I’ve been invited to write a magazine article on artistic interpretations of biblical texts. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation from the editor. Given my lifelong interest in art in general, and religious art in particular, and the fact that I’ve never written (as well as I can recall) anything along these lines made the novelty attractive.
But now I’m in the midst of the hard work of researching, composing, and pecking away at the article. The novelty has worn off and the hard work begun. Just because something is interesting doesn’t make it easier. Doctoral students often are told to pick a dissertation topic that is interesting enough to sustain their attention through the drudgery of research and writing. It’s good advice.
In addition to viewing works of religious art, from ancient to modern and realist to abstract, I’m also reading some art history and art criticism. The history is interesting, the criticism . . . well, some of it borders on the loopy. Christian Demand, professor of art history at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nuremberg provided some sense of sanity in the midst several rather puzzling articles. Signandsight.com featured an article by Demand titled “Inflated phrases,” in which he writes,
Most texts which accompany contemporary art production are so alarmingly twisted and woolly that they could easily pass for self-parody. Clucking hysterically they describe works “which hover on the border between the visible and the invisible”, which – in the most wonderful way – “function as a link between geology and biology”, which – how could it be anything else – “tackle aesthetic-political questions on cultural difference and the migration of form”, which – it goes without saying – “reference the key artistic avant-guards of the 20th and 21st centuries”, while naturally “incorporating the key questions of architecture, design, philosophy and science” and representing, in their spirituality, “a realisation of the present”.
I found it a refreshing “the Emperor has no clothes” article. Now, back to thinking deep thoughts about art and faith while I try to avoid clucking hysterically.
