Unpopular Opinion Brought To You By Emily

As close as I could get to a Kinkade without getting sued for copyright infringement.

Today I shared a post about the life, works, and death of Thomas Kinkade. (Find the post here: Facebook). Known as the “Painter of Light”, his work has become synonymous with “Christian art” and is seen in homes, offices, and churches around the world. His paintings are soft representations of a world that glows with peaceful serenity. Pretty is the word most often used to describe the landscapes where quaint cottages surrounded by delicate flowers huddle among trees beneath skies that radiate with pastel goodness.

Per standard operating procedure for me, I included the reasons I have always been mistrustful of his work which drew the standard objections that I have grown accustom to when I do open my big mouth on this issue. As my reasons for these feelings requires a rather protracted answer, I decided to respond here.

My two primary reasons for my passionate dislike of his work are:

1. Too many people fail to make the distinction between high art and decorative art. This is an essential distinction that too few are willing to recognize or acknowledge. I will explain why.

2. Artists are the single biggest influencers on the general public’s perception of truth. The role of the artist to shape culture has been denigrated and neglected even as our works are quietly shape society’s morals, ethics, and vision of the what life could be and what truth is.

Before any conversation on the arts can begin one must define the terms. For if we were speaking of Kinkade’s (dare I lump in Butcher?) works in the terms of decorative art, I would not have no objection to the high praise this man receives. However, as the distinction is seldom made and few perceive the divide between the two genres, their popularity has conditioned the believing community to discount or even recoil in disgust from the power and startling revelations of high art.

Decorative art is what we hang above the sofa. It is chosen for its beauty and the way it soothes our senses. It demands little of its viewer other than appreciation. It presents a completed idea without need for a viewer’s participation or investment. Another word for it is kitsch, Frank Burch Brown offers us this definition of kitsch: a beautiful lie that prettifies and falsifies the world, requiring an unqualified acceptance of reality.

Kitsch manipulates the emotions of its viewers in the same manner that pornography by pandering to people’s desires instead of addressing their needs, designed to elicit a predictable response by capitalizing on emotional reflexes. (Paraphrase of Roger Hazelton).

High art, to paraphrase the words of Rene Magritte, evokes mystery with attempting to define it. To attempt and do so “becomes mere joking.” High art defies clichés or definitions, (Hazelton). It brings to light an aspect of existence denied or hidden from consciousness, (Wilson Yates).

Now, why I believe these distinctions are crucial to our understanding and appreciation of art:

God has given us the blueprint for high art within the Bible. While the principles are scattered throughout Scripture, the most succinct example is the creation of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle embodies every element required of true high art: light, space, unity, symbolic representation, and mystery. And this but a short list of ways in which the Tabernacle served as art. We are told in Exodus 28:2 that aspects were created for “glory and beauty”, but we should not overlook the bloody reality of this place of sacrifice and bloodshed.

Time and space constrain me from delving into the various ways in which the Tabernacle served as art, art such as the world has never seen before or since, but still informs the believing artist on how their works can serve as a source of awe, wonder, and inspiration. All of which the world is severely lacking, and the deficient can often be most profoundly experienced in the realm of Christian art that does not point our hearts back to the necessity of God’s intervention within this fallen creation or the hope we find in his redeeming love. Hope that can only be embraced when we stand before in full acknowledgement of our deep need of his grace and provision despite our sin.

As to point two of my objections: Artists are the single biggest influencers on the general public’s perception of truth. The role of the artist to shape culture has been denigrated and neglected even as our works are quietly shape society’s morals, ethics, and vision of the what life could be and what truth is.

In the construction of the Tabernacle, Bezalel helped shape the future of an entire nation and eventually the world. The impact of his work cannot be overstated. For the believing artist, he stands the penultimate example of what we could and should be. A brief survey of what he has to teach us artists:

 ◦ called from a young age, (a phenomenon common to artists who instinctively perceive their differentness even before they have the words to express their drive to create),

◦ he used his gifts in submission to the Lord, as reflected in his name which literally means “in the shadow of El (God).”

◦ his work was inspired through being filled by the Holy Spirit, Exodus 31:1-5

◦ he was gifted with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding; all essential to the creation of art

◦ as an artist he was teacher and leader

◦ as a person he was obscured by his art

◦ he communicated in symbols that demanded contemplation and interaction in order to be understood

◦ he translated his inspiration into a medium where others could draw inspiration

◦ his work allowed others to interact with the presence of God

If you we were to scour our Bibles for others who fit this profile, we are quickly confronted with the prophet. Point by point, can draw parallels between the roles, functions, and experience of each with the other. Don’t blow by that statement, the implications are profound and level of responsibilities placed upon the artist by extension are staggering.  And we see the truth of the artist’s ability to shape the future in evidence all around us – be it the communicator device of Star Trek that led to a world of cellular devices, the architecture and design that shape our homes separating or uniting us dependent on style and form, the grand cathedrals that draw our hearts and eyes to heaven, or the mass shooting prompted by our uninhibited consumption of gore and violence in movies. Art drives our language and therefore how we label and thus perceive our world. (How many words did Shakespeare invent that are in common usage today?)

Does this mean there is no place for decorative art or the hobbyist artist who creates simply for themselves? No, and that is not what I am implying. What I am saying is that by making the distinction, we can be more honest with ourselves and the world. We can utilize art more effectively and encourage artists to aspire to be more than commercial success by appeasing the masses. We can stop chastising and disavowing the artists whose honest and raw work are seen as too disturbing to be Christian.

