The Anglican Church of Australia has an interesting archive of images which show many of the art works made for its churches in stained glass, metals, timbers, fabrics and textiles. It is designed to be of general interest, but it is particularly intended for use by those studying the fine arts, and architectural and liturgical history.
Australia has regularly taken a varied and innovative approach to modern and contemporary religious art, including the establishment of an annual prize. The Blake Prize for Religious Art is one of the more prestigious art prizes in Australia. For 55 years it has been awarding a prize for works of art that explore the subject of religious awareness and spirituality.
First awarded in 1951 it has brought to the attention of the art world new and emerging artist as well as allowing for innovation and experimentation of expression. Senior artists like John Coburn, Eric Smith and Rod Milgate first came to attention through their winning entries for the Prize. In more recent years, the Blake has seen something of a revival of interest with increasing numbers of entries and a diversity of ideas being expressed in the works. Recent winners have included George Gittoes, Hilarie Mais and Rachel Ellis.
Rosemary Crumlin, who in 2002 curated a retropective of the Blake Prize, has been described as being "Australia's version of Sister Wendy Beckett:"
"Like Beckett, Crumlin discovered she had two callings - her faith and her love of art. For the past 10 years, she has been a full-time curator and art historian specialising in modern art and spirituality. Among her books are Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Images of Religion in Australian Art and Beyond Belief: Modern Art and the Religious Imagination.
Her main purpose in the retrospective was to show, through the paintings, how society's views on spirituality had changed over half a century:
"Initially, she says, "artists - and the Blake committee - took it for granted that 'religious' meant 'Christian' and that 'Christian' was to be equated with scriptural narratives". Today, artists and judges have a less restricted view of spirituality, encompassing not just other religions such as Judaism, Buddhism and Islam, but alternative faith systems, everything from "New Agism" to Aboriginality."
Such profound changes were reflected in the art with the first winners being essentially figurative works and later winers gradually becoming more abstract.
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Midnight Oil - King Of The Mountain.
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
The Black Rain (3)
“... the vision was as if someone was tearing a hole in the ... sky ... and luminous cylinders began forming in the ripped patch. These cylinders seemed to be interconnected, revolving slowly at first but then accelerating. Black marks appeared on the cylinders which disappeared and a trickle of fat black drops began falling out of the blue sky, a few at first but then in a quickening torrent. The black rain
... That vision of the black rain says very clearly, to me at least, that we live in a world where most of our artists, writers and communicators are obsessed with perversion, crime and violence and this obsession is, in itself, leading the world into a growing disorder.”
(Tom Davies, Testament)
It was in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eight that I was caught up to the seventh heaven and burdened with a vision of our calamitous present. This vision was seared on my memory and has guided my actions ever since. I recount it, now that the battle has been fought and the danger has ebbed, as a warning to future generations.
I was flicking through the digital channels one evening when my plasma screen suddenly multiplied to fill every wall, ceiling and floor in the room with myriad images from the programmes showing simultaneously on a hundred plus separate channels.
The angel that was to become my spiritual guide, Gogol Tomasiah, whispered a question in my ear as I sat stunned by the suddenness of this image multiplication and overwhelmed with the mass of information presented. “What is there in common across all of the programmes and images you can now view?” he asked and immediately I possessed the ability to process multiple images and a memory that became photographic.
I scanned the screens viewing soaps, news, comedies, sports, plays, documentaries, reality shows, games, music videos, cartoons and films searching for commonality among the diversity of genres. In a matter of seconds I laughed, shed tears, mourned, experienced thrills, fear, elation and boredom seeing family arguments, drunken fights, martial arts, torture techniques, abusive language, sexual predators, demonic possession, terrorist atrocities, murder investigations, football hooliganism, child soldiers, rioting protestors, police aggression, self-harming, drug abuse, automobile accidents, plane crashes, knife crime, insults and mockery. I spoke the answer before I knew it.
“Violence.”
Immediately I was raised by Tomasiah to look down from a height on the multiple screens forming my room. The cables from each screen sub-divided like tree roots and connected screen to screen in a vast web of wiring which generated a everlasting relaying of images from screen to screen to screen. The beating of a pensioner in a soap instantly triggered an image of youths attacking an elderly woman on the news which was closely followed by a documentary with fly-on-the-wall images of the actions of those attacking the elderly. Their rooms were seen to be littered with posters of action heroes and when not on the streets they were to be found shooting up and beating up when game playing online. Images chased one another from screen to screen constantly triggering new images in an ever-changing spiral of violence which never yet issued in orgiastic release.
