> J. Michael Walker wrote:
"
And church fathers, in my experience, prefer their art to be
symbolically abstracted: give us, they seem to say, a crucifix
reduced to its essentials, like Giacometti without the subtext: pure
form / pure idea...."
>"In both cases, "the artist confronts the so-called "crisis of the
>human figure", a lack of faith in the power of the human figure to
>speak with, or to be rendered with, dignity and spirit intact; "
_____________________________________
While the subject of J. M. Walker's perceptive
indentification of what he sees as the crisis at the heart of
representational art was born of our discussion of religious
sensibilities ( via ' kwitsch Kitsch' and green-glowing Virgins), it
seemed too too rich a synchronymous moment not to note that on this
same day( the first Sunday of Lent), according to the calendar of the
Eastern Churches, is celebrated the restoration of images at the
Council of Nicea II ( 787). Any reading of the primary theological
defenses of these images,( John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite,
among others) identify the very same " lack of faith in the power of
the human figure to speak with, or to be rendered with, dignity and
spirit intact" on the part of the iconoclasts; a lack of faith which,
from their reasoning should have been shattered by a proper
understanding of the Incarnation, through which that dignity was
permanently established ( Theodore the Studite, <On the Holy Icons>,
Refutation III, #41). As to church fathers, preferring their art to
be symbolically abstracted, it seems to me precisely the opposite.
Abstractions, and hence 'reductions' of the human were seen as
Christological distortions, and were discouraged if not actively
prohibited.
Josef Gulka
Josef Gulka
[log in to unmask]
Tel: 215- 732-8420
Fax (215) 732-8420
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