More on atheist appreciation of religious art
Nigel Warburton has a very interesting guest post by Richard Norman on the ‘Whether Atheists Can Appreciate Religious Art’ topos. Norman talks about Piero della Francesca’s ‘The Resurrection,’ which his comment caused me to look at again. It’s a terrifically interesting painting; I already thought so, but the discussion intensifies that thought (as such discussions tend to do, which is one huge reason art criticism and literary criticism are not footling wastes of time); it also made me think about why.
Some of what Norman said:
The assumption here is that the truth presented by a religious work of art must itself be a religious truth. That is what I want to question. Of course Piero’s painting is a depiction of the resurrection, but it does not give us any reason for believing the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. How could it do so? (It’s not as though it were photographic evidence or anything of that sort.) The truths which it conveys are human truths, truths which help us in the understanding of our human condition…And that is specifically a truth about human beings, because the features of the work which convey it are the recognisable human characteristics of the figure rising from the tomb.
Yeh. I’ve been claiming something similar in the earlier thread on atheists and appreciation of art – that paintings about some part of the story of Jesus interest us or move us for human reasons rather than specifically religious ones. As an atheist I am in fact left cold by paintings of Mary ascending into heaven amid blasts of trumpets (yes, those are painted blasts), for instance, but not, as I mentioned last week, by the supper at Emmaus, which is very human.
Piero’s painting is enthralling in somewhat the same way as ‘Las Meninas’ – maybe partly for the same reason – Jesus fixes us with his cold straight gaze in just the way Velasquez does in Las Meninas. We feel seen: pinned: examined: weighed in the balance and found – we know not what. He’s uncomfortable to look at – in fact he looks slightly fanatical (well he would, after all that) – and perhaps that telltale reaction is exactly the wrong, ‘atheist’ one that does get in the way of my proper appreciation. But then again perhaps not, perhaps it’s just a variation in preference: I would surmise that a lot of religious people prefer their Jesus with a different expression. Some want him angry, militant, dividing the sheep and the goats; others want him meek and mild; others want him looking like a mensch. Is that religion or just de gustibus?
Back to Richard Norman.
The truths conveyed by The Resurrection are also to be found in the figures of the sleeping soldiers at the base of the tomb. Again the truths are conveyed in the significance of the poses and expressions of the human figures. They say something about the propensity of human beings to miss the miracles that are going on in the world around us – in this case, to be oblivious to the transformation and renewal of human life, and to the corresponding transformation and renewal of the natural world, as represented by the change from the bare trees on the left of the picture to the new growth on the right…The general point is that the truths conveyed by great religious works of art are human truths.
I’ve always loved the sleeping soldiers – slouched and snoring away while miracles happen all around. We’re all the soldiers, crumpled, shapeless, all anyhow, of the earth earthy, while Jesus is almost rectangular in his uprightness and straight-aheadness and his chilly stare. I can appreciate the painting (I think), despite being an atheist, in the same way I can appreciate the presence of the ghost in Hamlet despite not being a ghostist. They work almost like thought experiments, such works; we have to (and we do, at least we can) think our way into them. It has to do with imagination. The Romantics would probably have thoght it was downright heresy to think imagination has no power to help atheists appreciate religious art.
“The truths which it conveys are human truths, truths which help us in the understanding of our human condition…And that is specifically a truth about human beings, because the features of the work which convey it are the recognisable human characteristics of the figure rising from the tomb.”
Agreeing 100% with that.
I like this:
“There is little point in wallowing in the brilliance of Bacon if you don’t recognise him as a moralist first and last.”
Jonathan Jones, Guardian Art Critic
“Atheist appeciation of religious art”?
Bit like appeciating some of the works of Dmitri Shostakovitch, which praise the great leader Stalin ….
Wonderful music, but the text (Arrgh!) – but we know that Dmitri was very close to being sent to the FUlag, more than once …
So what is different between this and the artistic patronage of the catholic church?
Hmm. I think the sharp division into categories is a little severe. Clearly, Piero’s ‘Resurrection’ is not evidence that Christ was resurrected, nobody, as far as I am aware, has ever claimed that, but it is odd to regard it as nothing to do with the Christian notion of resurrection. That is what it depicts. Without that notion, no painting. Without the notion no form, no specific feeling. It is the weight and sharpness of feeling associated with the notion of resurrection that matters, and that resurrection takes place in a narrative, not in a vacuum.
None of this is proof of any statement about the existence or non-existence of God or the whole apparatus of Christian theology. But it is a product of the that supposed existence and the apparatus that goes with it.
The Las Meninas comparison is too general in this respect. That too is a great painting but the context in which it works is different. There are, after all, different contexts that lead to different expectations, different processes and different readings. You can’t just flatten out an entire area of difference by calling it Great Art.
Richard Norman says The general point is that the truths conveyed by great religious works of art are human truths.
Too damn right. They are. But they are human truths arrived at through religion. I don’t think this is the equivalent yielding a foothold to the Inquisition. Com on, now. Is it?
