across time<\/em>.<\/p>\nThis is not how we, as evangelicals, like to think about art, and, in fact, like to regard anything related to culture, for that matter. We are the ones impatiently in control. I am the one that sees a work of art; I am the one that \u201cinterprets\u201d it, vetting its appropriateness according to a list of my own criteria, certainly not drawn from the history and tradition of art that exists outside of me. I am the one that judges a work of art and its \u201cappropriateness.\u201d I am active and the work of art is passive. I am the subject and the work of art hanging there on the wall of the museum or gallery is the object of my efforts, my work, my actions. The work awaits\u00a0my justification <\/em>and my use.\u00a0<\/em>And that justification and use has most likely to do with cultural politics, with winning the culture wars, staving off the encroachments of secularism, postmodernism, or whatever bogeyman \u201cism\u201d is deemed a threat to \u201cChristian values.\u201d<\/p>\nBut that is simply not how art behaves. From an aesthetic point of view, we are passive. The history of criticism is the history of reflection on the relationship\u2014the struggle\u2014between a work of art that exerts itself on the viewer, reader, listener through time, through generations of viewers, readers, listeners. The history of criticism is overflowing with works of art that received condemnation from its contemporaries, but which are now undisputed masterpieces (Melville\u2019s Moby-Dick<\/em> is but one of the most glaring). This history is also full of works praised by their audience, which are now forgotten or dismissed as irrelevant at worst, \u201cperiod pieces\u201d at best. The force that the critic exerts on the work is mitigated by his posture of receptivity, even with work the critic ultimately distrusts, or condemns, or finds problematic. His aggression is a response to the activity of the work of art that imposes itself on the critic because he\u00a0allows it<\/em>.<\/p>\nWe do not exercise our freedom when we experience a work of art. We are forced to acknowledge the brut fact and infuriating reality that we are not free. We have been chosen by that painting. We receive or reject it only in response. This is a crucial aspect of experiencing art that is ignored by evangelicals in our rush to \u201cengage\u201d or \u201ctransform\u201d culture, and \u201cread\u201d images alongside the morning paper. We want to to apply our \u201cChristian world view,\u201d amounting to little more than list of social conventions, to cultural practices\u00a0like art, which ask a different approach: a posture of receptivity, humility, and trust that proceeds from the dangerous love of one\u2019s neighbor, whether that neighbor is our enemy or a painting.<\/p>\n
When I\u00a0turn the corner in the museum or gallery, and, being discovered by a painting,\u00a0agree to\u00a0open that message in a bottle,\u00a0it asks a simple question, \u201cHow will you<\/em> respond to me<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\nThat is a question that we evangelicals, in our rush to transform, engage, condemn, or otherwise \u00a0\u201cuse\u201d culture for our own purposes, rarely answer because we rarely hear it. And by refusing to sit still and listen to what art says, experience the world that the artist offers us as a gift, our witness to Christ in culture, our \u201cfaithful presence,\u201d is already \u00a0compromised.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 God calls an artist to be a particular kind of artist in a particular kind of way in the world. This specificity reveals the diversity of artistic practice and the various ways that it is embodied institutionally. Most Christian thinking about art, however, ignores this basic social reality, which every artist (Christian or not) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1003,"featured_media":1364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daniel-siedell","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/163\/2012\/10\/Triumph-of-American-Painting-copy.jpg\" "\\"Triumph")
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