he analyzes." In the third post of the series, I reviewed the Traces du Sacré exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, an exhibition about the exploration of spiritual themes within most of the major movements in Modern Art but one which argued that the secularization of society delivered artists from their subordination to the Church and that, as a result, the traces of spirituality found in both Modern and Contemporary Art are ones that stand outside of organised religion (and Christianity, in particular). As Greenberg and Traces du Sacré tell stories of Modern and Contemporary Art in ways that obscure or ignore the Christian influences on the artists whose work they discuss, it seems legitimate to describe this as airbrushing Christian influences out of art history.

Other writers cited in the initial posts make essentially the same argument and I could cite a wider range of writers to support my point. James Elkins in On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art may well be the author who has made this argument most strongly:

"Sooner or later, if you love art, you will come across a strange fact: there is almost no modern religious art in museums or in books of art history. It is a state of affairs that is at once obvious and odd, known to everyone and yet hardly whispered about ... a certain kind of academic art historical writing treats religion as an interloper, something that just has no place in serious scholarship ... Straightforward talk about religion is rare in art departments and art schools, and wholly absent from art journals unless the work in question is transgressive. Sincere, exploratory religious and spiritual work goes unremarked. Students who make works that are infused with spiritual or religious meanings must normally be content with analysis of their works' formal properties, technique, or mode of presentation. Working artists concerned with themes of spirituality (again, excepting work that is critical or ironic about religion) normally will not attract the attention of people who write for art magazines ... An observer of the art world might well come to the conclusion that religious practice and religious ideas are not relevant to the art world unless they are treated with scepticism. And that's odd, because there is a tremendous amount of religious art ..."

For these reasons I think it is legitimate to write of Christian influences as having been airbrushed from art history. To do so does not mean that there are no books of exhibitions where that influence is acknowledged but to say that particular ways of telling the story of Modern and Contemporary Art do underplay or ignore the extent of those influences.

"The problem is not that Christianity has been airbrushed out but that it has been understood and read from outside the parameters of faith."

The initial posts in this series reference the argument that the way in which the story of Modern Art has been told has had a secularising agenda. This is highlighted particularly in the first post where I quote Sally Promey writing that the "strongest determinant in this "modernist divide" regarding art and religion is the lingering paradigm of the secularisation theory of modernity."

I make use of this argument to explain why Christian influences have often been airbrushed from art history while Davey uses it to argue "that the recognition of these influences has come from a particularly secular and disengaged position." The two do not, however, need to be mutually exclusive. It is true that there are books and exhibitions which recognise these influences and I have cited several in these early posts but this does not negate my argument that there are others (of significance and in significant numbers) which ignore or downplay these influences.

Where books and exhibitions do recognise these infuences, as with Goldwater or Facos, I agree with Davey that "the interpretations of works which are informed by a position of faith, or employ christian iconography are largely made from a position of secular theology, which seems to offer a contradictory sensibility to the one the work itself seems to embody, or we feel before a work."

"Theology has airbrushed art out of its history as well. There are any numbers of books including David Brown, George Pattison, Richard Harries etc., which engage with art and use images to offer insights and reflections on theology and biblical studies, But what they engage with is iconography, they do not allow the work of art to be a sensuous embodied thing which offers its own knowledge of the world; providing a natural theology that may not sit comfortably within the confines of theological method and praxis."

I agree fully with both statements made here and don't see these arguments as invalidating the basis of my series, based as it is in art history rather than theological history.

In relation to Davey's first statement, in my second post I highlighted Mark C. Taylor's argument that throughout the twentieth century Christian theologians and philosophers of religion have been, for the most part, either critical or dismissive of the arts. Taylor places the blame for this on the influence of the dialectical theology of Karl Barth.

Davey's second point that, where theologians engage with art, what they often focus on is iconography rather the work as a whole is, I think, also largely correct. This is, I think, the major focus of Daniel A. Siedell too when he suggests in God in the Gallery that contemporary culture does not need the “Christian artists,” for which Protestant writers such as Francis Schaeffer and Hans R. Rookmaaker have argued, instead it needs “critics and curators who have a rich vocabulary from which to revive the sacramental and liturgical identity of human practice and to demonstrate that this identity finds its most complete and profound embodiment in the Nicene Christian faith.” His book was written to offer "a way to do a Christian approach to modern and contemporary art that could accommodate urinals and dripped paint on canvases and chocolate cubes." In other words, to engage as Christians with all art holistically and not just in terms of iconography.

"... just as we need to be careful of approaches that read a secular theology into works that are informed by a metaphysical theology, so we need to beware of reading our own faith into works that are essentially 'secular' [whatever that means]."

