No problem with the contribution, thanks for visiting my site and the compliment.

I did not mention my art for self promotion but just as a reference point and that I understand why some artist just make art and do not try to explain the work.

I think art is neither christian or secular it all depends on what the person viewing it brings to the table, without all the verbage and writing about a piece of art I wonder if most people would see what the artist is aiming at if not explained I find it ironic that a visual medium has so much writing attached to it.(unless we are talking about sequential art, but thats something else entirely)

In no other form of art (the visual that is) do people, artist feel the need to write about there intentions or there meanings. I include myself in that group as if me explaining the work helps it along, sometimes I wonder why some of these visual artist do not just become writers.

The writer… lets say, Hemingway never said my book is about this or that then uses a painting to say this is what is meant.Sorry that all my words got in the way.

I think great art is being made by artist that are Christian, its just being done under the radar or in small pockets, in communities around the globe.

Thanks for having a blog like this to discuss such subject matter,also went back and read some of your other post.

Which makes me ask what are your favorite comicbook stories, issues, and series.

and favorite art, artist, in the comicbook realm. past or current.

I’m a christian that happens to do art part-time.

As to the painting above the sofa I do not have any of that type of art in my home and I think in many years down the road if and when my art is looked at.I hope people are going to see and artist struggling with the idea of being caught in this world and how I was trying to break away from being stuck in one place like my gargoyle series is driving at.(Whenever I have mentioned to other christians that I have painted a series of whimsical gargoyles on the sides of buildings they have said “you know gargoyles are evil,scary,” etc… most of my art would be a very hard sell to most if not all churches) but I am trying to engage a conversation with my modern world, and wrestle with being a christian and being artistic, and the issues of are time.

The other problem with art within the church now a days is that it has to meet with approval of many people therefore almost causing a knee jerk reaction with artist that want to work within the church and be seen as a “christian” art. This then can cause some artist to then create a piece of art that is very “Kitsch” or
soft, sugary etc…. sometimes this art is fine the only problem is that it becomes the standard and if you try something different from the standard it gets tossed aside to a later time this happens with all forms of art and in every culture not just the christian realm.

They create the banal not because it’s all they can do but because that is what pleases us.

The problem is that they are trying to make a Christian movie, not a good movie. One ends up precluding the other. Durer made “good” art. Bach made “good” art. However Christians won’t face enough of life to make good art these days. Their view is stilted and so is their work, and as I said in the other thread is equal artistically to pornography, because both begin with a certain intent-and it is not to make art. It is to bring in a certain crowd who may then indulge in some sort of unrealistic fantasy that involves only a small part of the self. Both are pure utilitarianism, using people and the medium as commodities with respect for neither. Both give some empty sense of pleasure through abasement. People laugh, but they do so because this usually has Christian “art” dead to rights.

This is a statement I think that needs to be made to Christians more often if only to shake them. Your “art” is no better artistically than porn. Your attempts to keep things wholesome and shiny so other Christians will approve are theologically unsound, and make poor films with false ideas.

I do not and will not applaud efforts that I feel set back art in the Christian world, nor that which presents a “family friendly” alternative. It is pure escapism, just as porn is. Everything appears just about as easily and is as fake as a boob job. People then have equally unrealistic expectations. But the Christian faith is grounded in reality. The REAL. The messy. The painful. Show me the ostensibly “Christian” film that shows this (not that I deny there may be a few out there, but I certainly have never seen one). That is where you will see the gospel truly and powerfully worked out.

One of our problems I think is that we no longer really know what art is, and therefore have difficulty judging it. This is one of the losses of our culture that Christians should not be on the forefront of. We dislike the decay we see elsewhere, but we embrace this decay wholeheartedly. One would ask why. Why does truly great art often disturb us, cause a protest and turn us back to our banal garbage? This is at least in part the result of our hatred of critical thinking. And such anti-intellectualism is something that several historians have traced back to Christian movements.

Abstract art is hated by many Christians for the same reason. There is no easy, trite answer in it. Music must have lyrics explicitly stating the song’s Christianity. The film must not have any immorality and include a gospel invitation. The painting must be a representational picture of fuzzy kittens. This makes it easier to swallow wholesale without thinking. Spoonful of sugar and all that.

We are capable of better.

Thanks for the brief thoughts. ;) But really, thanks for the thoughts. I agree with the tenets of what you’ve said.

You had said:

The emptiness of postmodernity (in regards to the arts) has not been answered by the Christian community, but rather ignored with its own version of similar emptiness…But the Christian Arts don’t seem to be saying anything at all.

It’s not there isn’t something being said, it just seems to lack meaningful interaction with the current culture. It’s all couched in religiously cheesy overtones which make the world cringe. Now, there is a sense in which the world will mainly reject the gospel. But, such people are creating things to ‘reach the lost’, but then they don’t reach the lost, and so when they fail in reaching them and drawing them in, the easy thing is just to explain it as, ‘Well, they are hard-hearted to God’s truth. We can’t expect them to like it.’

Instead, as we know, the answer is to consider how to meaningfully present the gospel in the current day and culture. But because so much seems to be lacking, we find ourselves drawing on Gladiator or Dead Poets Society or fantasy fiction or Coldplay, which have no gospel intent to draw upon the eternal longings of others. But we use these to get people interested in something bigger than themselves. But, then, we have to consider the line. Does this mean that every evangelistic event begins with a Coldplay song followed by a heroic clip from Gladiator? Maybe, maybe not. Anyways, I digress.

Our best attempts are still stories about Esther (One Night With the King) or Fireproof or Left Behind of The Last Disciple. Now, true, much of this can be specifically for Christians, though that could possible be more of a fall back statement if non-Christians are not interested. But, even then, we, as resurrected new creations, are not drawn in to these stories and art forms through the deep longings and recesses of our souls. We are found lacking through them.

Anyways, I am rambling, but not as long as you did. ;)

But, in the end, I do want to be constructively critical of our art. But, and you will agree, I want to remain humble. And when I see bad, cheesy stuff, that is hard. And, especially when my brothers and sisters in Christ love that cheesy and bad stuff. It is a tender and difficult issue.

Rey: Familiar with Otto Dix and his war portfolio Der Krieg? Meeting a Madman at Night , although it is about horror existing alone, beyond boundaries and in a place of babbling, gleeful, irredeemable idiocy, sums up much of the Transgressive movement, for me, in visual terms, although Dix was an Expressionist commenting on the insanity of WWI.

I think I’m rambling too.