Tomasiah raised me still higher until I could see that the entire web of wiring emanated from a common source. Each cable was ultimately hard-wired into a gigantic, monstrous head throbbing with ideas and images telepathically transmitted through the web of wiring to be blazoned on screen; each idea and image triggering a thousand and one reactions and responses across the interconnecting screens.
Tomasiah was whispering in my ear once again. “This is the head of the romantic Nietzschian superself, humanity come of age in violent self obsession, self absorption and self interest.”
As I watched black marks began to form on the surface of each screen oozing and coalescing into fat black drops which fell from the screens as black rain. These drops rapidly pooled, with the pool growing in size until it became a stream, then a river and then a torrent flooding from the room into the wider world.
I saw this flood sweep over the prayers of the righteous, the preaching of protestants, the writings of theologians and I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for me?”
I answered, “Every word I have spoken is tainted and unclean and those among whom I live use words that corrupt and desecrate.”
Tomasiah held a book in his hand and said, “Let me teach you how to speak.” As he opened the book I saw the story of Israel unfold from its earliest beginnings in the call of Abram to the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings and the Promised Land. I saw the story of a people called out to be a light to the nations, Israel’s story, and from that people I saw one man come to retell that selfsame story through his life and death and life again.
Under Tomasiah’s guidance I descended to the room of screens and directly into the black torrent. Barely able to keep my head above the poisonous ink in which my body was submerged, Tomasiah implored me to speak.
In my panic I spoke what I saw on the screens and my words became black flies which swirled and swarmed about my head pushing me under. The black rain was in my eyes and in my mouth. My eyes stung from its poisons and my tongue tasted its acrid, oily horror. My head filled with scenes of violence – shootings, stabbings, bombings, suicides - I sunk under its swell my nostrils filling with its glutinous slime and then, not a moment too late, I finally understood what I had to say.
In a moment of insight and revelation, I saw a victim of this tide of violence and spoke of the victim that I saw, naming the elderly woman and the effect on herself and her family of the attack and robbery inflicted on her. As I did so, my head was raised above the acrid swell, I breathed the air, and a fleck of gold appeared in the coal black waters.
Rapidly, I spoke of the neighbour who heard the sound of the attack, who called the police and who tended her wounds. I spoke of the paramedics who brought her to hospital and the medics whose skills healed her. I spoke of the family who brought her flowers, grapes, magazines, love and the hope that sustained her. As I told their story and retold this story of violence as one of compassion, the flecks of gold in the black waters conjoined and became a shaft of light piercing the darkness.
I continued by retelling the story of her attackers in terms of the deprivations that had mounted around them from birth and the teacher who refused to give up on them and was finally able to reach them in the guilt that followed their arrest. I retold violent video games by means of compassionate passers-by caring for their victims and sacrificing themselves to embrace the violent. I retold soap family conflicts as confrontations with truth resulting in forgiveness. I retold murder trials as acts of restorative justice.
I spoke for the victims - spoke “for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed / For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse” - and read into their stories people of compassion and care and, as I retold stories in this way, the shafts of golden light began to push back the darkness of the black rain’s falling.
Then Tomasiah showed me that the water had become crystal bright. It now flowed from the Throne of God right down the middle of the room. Trees appeared in each screen planted on each side of the one River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations.
Tomasiah said to me, "The words you have spoken are dependable and accurate, every one. The God and Master of the spirits of the prophets sent me to show what is taking place and to tell all, 'Yes, I am on my way!'”
Tomasiah continued, "Don't seal up the words of this prophecy; don't put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up. Let the black rain go all out in pollution, but let the wright storytellers reread the stories of their times and turn back the polluting tide.
Let them tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it and reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it. Stand on the ocean until you start sinking, know your song well before you start singing, cause it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.”
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Bryan Ferry - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.
... That vision of the black rain says very clearly, to me at least, that we live in a world where most of our artists, writers and communicators are obsessed with perversion, crime and violence and this obsession is, in itself, leading the world into a growing disorder.”
(Tom Davies, Testament)
It was in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eight that I was caught up to the seventh heaven and burdened with a vision of our calamitous present. This vision was seared on my memory and has guided my actions ever since. I recount it, now that the battle has been fought and the danger has ebbed, as a warning to future generations.
I was flicking through the digital channels one evening when my plasma screen suddenly multiplied to fill every wall, ceiling and floor in the room with myriad images from the programmes showing simultaneously on a hundred plus separate channels.