I think that this statement holds good in relation to my intentions in this series i.e. that in writing what is essentially art history I should beware of reading Christian influences into works where no evidence exists of such influences being a factor for the artist(s) concerned. However, if we are talking about the work of interpreting art for contemporary culture (the task that Siedell outlined above) then I would argue that interpreting essentially 'secular' (whatever that means) artworks in ways that inform our faith is legitimate as such interpretation is as much about the viewer's response as it is about the artist's intentions providing it responds to the "work of art as a sensuous embodied thing.".

My friend, Alan Stewart, has spoken of this in his 'Icons or Eyesores' presentation which ends by examining responses to Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. He notes Serrano's motivation for the work of critiquing mass produced Christian icongraphy before suggesting that reflecting on the submersion of a crucifix in urine can lead to a profound reflection on the incarnation and crucifixion as a submersion in the detritus of human existence. This reflection is not based on the artist's intention but is nevertheless true to the embodiment of the artwork itself.

"... the real problem, the lack of attention to the work of art itself as something made by an individual with their own subjective space within the world. The issue is not airbrushing, but respect - respect for the work of art as an object itself made by an embodied human being for embodied human beings."

I think that this paragraph shows that what Davey and I are debating are nuances or emphases rather than fundamental differences. I would agree that where airbrushing occurs (and I continue to maintain that there are many examples, both by art historians and theologians) this shows a lack of "respect for the work of art as an object itself made by an embodied human being for embodied human beings"

My intent in this series is to respond to the lack of respect shown to those works and their embodied human creators which are informed by a position of faith, employ christian iconography or are influenced the heritage of Christianity, when these influences/positions are ignored or downplayed. In seeking in a modest fashion through this project to carry that out, I agree that it is also vital that the same respect is shown to works and their interpretation which are essentially 'secular.' I agree that respect is the broader agenda but continue to think that responding to airbrushing where it has occurred is a necessary and legitimate task.

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U2 - Moment Of Surrender.

Airbrushed from Art History? (5)

William S. Rubin dismisses, in Modern Sacred Art and the Church of Assy, the attempt by some Catholic critics of his day to “retroactively cite Paul Gauguin as an important precursor of the revival of sacred art.” Rubin dismisses this view because “although Gauguin made a number of pictures with manifestly religious subject matter, they were conceived from the point of view of the nonbeliever.”

This latter point is supported by Robert Goldwater in Symbolism who notes that Gauguin’s Vision after the Sermon has “a double vision, the religious vision of the Breton women and the monk on the right, and the artist’s own inspired view of them and the power of the faith by which they are inspired.” Gauguin has been inspired, not by any faith of his own, but by “his idea ... of the sincerity and purity of a simple people.” His starting point is “an object of faith,” a symbol, “which in itself already concentrates the mood (idea) he is seeking to depict.” He is therefore “twice removed from nature” and “is free to create an ideal scene.”

Rubin then continues his argument by suggesting that Gauguin’s work “was really isolated from the development of a modern tradition in religious art except indirectly, through his influence on the symbolist esthetic of the Nabis, of which group Maurice Denis was a member.”

There are several issues with this statement. First, one of the distinctive differences in the engagement of Modern and Contemporary Art with religion and spirituality is that many artists explore and are fascinated by issues of faith without explicitly holding a religious faith themselves. As a result, art becomes observation rather than explication of faith for many modern and contemporary artists and Gauguin is possibly the first example of this significant trend.

In Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South Erika Doss gives a more contemporary example of an artist revealing and negotiating issues of faith and spirituality. Assemblage artist Ed Kienholz often employed Christian symbols in his work in order to question and appraise Christian belief by scrutinising its assumptions and practices:

“The installation sculpture 76 J.C.s Led the Big Charade ... features seventy-six framed icons of Christ, mounted on the handles of children’s toy wagons and bearing the arms and feet of baby plastic dolls. Kienhloz admired faith but detested its abuse; he was profoundly cynical, as he said, about “the hypocrite who prays in church on Sunday and then preys on his neighbours and associates the rest of the week.” Made from recycled materials and found objects, Kienholz’s installation clearly calls into question the meaning and practice of religious faith in everyday life.”
Second, if Gauguin did influence Denis then that, by itself, was a major impact on the revival of sacred art, as Denis went on to become arguably the most influential figure of that revival. Finally, it may be that Rubin is viewing the argument from the wrong perspective. In order to see the influence of Christianity on the development of Modern Art in this period it is necessary to look not so much at the influence of Gauguin but at the artist that was himself an influence on Gauguin.

