Signposts for Christians in the arts
By Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplin
Solway. 212 pages. £14.99
Art and soul follows relatively close on the heels of the same publisher's more theologically-orientated The art of god by David Thistlethwaite. This latest example of Solway's commitment to Christianity and the arts is very welcome.
I should declare an interest: Solway are currently my own publishers. I know both Mesdames Brand and Chaplin as friends, and one of my wife's photographs is discussed on p.101. So let me demonstrate my commendable objectivity by lamenting the proof-reading. Two spelling mistakes before we get to the first chapter (one the name of one of the authors, the other that of the writer of one of the forewords) is remarkable going even in these penny-pinching times.
The book itself is a real pleasure to handle. It's printed on quality paper that shows off the numerous illustrations well, and is very pleasingly designed. The illustrations in particular are a key element. Reproduced in black and white, they haven't all survived the translation in perfect tonal health. But each clearly illustrates the point and is enclosed in a panel with substantial explanatory text, making it ideally suited for armchair browsing. It should really be read in sequence, however, for the argument is carefully set out and developed.
It's based on a mimeographed study guide, Reflections on the arts, written by Adrienne Chaplin in 1987 for the Toronto Institute for Christian Studies where she now teaches philosophical aesthetics, after studying music and philosophy in Amsterdam and working with music students for UCCF in Britain. Hilary Brand is a freelance photographer and author, currently Chair of the Arts Centre Group. But the book is much more than the study guide. Two minds both steeped in the arts, both of them sharply perceptive and both very well placed to speak on this subject with authority, have contributed to its making.
Culture and pressures
The authors begin by examining the context of art in the Christian church today and exploring post-modernism among other issues. Many of the postmodern symptoms they describe are equally discernible in earlier periods, and don't, I think, define our age as uniquely as many believe they do. Some of the examples cited (Madonna, Princess Diana, etc.) are also well-worn. But that doesn't prevent these chapters being a stimulating and helpful analysis of our culture and the pressures that Christians in the arts experience today.
The second part brilliantly summarises several major themes of current Christian writing on the arts, including the biblical perspective, God as 'playful', and art as redemptive. This will prepare the ground well for reading a number of other writers, for example Calvin Seerveld, whose ideas are surveyed in the book and who contributes a foreword. In part three, a biblical rationale is proposed for some basic art issues, and part four deals with the issues of criticism and interpretation.
Part five, 'Respectful and Real: Some ways forward for Christians in the arts', contains some of the authors' strongest and sometimes most controversial points; but the argument is tied closely to the example of Jesus and to the creation ordinances. The chapters on 'Art as a Honest Labour' and 'Art as a Proper Job' are both full of common sense, good advice and godly exhortation. For example, on Bezalel the divinely-ordained craftsman, maker of the worship tent (Exodus 31): 'Somewhere before this prize project came along, Bezalel had served a long and hard apprenticeship . . . How many Egyptian temples and palaces had Bezalel worked on before he came to this?'
Where we are now
This is a book for reading and meditating. It's one to give to young people encountering the arts, and especially those studying the arts. Use it too to enhance your own understanding and appreciation; you'll find that it's not a book of Olympian judgements, but one that invites you to argue and get involved.
More than anything, it's a book that addresses where we are now. It will help you to understand what's going on in the Turner Prize show - and it will give you an insight into how some significant and creative Christian artists are grappling biblically with the culture of the millennium.
Christian books on culture seem to go in cycles. In the 1960s there were certain books that for lay readers presented Christian perspectives on important scientific issues of the day. In the 1970s, we began to see similar books on social and ethical issues. In the 1980s worship and family seemed to take centre stage; in the 1990s there were a number of useful Christian books on cyberspace and postmodernism.
But somehow there have never seemed to be enough books about Christianity and the arts. This huge area of human creativity, in which we all have some expertise and some opinions, has been a Cinderella subject. Art and soul fills a need, and fills it extraordinarily well.