The angel that was to become my spiritual guide, Gogol Tomasiah, whispered a question in my ear as I sat stunned by the suddenness of this image multiplication and overwhelmed with the mass of information presented. “What is there in common across all of the programmes and images you can now view?” he asked and immediately I possessed the ability to process multiple images and a memory that became photographic.
I scanned the screens viewing soaps, news, comedies, sports, plays, documentaries, reality shows, games, music videos, cartoons and films searching for commonality among the diversity of genres. In a matter of seconds I laughed, shed tears, mourned, experienced thrills, fear, elation and boredom seeing family arguments, drunken fights, martial arts, torture techniques, abusive language, sexual predators, demonic possession, terrorist atrocities, murder investigations, football hooliganism, child soldiers, rioting protestors, police aggression, self-harming, drug abuse, automobile accidents, plane crashes, knife crime, insults and mockery. I spoke the answer before I knew it.
“Violence.”
Immediately I was raised by Tomasiah to look down from a height on the multiple screens forming my room. The cables from each screen sub-divided like tree roots and connected screen to screen in a vast web of wiring which generated a everlasting relaying of images from screen to screen to screen. The beating of a pensioner in a soap instantly triggered an image of youths attacking an elderly woman on the news which was closely followed by a documentary with fly-on-the-wall images of the actions of those attacking the elderly. Their rooms were seen to be littered with posters of action heroes and when not on the streets they were to be found shooting up and beating up when game playing online. Images chased one another from screen to screen constantly triggering new images in an ever-changing spiral of violence which never yet issued in orgiastic release.
Tomasiah raised me still higher until I could see that the entire web of wiring emanated from a common source. Each cable was ultimately hard-wired into a gigantic, monstrous head throbbing with ideas and images telepathically transmitted through the web of wiring to be blazoned on screen; each idea and image triggering a thousand and one reactions and responses across the interconnecting screens.
Tomasiah was whispering in my ear once again. “This is the head of the romantic Nietzschian superself, humanity come of age in violent self obsession, self absorption and self interest.”
As I watched black marks began to form on the surface of each screen oozing and coalescing into fat black drops which fell from the screens as black rain. These drops rapidly pooled, with the pool growing in size until it became a stream, then a river and then a torrent flooding from the room into the wider world.
I saw this flood sweep over the prayers of the righteous, the preaching of protestants, the writings of theologians and I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for me?”
I answered, “Every word I have spoken is tainted and unclean and those among whom I live use words that corrupt and desecrate.”
Tomasiah held a book in his hand and said, “Let me teach you how to speak.” As he opened the book I saw the story of Israel unfold from its earliest beginnings in the call of Abram to the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings and the Promised Land. I saw the story of a people called out to be a light to the nations, Israel’s story, and from that people I saw one man come to retell that selfsame story through his life and death and life again.
Under Tomasiah’s guidance I descended to the room of screens and directly into the black torrent. Barely able to keep my head above the poisonous ink in which my body was submerged, Tomasiah implored me to speak.
In my panic I spoke what I saw on the screens and my words became black flies which swirled and swarmed about my head pushing me under. The black rain was in my eyes and in my mouth. My eyes stung from its poisons and my tongue tasted its acrid, oily horror. My head filled with scenes of violence – shootings, stabbings, bombings, suicides - I sunk under its swell my nostrils filling with its glutinous slime and then, not a moment too late, I finally understood what I had to say.
In a moment of insight and revelation, I saw a victim of this tide of violence and spoke of the victim that I saw, naming the elderly woman and the effect on herself and her family of the attack and robbery inflicted on her. As I did so, my head was raised above the acrid swell, I breathed the air, and a fleck of gold appeared in the coal black waters.
Rapidly, I spoke of the neighbour who heard the sound of the attack, who called the police and who tended her wounds. I spoke of the paramedics who brought her to hospital and the medics whose skills healed her. I spoke of the family who brought her flowers, grapes, magazines, love and the hope that sustained her. As I told their story and retold this story of violence as one of compassion, the flecks of gold in the black waters conjoined and became a shaft of light piercing the darkness.
I continued by retelling the story of her attackers in terms of the deprivations that had mounted around them from birth and the teacher who refused to give up on them and was finally able to reach them in the guilt that followed their arrest. I retold violent video games by means of compassionate passers-by caring for their victims and sacrificing themselves to embrace the violent. I retold soap family conflicts as confrontations with truth resulting in forgiveness. I retold murder trials as acts of restorative justice.