When we ask ourselves why it is that this period finds Gauguin painting pictures that are positive observations of the faith of others, we find that he had a “catalytic encounter” with the fervent Catholic artist Émile Bernard in Pont-Aven during the summer of 1888 which led on to the recruiting of Paul Sérusier in the autumn and then the conversion of the Nabi group in Paris to synthetism. Bernard rediscovered his Catholic faith through visits to Brittany, writing in 1886:
“I returned a devout believer ... Brittany has made a Catholic of me again, capable of fighting for the Church. I was intoxicated by the incense, the organs, the prayers, the ancient stained glass windows, the hieratic tapestries and I travelled back across the centuries, isolating myself increasingly from my contemporaries whose preoccupations with the modern industrial world inspired in me nothing but disgust. Bit by bit, I became a man of the Middle Ages. I had no love for anything save Brittany.”

Bernard expressed this essence or Idea that he held to be a truthful representation of Brittany in the painting Breton Women at a Pardon, a painting that combines a synthetist style with a religious subject matter. Bernard was later to cite this painting as proof of his claim to have introduced Gauguin to the ideas that resulted in the Vision after the Sermon.

The debate over who influenced who has revolved around whether the cloisonnisme developed by Bernard and Louis Anquetin the previous summer influenced the synthetism used by Gauguin in these paintings. Regardless of the whys and wherefores of that argument, it would seem clear that Bernard’s Catholicism influenced the subject matter of Gauguin’s paintings. For instance, Michelle Facos, in Symbolist Art in Context, notes that Gauguin painted Vision after witnessing a Pardon (including its wrestling match, which may have "evoked for Gauguin the biblical episode of Jacob wrestling with the angel") and asks whether Gauguin was "struggling with his own agnosticism in the face of Breton peasant piety and that of the Bernard siblings."

Bernard’s goal was “to create a ‘spiritual meaning’ to match the styles of the past – Byzantine, Egyptian or Gothic, and which, like them ‘collective and religious’, would express the whole epoch.” Bernard aimed to “achieve stylisation and significant harmony” in order to “more profoundly convey the underlying ideas” because that was “where the symbol began.”

Everything was nourishment for this symbolism, Bernard wrote, “nature, the Breton Calvaries, the images d’Épinal, popular poetry ... In sum, symbolism did not paint things, but “the idea of things”.”

Bernard’s writings actually support Rubin’s view of the influence of Gauguin on the revival of sacred art, in that he believed Gauguin to be incapable of spiritual meaning “since he lacked true Christian belief.” As a result, “his work was only a simulacrum, ‘a symbolism without symbol’, and his religious themes, painted only at Bernard’s instigation, were a mere pretence.”

Goldwater contests this claim by using Bernard’s faith to argue for the relative weakness of his work in contrast to that of Gauguin. He claims that Breton Women has no sense of symbolism and remains only a Breton genre scene “concerned with purely visual harmonies.” As a result, he then argues that “Bernard’s work, in comparison with Gauguin’s, does not bear out his philosophical contention that only a formal religious belief can infuse symbolist art with true meaning.” But in arriving at this conclusion Goldwater has to overlook the religious subject matter of Breton Women, something attested to in “an inscription in Bernard’s hand on the verso of the canvas.”

It seems then that his view that “a clear religious message, conceived more in traditional than personal terms” leads Bernard close to a ‘literary’ art, may reflect more of Goldwater’s prior expectations than the synthesis between art and faith that Bernard actually achieved. This is further suggested when Goldwater makes similar criticisms of the effect of Denis’ faith on his art but only on the basis that Denis’ art is focussed on peaceful resolutions rather than struggle and mystery.

In Bernard’s work the idea or symbol – the soul of the Breton people – is intended to emerge simply from the depiction of the women themselves at the Pardon. In this sense he is actually using less traditional Christian imagery than Gauguin in the Vision after the Sermon. The fact that Goldwater can either overlook or ignore this to describe Breton Woman simply as a market genre scene with no symbolism, intended or otherwise, suggests too that Bernard’s symbolic synthesis was not fully realised in this painting.

Bernard’s paintings never achieved the influence of Gauguin’s and his writings never achieved the level of influence of Denis who went on to draw deeply on the ideas and approaches shared between Bernard and Gauguin during the summer of 1888 in Pont-Aven. Nevertheless, Bernard’s influence on Gauguin and through him on the Nabis and the wider development of symbolism was significant and one which came from and through Christianity. So much so, that symbolism itself can be seen as tinged with a religiosity that is, in part, Catholic and Bernard can be understood as a father of symbolism.

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James MacMillan - Veni Veni Emmanuel: V. Gaude Gaude.