Hurrah; a comment from a working artist.
No, I didn’t mean to disavow the resurrection aspect entirely. (Did I? I don’t think so.) That’s where the imagination comes in. As an atheist I have to use imagination to try to feel some of the same reaction that one would feel who did believe that Jesus is resurrected. But that’s not fundamentally different from taking the ghost seriously in ‘Hamlet’, it seems to me. But the Jesus in this painting is still also human – though not as human as the Jesus in Rembrandt’s Emmaus painting.
“But they are human truths arrived at through religion.”
Not all of them, I don’t think (double negative; sorry). At least not necessarily through religion – some of them are human truths that can be arrived at with or without religion. The oblivion of the soldiers – I don’t think that has to be a specifically religious oblivion at all.
Oh and about las Meninas – no, I know. I didn’t mean to say they were the same; didn’t mean to flatten out. It’s just that that one commonality occurred to me, so I mentioned it. I think it is interesting. There is something decidedly unsettling about the cool stares in both paintings; I think that’s inherently interesting, quite apart from the content.
I’ve always found the argument that atheists can’t understand religious art to be confusing. Can christians not understand greek art? Can a white person not understand art depicting american slavery? Can no one at all understand fantastical art?
Of course atheists can appreciate religious art. The original post and OB’s comment about the painting of Emmaus shows that.
and I even agree that the truths are human truths.
Not all of them, I don’t think (double negative; sorry). At least not necessarily through religion – some of them are human truths that can be arrived at with or without religion.
Yes, OB, but could you prove that claim? I mean how could you prove by what route Piero arrived at his Resurrection? As an argument it would seem more reasonable to say that an artist arrives at an image of the Resurrection of Christ, partly at least, through contemplation of the resurrection of Christ? That need not mean that Piero was a pious man, or even a devoutly religious man all the time (he was in fact a mathematician too), only that the range of meanings in that painting could not be apprehended without an understanding of the significance of the event that it depicts, nor could Piero have painted it without some serious contemplation of those same events.
And of course it would be foolish to claim that a Christian could not appreciate an entirely secular work of art or that an atheist could not appreciate an entirely religious work (I mean one set on the walls of a church with a clearly didactic purpose.) I am not suggesting the viewer would have to BE of the same persuasion as the artist, only that their understanding of the work would be deepened by the use of their imagination, one aspect of which would be imagining what it might be to be religious.
I argue only because the militant aspects of atheism occasionally seem to me an obstacle to a fuller humanity, a form of short-sighted discourtesy of the imagination that ends up saying something odd like: Religion is rubbish so religious art is a waste of time, or can only avoid being a waste of time if I empty it of its religious content).
And the truths are indeed human truths, but being human sometimes involves being religious. I know this requires a certain generosity in the exercise of the imagination but I don’t think the exercise is ever wasted.
“Religion is rubbish so religious art is a waste of time, or can only avoid being a waste of time if I empty it of its religious content.”
Hmm, I’m afraid I do keep on coming back to the question of the extent to which the aesthetics of art depend on its propositional content though. I doubt any art can be deflated down to such content but I’m equally inclined to doubt that it can exist independently of it. I have to admit I’ve never really like the idea that is some sort of all transcending concept rather than a product of specific cultures. It seems to me that it is more difficult to apprecicate a lot of religious art for much the same reason that the Victorians saw something in Little Nell’s death that we can’t. The principle seems to me to be precisely the same when I go into the medieval section of an art gallery and am confronted with painting after painting of saints being tortured and killed.
“only that their understanding of the work would be deepened by the use of their imagination, one aspect of which would be imagining what it might be to be religious.”
Oh – well I agree then. Though I also think that, as Norman indicates, there is much of religious art that is common ground – that is not specifically religious. Just as there is, for instance, about the Gospels – or big chunks of the Old Testament. Most religious art really isn’t 100% in a separate category from secular art. Which is actually rather interesting in itself. It could be – but it mostly isn’t. There’s not a huge amount of art that’s about Life in Heaven, for example.
That’s one reason I dislike Dante, come to think of it. His idea of hell is so parochial and vindictive and earthy – yet it’s supposed to be Religious. I think I find the combination rather squalid – as if he’s just wrapping his hatreds up in church vestments.
“I argue only because the militant aspects of atheism occasionally seem to me an obstacle to a fuller humanity, a form of short-sighted discourtesy of the imagination that ends up saying something odd like: Religion is rubbish so religious art is a waste of time, or can only avoid being a waste of time if I empty it of its religious content).”
Well, I’m widely viewed (I’m told) as your typical narrow militant atheist, but I don’t think that is my attitude. John Donne’s sonnet, for instance, the one that starts ‘Batter my heart, three personed God’ – I love that poem. But it’s certainly not about anything other than Donne’s relationship with God – so I oughtn’t to love it. But I do. I get it, I see the point of it. That’s strange, perhaps…
But “painting after painting of saints being tortured and killed” – yeah, those are another matter. As is Dante. So…it depends.