I spoke for the victims - spoke “for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed / For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse” - and read into their stories people of compassion and care and, as I retold stories in this way, the shafts of golden light began to push back the darkness of the black rain’s falling.
Then Tomasiah showed me that the water had become crystal bright. It now flowed from the Throne of God right down the middle of the room. Trees appeared in each screen planted on each side of the one River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations.
Tomasiah said to me, "The words you have spoken are dependable and accurate, every one. The God and Master of the spirits of the prophets sent me to show what is taking place and to tell all, 'Yes, I am on my way!'”
Tomasiah continued, "Don't seal up the words of this prophecy; don't put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up. Let the black rain go all out in pollution, but let the wright storytellers reread the stories of their times and turn back the polluting tide.
Let them tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it and reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it. Stand on the ocean until you start sinking, know your song well before you start singing, cause it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.”
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Bryan Ferry - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Windows on the world (36)
Worth, 2008
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Roger McGuinn -May The Road Rise Up To Meet You.
The question of Jesus' baptism
The baptism of Jesus raises a question for us? It is a question that John the Baptist raised at the time because, in Matthew’s Gospel, we read that he tried to make Jesus change his mind about being baptised.
Why did he do that? He realised who Jesus was and how great Jesus was, as verse 7 of our Gospel reading told us, he had said that he was not good enough even to bend down and untie Jesus’ sandals, so how could he possibly baptise Jesus? More than that he had preached, that people should turn away from their sins and be baptised and God would forgive their sins. But Jesus had never sinned, so what possible need did he have of baptism?
We know, though, that Jesus insisted on being baptised saying that it was what God required. So what was going on when Jesus was baptised and what did his baptism signify if it was not a sign of the forgiveness of his sins?
Jesus’ baptism is actually a profound sign of what he was doing through his incarnation and what he would do through his death. In the waters of baptism we die to our old sinful way of life as our body literally is submerged under the water and we leave that old way of live behind – drowned or buried – as we rise to new life in Christ.
Jesus had no need to do that because he was already free of sin but by becoming a human being he immerses himself in a world and a human existence that is sinful, that does fall short of the glory of God. He immerses himself in our world and existence so fully, without being compromised by it, that it would eventually overwhelm and kill him on the cross.
In this way he went under the waters into death but he did so as a willing and sinless victim allowing the sinful nature of our world and existence to overwhelm him because he wished, out of love for us, to take the weight of our sin upon him, to be crushed by it and to die so that when he rose up out of the waters of death through his resurrection he had taken onto himself all that poisons our lives enabling us to follow in dying to sin and rising to new life.
His baptism then is both an identification with us in our humanity and the first step in forming a new forgiven and free humanity. The two things were made apparent by his baptism in water which is his identification with us and by the baptism in the Spirit which followed in which God confirmed him as his dearly loved Son. His baptism is then a rich portrait of what incarnation means; that God has become human and that humanity can truly reflect and image God.
It must have been a wonderful moment, a mountain-top moment. It was the culmination of all that Jesus had come to believe about himself while he had grown up in Nazareth. He would have read scriptures, such as Isaiah 42 our reading for this evening’s service, in which the Lord says, “Here is my servant, whom I strengthen – the one I have chosen, with whom I am pleased,” and he would have heard an inner voice telling him that that scripture was speaking about him. As he grew, he would have had doubts about whether the voice he heard was truly that of God but now, following his baptism, he hears God speaking those same words to him, “You are my own dear Son, I am pleased with you,” in the hearing of all who had gathered at the Jordan river that day.
What a wonderful and affirming moment; a moment in which all the strands of his life and belief come together and make perfect sense. I wonder if we remember similar times within our own lives; times when we understood God and ourselves, times when parts of our lives that had seemed broken or separated suddenly came together and were reconciled. Think for a moment about those moments in your life we you have been at your happiest, when life has seemed good and you have been at your best. Where were you at the time and what were those moments like for you?
One such moment in my life came during a Christian camp as a teenager. I had listened to a sermon in which God had seemed to be speaking directly to me about things that I knew were wrong in my life and so when the preacher invited people to come forward for prayer, I went. I wasn’t the only person that God had spoken to through that sermon, in fact there were so many that there weren’t sufficient people to pray with those who had come forward. So I sat on a chair myself and poured out my heart to God telling him everything that I needed to repent of and recommitting myself to him. As I did so, I experienced an overwhelming sense of joy that could only be expressed in laughter. I sat and laughed. I walked around the campsite in the shadow of the Malvern Hills looking up at the night sky and laughed. I went back to our tents and my friends and still could do nothing other than laugh continuously.