I know that few people understand my passion for this topic, but in my eyes it is not a trivial matter. The favored style of Christian art has clouded our perceptions of our faith. When we paint Jesus in pastels, we drain away his humanity and fierce passion he has for each of us. When we give Moses a softly curling beard and bubble eyes, we ignore the strength and authority he must have conveyed to lead a mass of former slaves into the desert. When Mary is clothed in soft robes and the never flinching serenity of an imbecile, we do not honor the heartbreak and horror she endured. When we embody the home of our faith as Eden-esque landscapes, the power of our faith to thrive in this brutal reality is weakened.

There is a place for beauty – radiant, awe inspiring beauty, that rips your guts out stomps them on the floor beauty. This is the beauty of resurrection and redemption, but we can have neither if there was no bloody body upon the cross. And by enlarging our vision to include both the horrific and the sublime, we begin to walk in the tension of our faith that empowers us in our humble gratitude of God who is great enough to encompass both.

For further reading on this topic, check out:

Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste by Frank Burch Brown
The Grotesque Theologically Considered by Roger Hazelton
The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture In Theory And Practice by David Morgan
The Grotesque In Art And Literature: Theological Reflections by Wilson Yates
State Of The Arts From Bezalel To Mapplethorpe by Edward Veith
And one day, eventually, my book once it is written.

Let There Be Light

Picture from  Phys.org
The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave

As an artist, light has always been a fascinating subject. Light is the cornerstone of visual arts. Whether working in pen and ink or oils, I am trying to capture the interaction of light upon an object. In other words, I am not painting an object. I am actually painting the play of light upon the object by capturing highlights and shadows with my pen or brush. 

We all know that without light sight as we know it is impossible, but rarely do we think about how much we rely on light for our very existence. As one simplified example put it: Plants convert light into stored energy. When we eat plants we are in fact eating light. When we eat meat, we are eating the light they have metabolized through the eating of the plants that stored light. Without light all life would cease to exist, including our own. It is in the creation of light that the earth, formerly void and empty (Genesis 1:2), becomes capable of sustaining life. 

Despite the importance of light for our existence, the precise nature of light has long been a topic of much debate, centering on one question – is light made up of waves or particles? The correct answer is yes, sorta. Light is an electromagnetic wave that sometimes decides to act as a particle. Now, this is where things get tricky because when we think of particles we tend to think of mass, or matter. Basically something that takes up space in this universe and has substance. The typical definition of mass does not apply to light. Light has what is called relativistic mass which means that it has energy and momentum that allow it be effected by and to effect its environment. In other words, while you may feel the warmth of sunlight on your skin, you will never have to shovel piles of sunlight off your sidewalk because it has no resting mass. While all of this was pretty much nailed down by Einstein and his cohorts, until very recently science has only been able to observe light behaving as either a wave or a particle, but never both at the same time.

I know, you are all beginning to wonder if you stumbled onto the wrong blog, but bear with me, I am going somewhere. 

Light came into being because God said, “Let there be light.” There are two words to pay attention to here: said and light. When someone speaks they are creating sound waves, and waves transfer energy. They do not move matter, but rather they use matter as a conduit to for their energy. Now, I want you to think about God for a moment, you know the omnipotent creator God? What type of energy do you think he was transferring through his sound waves? Once your brain stops sizzling, keep reading. 

Before we go any further, let’s reframe this: God’s voice took on new properties. In the act of creation, the sound wave takes on new properties. It became more than a wave and more than particle, while remaining true to the behavioral characteristics of both. A new manifestation for the wave is given, but the original state as a wave is never surrendered. 

Let’s skip ahead about one and half millennia, and listen another fascinating statement:

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

There is a reason that Jesus chose light as way to explain himself to the world. In him we can see all the observable elements of light in play. His life, death, and resurrection is the transformative act of creation, we call it redemption, but how much more transformative do you want? (And I am working on a theme here.) He rules over all creation just as God created the sun, moon, and stars to rule over day and night, (Ephesians 1:20, Genesis 1:14-19). He is the first born of creation, all things were created for him, through him, and by him in his sustaining power, (Colossians 1:15, 16). 

In him we see the story of light, and in light we see his story as no other created substance could convey, but what the writer of Genesis could not know, what Jesus could not know if had not been more than a man, was how the dual nature of light expresses the greatest mystery known to all of humanity – how can a holy God become fully human without surrendering his original state? In other words, how does a wave become a particle? How does spirit become flesh? How do we explain an omnipotent God whose presence is only measured by the effect he has on our lives while never overwhelming us with his infinite greatness? 

To realize that this great truth was embedded into creation from the beginning is mind blowing. To me it speaks of a God who playful and profound, hiding but wanting to be seen, waiting upon our willingness to chase after him and unravel the mysteries that reveal his love and greatness for his creation. And as I find these little nuggets within this ancient book, I am overwhelmed that we have been given such a great in his Word faithfully preserved for us to this day.

Obviously, the illustration breaks down as all comparisons of Jesus to any created thing as Jesus was not created but the created. However, the use of metaphor is employed by Jesus himself as a means to help us understand his person, nature, and position within creation. The beauty of this metaphor is that it encompassed current scientific knowledge of light over 3,000 years before the dual nature of light was known. By choosing to identify with light, Jesus places himself in the center of creation and time by embodying all ancient understandings of light and concepts embedded within the science that will shape our future.