For one thing I agree with Richard’s final comment on the earlier thread, which I don’t think I’d seen before; I’m not keen on most medieval art, unless Giotto counts as medieval. But the difference seems to be temporal rather than substantive – or is it both? Is medieval art closer to 100% religious than Renaissance and later art is? Is it the Renaissance that allowed the recognizable human element in? (Not if Giotto is medieval.)
Maybe I just don’t know enough about this to talk about it.
Doesn’t anyone’s bullsh*t detector scream at them?
Art depends on cultural context, and if someone (atheist or not)is educated in the meanings of the context they can get a hell of a lot out of it. A believer with no training in the symbolism would totally miss many meanings and messages.
And the maker of the art constructs it; he has tools to call forth certain responses eg adoration or anger at injustice. An interpreter with or without belief will likely feel the impulses viscerally so long as the cultural hooks are provided in his learning.
And a modern believer will have little idea what a Bosch was all about, unless an art historian fills him in!
This whole idea smells like a strawman put-down of atheists (and religious too). People are better than that, as you show in your discussion.
Most religious art really isn’t 100% in a separate category from secular art.
No, indeed not, but then sometimes the reverse is also true. A ‘purely’ religious work of art, if one can imagine such a thing, would immediately thin itself down to a text of some sort, and the text would then immediately thin itself down to an imperative, from thou shalt love thy God with all they heart through to kill!, moving from rhetoric to directive with little intervening time for thought. But most religious works – visual art, music, literature, even those works referred to as the sacred texts – are not exclusively in the domain of the directive.
I have no intention of pace ChrisPer of putting down atheists. I am not sure why a comment on ways of reading art works is regarded as a put down. It is militancy I am criticising, not atheism. It is militancy that immediately reduces choice to a simple combative binary. Art is not a strawman, only if you regard it so, in which case it is no longer art but propaganda. Militancy is appropriate to temporal power which is also power over the mind and will. By all means combat bigotry wherever you see it. But the terms of rhetoric employed in that struggle don’t necessarily fit all sizes and all phenomena.
Nor am I arguing solely for context as knowledge, but, just as importantly, for context as feeling. Context as knowledge is of course valuable, but when OB talks of her feeling for John Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-personed God…” she is, in effect, having to experience something of the feeling that Donne is experiencing. She is not, presumably – but you’ll speak for yourself Ophelia, I am only surmising – telling herself at the same time But of course what Donne is referring to is rubbish
There is not a conscious in spite of the subject in there. It is subsumed in an imaginative exchange. Inference: The religious are not necessarily idiots. They can be like John Donne too. It is that imaginative exchange I am arguing for, not for y’all to come to the bosom of the Lord and regret your sinful atheist ways.
And Dante can be monstrous, it is true. What makes him a great poet is not the fear-ridden theological system he works with but that he can comprehend and give moving human shape to it.
It is the human – together with the human’s notion of the divine, a notion that seems to be inextricably part of what is human – that matters here.
“It is the human – together with the human’s notion of the divine, a notion that seems to be inextricably part of what is human – that matters here.”
See, that interests me, because believe it or not I have no problem with the notion of the divine, although I don’t use the word myself and would use a different word or phrase. I even agree with the idea that the complete absence of such a notion is impoverishing. I wouldn’t call it a notion of the divine, but I would call it a notion of something more and better than humans – much more and much better. I think it’s an impoverished imagination that has never had the thought that humans are not adequate, and that there ought to be something better. To the extent that that is what religious art is about, I think atheists are in principle perfectly well able to get it. Music and abstract art (cathedrals for example) are good that way. King’s College chapel – one doesn’t have to think ‘God,’ one can just think ‘high’ – or as Sir Thomas Browne put it, ‘O altitudo.’
“But the difference seems to be temporal rather than substantive – or is it both? Is medieval art closer to 100% religious than Renaissance and later art is? Is it the Renaissance that allowed the recognizable human element in? “
We could argue all day about when the renaissance began or indeed whether there was any such thing at all. But to answer swiftly and bluntly, I would certainly say that medieval art is very often lacking in a human element (consider how devotional writers like A Kempis advocated the extinction of the self before the might of god). I think that can apply to later religious work as well but it does seem an especially marked characteristic of that period.
Yes. Interesting. It occurred to me after posting that most religious people probably don’t like medieval painting all that much either. Certain kinds of asceticism and extinction of self are still favoured, but not of the kind or to the extent that show up in medieval painting. I think that must be some massive character shift that just can’t be reversed now. (If that’s right, it might indicate that iconoclasm has something to it – maybe believable images of humans [and animals and the world] do in fact pull us away from god. So hooray for Renaissance art then.)
What do you mean by “appreciate”?
Would the madonna and child sculpture elicit the same emotional responses in an atheist as it does in a christian? Probably not. But the same could be said if a hindu viewed it, or a buddhist, or a sikh.
Having viewed many of the famous religious art works up close, they are certainly beautiful objects in their own right. I don’t need to believe in christianity, buddhism, judaism or hinduism, in order to “appreciate” beauty.
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