I have never experienced a moment like that, before or since, but look back on it as a moment when God was very real and when I knew his love within my whole being. It was a wonderful and affirming moment; a moment in which all the strands of my life and belief came together and made perfect sense. But I could not continue to live in that moment any more than Jesus could.
What happened next for Jesus was that “the Spirit made him go into the desert, where he stayed 40 days, being tempted by Satan.” From the mountain-top to the wilderness, that was what happened for Jesus. And that is how it often is for us too.
But Jesus had been strengthened and affirmed by his baptism experience, so much so that he was able to resist the temptations he faced in the desert. We need to view our mountain-top experiences in the same way. I cannot live life continually laughing, if I did it is likely that I would be locked up – but I can draw on the reality of that moment. I can take strength from the reality of its occurring. I can believe that even though I don’t continually feel that joy, nevertheless that joy exists and will return.
That is how it would have been for Jesus too and we can also draw from his experience in the same way. His baptism shows us the reality of the incarnation; the depth of his love in identifying with us and the glory of his being the Father’s own dear Son with whom he is pleased. Because he has identified himself with us, we can be identified with him and share that glory, the glory of being the precious children of our heavenly Father.
We may not always feel the wonder or reality of that, we may not always see God clearly in other Christians or especially in ourselves; that may not be our experience at this moment but even if it is not we can look at Jesus coming up out of the water, seeing heaven opening and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove and know that the incarnation is true and that as a result we are children of that same heavenly Father, whether we feel it now or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn!
Why did he do that? He realised who Jesus was and how great Jesus was, as verse 7 of our Gospel reading told us, he had said that he was not good enough even to bend down and untie Jesus’ sandals, so how could he possibly baptise Jesus? More than that he had preached, that people should turn away from their sins and be baptised and God would forgive their sins. But Jesus had never sinned, so what possible need did he have of baptism?
We know, though, that Jesus insisted on being baptised saying that it was what God required. So what was going on when Jesus was baptised and what did his baptism signify if it was not a sign of the forgiveness of his sins?
Jesus’ baptism is actually a profound sign of what he was doing through his incarnation and what he would do through his death. In the waters of baptism we die to our old sinful way of life as our body literally is submerged under the water and we leave that old way of live behind – drowned or buried – as we rise to new life in Christ.
Jesus had no need to do that because he was already free of sin but by becoming a human being he immerses himself in a world and a human existence that is sinful, that does fall short of the glory of God. He immerses himself in our world and existence so fully, without being compromised by it, that it would eventually overwhelm and kill him on the cross.
In this way he went under the waters into death but he did so as a willing and sinless victim allowing the sinful nature of our world and existence to overwhelm him because he wished, out of love for us, to take the weight of our sin upon him, to be crushed by it and to die so that when he rose up out of the waters of death through his resurrection he had taken onto himself all that poisons our lives enabling us to follow in dying to sin and rising to new life.
His baptism then is both an identification with us in our humanity and the first step in forming a new forgiven and free humanity. The two things were made apparent by his baptism in water which is his identification with us and by the baptism in the Spirit which followed in which God confirmed him as his dearly loved Son. His baptism is then a rich portrait of what incarnation means; that God has become human and that humanity can truly reflect and image God.
It must have been a wonderful moment, a mountain-top moment. It was the culmination of all that Jesus had come to believe about himself while he had grown up in Nazareth. He would have read scriptures, such as Isaiah 42 our reading for this evening’s service, in which the Lord says, “Here is my servant, whom I strengthen – the one I have chosen, with whom I am pleased,” and he would have heard an inner voice telling him that that scripture was speaking about him. As he grew, he would have had doubts about whether the voice he heard was truly that of God but now, following his baptism, he hears God speaking those same words to him, “You are my own dear Son, I am pleased with you,” in the hearing of all who had gathered at the Jordan river that day.
What a wonderful and affirming moment; a moment in which all the strands of his life and belief come together and make perfect sense. I wonder if we remember similar times within our own lives; times when we understood God and ourselves, times when parts of our lives that had seemed broken or separated suddenly came together and were reconciled. Think for a moment about those moments in your life we you have been at your happiest, when life has seemed good and you have been at your best. Where were you at the time and what were those moments like for you?
One such moment in my life came during a Christian camp as a teenager. I had listened to a sermon in which God had seemed to be speaking directly to me about things that I knew were wrong in my life and so when the preacher invited people to come forward for prayer, I went. I wasn’t the only person that God had spoken to through that sermon, in fact there were so many that there weren’t sufficient people to pray with those who had come forward. So I sat on a chair myself and poured out my heart to God telling him everything that I needed to repent of and recommitting myself to him. As I did so, I experienced an overwhelming sense of joy that could only be expressed in laughter. I sat and laughed. I walked around the campsite in the shadow of the Malvern Hills looking up at the night sky and laughed. I went back to our tents and my friends and still could do nothing other than laugh continuously.
I have never experienced a moment like that, before or since, but look back on it as a moment when God was very real and when I knew his love within my whole being. It was a wonderful and affirming moment; a moment in which all the strands of my life and belief came together and made perfect sense. But I could not continue to live in that moment any more than Jesus could.
What happened next for Jesus was that “the Spirit made him go into the desert, where he stayed 40 days, being tempted by Satan.” From the mountain-top to the wilderness, that was what happened for Jesus. And that is how it often is for us too.
But Jesus had been strengthened and affirmed by his baptism experience, so much so that he was able to resist the temptations he faced in the desert. We need to view our mountain-top experiences in the same way. I cannot live life continually laughing, if I did it is likely that I would be locked up – but I can draw on the reality of that moment. I can take strength from the reality of its occurring. I can believe that even though I don’t continually feel that joy, nevertheless that joy exists and will return.
That is how it would have been for Jesus too and we can also draw from his experience in the same way. His baptism shows us the reality of the incarnation; the depth of his love in identifying with us and the glory of his being the Father’s own dear Son with whom he is pleased. Because he has identified himself with us, we can be identified with him and share that glory, the glory of being the precious children of our heavenly Father.
We may not always feel the wonder or reality of that, we may not always see God clearly in other Christians or especially in ourselves; that may not be our experience at this moment but even if it is not we can look at Jesus coming up out of the water, seeing heaven opening and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove and know that the incarnation is true and that as a result we are children of that same heavenly Father, whether we feel it now or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn!
Sunday, 11 January 2009
The Black Rain (2)
The meaning and mystery of Tom Davies' vision of the Black Rain is, he writes, that:
"The modern media has become the mother and father of all terrorism everywhere. It was also clear to me that a media in love with violence was responsible for most major crimes in our modern world from the assassinations of our leading figures, particularly in America, to the alarming spread of violence on our housing estates and soccer hooliganism in our stadiums."
"The modern media has become the mother and father of all terrorism everywhere. It was also clear to me that a media in love with violence was responsible for most major crimes in our modern world from the assassinations of our leading figures, particularly in America, to the alarming spread of violence on our housing estates and soccer hooliganism in our stadiums."
Additionally, "The vision of the black rain says very clearly, to me at least, that we live in a world where most of our artists, writers and communicators are obsessed with perversion, crime and violence and this obsession is, in itself, leading the world into a growing disorder."
A media obsessed with perversion, crime and violence grows copycat violence in those who participate in its obsessions which in turn creates new images on which the media can feed.
The strength of this vision can be seen in the quantity and frequency of violent images that can be found in all forms of media. We are immersed in violent imagery whenever we watch TV, read a newspaper or play a computer game. It is commonly accepted in advertising that images can become surrogate objects of desire or other emotions but in other media this same association becomes contested. Davies is arguing for a direct link between the flood of violent imagery in the media and copycat actions in those who become obsessed with such imagery.
The weakness of the vision is in its lack of discrimination between those portrayals of violence that critique or explore the sources of violence and those portrayals that glorify violence or use it gratuitously. For example, in a Caradoc article he sees the television dramatist Dennis Potter as characterising this Romantic Mind that he identifies as a tide of evil. Potter was stereotyped in the tabloid press as Dirty Den, a sex-obsessed Mr Filth of television, but, as I wrote in an early post, he was also the TV dramatist with the most pronounced religious vision.
Davies' vision, therefore, seems to take no account of either authorial/editorial intent or the narrative of the pieces he criticises. His focus seems solely on the portrayal of violent, criminal or perverse imagery when he writes about his visions and not on the way in which these are used within the work itself. Interestingly, when it comes to his own novels we do not find an absence of violence, crime or perversion. Instead, these things are set within the moral framework of his visions and are then presumably justified by this intent and narrative. The central dilemma of Davies' writings and visions, it seems to me, is that his visions are actually expressed in the same romantic and violent imagery that they seek to critique.
At the same time as reading Davies' Testament I was also reading and reviewing Daniel A. Siedell's God in the Gallery. Siedell has a much more positive vision of contemporary culture claiming that “remarkably beautiful, compelling, and powerful” ‘altars to the unknown god’ are “strewn about the historical landscape of modern and contemporary art.” Such altars are artworks whose insights point to, but do not name, Christ. Siedell argues that such cultural artifacts and the insights they reveal and illuminate should be examined and celebrated by Christians and ultimately bent toward the gospel, making them work “as a means of apologetic grace.”
The two approaches are clearly opposed, at least when neither are nuanced. So, which is right or is there some way to hold both together? Siedell's argument if taken to its logical conclusion, which Siedell does not do, would mean that all art could be bent toward the gospel. I accept enough of Davies' argument to think that, although "beautiful, compelling and powerful altars to the unknown god" can be found in many surprising places, some artworks embody values, narratives or images whic are simply opposed to the values, narratives and images of Christianity. Juliette and Grand Theft Auto would seem to be two disparate examples.
The Christian critic then should not simply celebrate, à la Siedell, or condemn, à la Davies, but do what all good critics do by celebrating the positive and critiquing the inadequate and having some underlying methodological basis for making such judgements. However, there is a further and more post-modern means of combining aspects of the two and that is for the Christian artist or critic to re-tell or re-present narratives or images of violence in terms of their victims. This is an approach that I will explore through fiction in the final post in this series.
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Bruce Springsteen - Chimes Of Freedom.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Poetry treated in a religious spirit
There is an excellent article by Michael Symmons Roberts in today's Times on the poetry of John Berryman.
The article concludes:
"T. S. Eliot warned against a religious poetry that “leaves out what men and women consider their major passions, and thereby confesses to an ignorance of them”, but argued instead for “the whole subject of poetry” to be treated in “a religious spirit”.
For Berryman, the “whole subject” included radioactivity, chicken paprika, mistresses, Lana Turner, Kleenex and the pearly gates. Is it possible to write religious poetry that communicates widely in an increasingly secular language? Berryman’s Dream Songs say yes."
I concur wholeheartedly!
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James Macmillan - Veni Veni Emmanuel: II. Heartbeats.
The article concludes:
"T. S. Eliot warned against a religious poetry that “leaves out what men and women consider their major passions, and thereby confesses to an ignorance of them”, but argued instead for “the whole subject of poetry” to be treated in “a religious spirit”.
For Berryman, the “whole subject” included radioactivity, chicken paprika, mistresses, Lana Turner, Kleenex and the pearly gates. Is it possible to write religious poetry that communicates widely in an increasingly secular language? Berryman’s Dream Songs say yes."
I concur wholeheartedly!
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James Macmillan - Veni Veni Emmanuel: II. Heartbeats.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Launching commission4mission
Not Worthy So Much by Henry Shelton
Worth Abbey by Jonathan Evens
Bishop David with landscape
The Garden Door by Celia Ward
Pieta by Rosalind HoreA new arts organisation formed by artists and clergy within the Chelmsford Diocese is to be launched in March 2009. commission4mission aims to encourage the commissioning and placing of contemporary Christian Art in churches, as a means of fundraising for charities and as a mission opportunity for the churches involved.
commission4mission is the brainchild of the artist Henry Shelton, a member of All Saints Goodmayes, and has Bishop David as its Patron. The organisation will be launched on Saturday 7th March with an event at St Albans Romford beginning at 2.00pm. Bishop David will give a keynote address and Fr. Roderick Hingley will give an art tour of the many recent commissions installed at St Albans. A brief AGM will be followed by refreshments and the event is open to all who wish to find out more about this exciting new venture.
For more information about the launch event, joining commission4mission, commissioning work or hosting an exhibition, please contact me on 020 8599 2170 or jonathan.evens@btinternet.com.
commission4mission is the brainchild of the artist Henry Shelton, a member of All Saints Goodmayes, and has Bishop David as its Patron. The organisation will be launched on Saturday 7th March with an event at St Albans Romford beginning at 2.00pm. Bishop David will give a keynote address and Fr. Roderick Hingley will give an art tour of the many recent commissions installed at St Albans. A brief AGM will be followed by refreshments and the event is open to all who wish to find out more about this exciting new venture.
The idea for commission4mission was developed after Bishop David dedicated a set of memorial etched glass windows by Henry Shelton at All Saints Goodmayes. Bishop David says:
“I think there is a big need to re-engage with the Arts. The Church has had a lengthy and happy marriage with the Arts in the past but this has eroded in recent times. I agree with Rowan Williams that the Church needs more artists and “that artists are special people but every person is a special kind of artist.” I think that there is great scope in the Church encouraging creative expression in everyone as this is a way of helping us to be fully human. Where appropriate that flowering of artistic expression can be expressed in Church as, for example, an outflow of worship. We are fellow-creators with God and need to remember that he is creator as well as redeemer.”
Henry Shelton agrees and explains that:
“the purpose of the Society will be to promote modern Christian Art in all its forms (i.e. painting, sculpture, music etc.) and by doing so to raise money for charity, particularly children’s charities. I want us to be offering quality work and craftsmanship, rather than mass-produced work, to continue the legacy of the Church as a great commissioner of art. The Church has, in fact, commissioned some of the greatest works of art ever produced.”
St Albans Romford has been chosen as the venue for the launch of commission4mission on account of more than 20 separate commissions leading to twelve Diocesan Advisory Committee Design Awards. Among the most significant of these are fifteen Stations of the Cross by Charles Gurrey, a Christus Rex by Peter Eugene Ball, seven stained glass windows by Patrick Reyntiens and a chancel ceiling mural by Mark Cazalet.
Fr. Roderick Hingley is the Parish Priest who has led the transformation of St Alban, Protomartyr, Romford from being a modest suburban church into a place of beauty and excellence that can be seen as a centre for significant works of Ecclesiastical Art. He believes the Visual Arts are “a great vehicle for communicating the Christian Gospel,” thinks that we are living through an exciting period in Ecclesiastical Art and, therefore, encourages others to be bold, creative and adventurous in the commissioning of original art.
Membership of commission4mission is open to any Christian artist (of any discipline) or supporter of Christian Art. commission4mission promotes the purchase of artworks by churches through donations given in memory of loved ones, with these people being commemorated in plaques placed (wherever possible) on or near the artwork itself. All commissions undertaken by commission4mission involve a significant proportion of the overall cost being donated to charity.
Interest in commission4mission prior to its launch has been considerable with artists joining the organisation, potential commissions being explored, and plans developed for future exhibitions and events, including a showcase exhibition and study day at Chelmsford Cathedral in November 2009.
“I think there is a big need to re-engage with the Arts. The Church has had a lengthy and happy marriage with the Arts in the past but this has eroded in recent times. I agree with Rowan Williams that the Church needs more artists and “that artists are special people but every person is a special kind of artist.” I think that there is great scope in the Church encouraging creative expression in everyone as this is a way of helping us to be fully human. Where appropriate that flowering of artistic expression can be expressed in Church as, for example, an outflow of worship. We are fellow-creators with God and need to remember that he is creator as well as redeemer.”
Henry Shelton agrees and explains that:
“the purpose of the Society will be to promote modern Christian Art in all its forms (i.e. painting, sculpture, music etc.) and by doing so to raise money for charity, particularly children’s charities. I want us to be offering quality work and craftsmanship, rather than mass-produced work, to continue the legacy of the Church as a great commissioner of art. The Church has, in fact, commissioned some of the greatest works of art ever produced.”
St Albans Romford has been chosen as the venue for the launch of commission4mission on account of more than 20 separate commissions leading to twelve Diocesan Advisory Committee Design Awards. Among the most significant of these are fifteen Stations of the Cross by Charles Gurrey, a Christus Rex by Peter Eugene Ball, seven stained glass windows by Patrick Reyntiens and a chancel ceiling mural by Mark Cazalet.
Fr. Roderick Hingley is the Parish Priest who has led the transformation of St Alban, Protomartyr, Romford from being a modest suburban church into a place of beauty and excellence that can be seen as a centre for significant works of Ecclesiastical Art. He believes the Visual Arts are “a great vehicle for communicating the Christian Gospel,” thinks that we are living through an exciting period in Ecclesiastical Art and, therefore, encourages others to be bold, creative and adventurous in the commissioning of original art.
Membership of commission4mission is open to any Christian artist (of any discipline) or supporter of Christian Art. commission4mission promotes the purchase of artworks by churches through donations given in memory of loved ones, with these people being commemorated in plaques placed (wherever possible) on or near the artwork itself. All commissions undertaken by commission4mission involve a significant proportion of the overall cost being donated to charity.
Interest in commission4mission prior to its launch has been considerable with artists joining the organisation, potential commissions being explored, and plans developed for future exhibitions and events, including a showcase exhibition and study day at Chelmsford Cathedral in November 2009.
For more information about the launch event, joining commission4mission, commissioning work or hosting an exhibition, please contact me on 020 8599 2170 or jonathan.evens@btinternet.com.
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Lone Justice - Shelter.
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