One of the big nagging questions in my mind during this year has been how we look at art from cultures that are not our own. When I did this course, for example, it was a question that the tutors shied away from.
Things which troubled me have included how we distinguish universal icons from mere local cultural references, and how we begin to look at art when we don’t understand the references.
Mostly when I’ve talked to people about this they seem to have assumed that I’m talking about non-western art – say African, or Chinese. But to me, the same issues apply within the European tradition. Our culture is diverse, and add in a time dimension – say 500 years or so – and I can be pretty well adrift on any ‘shared cultural experience’ assumption.
Religious art is an obvious example. What some Renaissance Italian was thinking as he painted the walls of a church is pretty remote from my perspective.
Nigel Warburton has written a really interesting post about whether aetheists can appreciate religious art. It is recommended reading even if, on the face of it, the subject matter doesn’t appeal to you.
Also posted on Photostream.
To me this question is subsumed by the question of general versus particular in art. Norman’s point seems to be essentially that religious art is powerful to the extent it relates to more universal human experience, and I agree with that. I would add that it also matters how well that universality overlays a more specific meaning, which may be accessible only to devotees of the particular religion. I think one could make an analogy with snapshots in photography. Most snapshots have very narrow appeal because they depend on intimate knowledge of a person or setting for their significance. But many acknowledged great photos are structurally snapshots that a wider audience can relate to. Karl’s recent photo with the man in the mirror certainly connects to more universal stories. The story and significance might be much deeper if we knew the people and their relationship, but the possibilities are rich enough we can all get something out of it (even if it’s “false” in some sense because of what we’re missing). As a general statement, I doubt anyone disagrees that what we bring to an artwork influences our appreciation of it. I think we always begin to look at an artwork from our own personal narratives; if they give us a foothold, we can then see how far the art can take us into new territory.
P.S. Can’t believe I left off my response to your wonderful “snapshot”. It may be only a geologist pointing out some features of a rock, but it looks like God’s hands starting to give form to the void…
Steve,
I would add that it also matters how well that universality overlays a more specific meaning, which may be accessible only to devotees of the particular religion.
I think that about sums it up. And thanks for the comment on the snap :-)
Colin, this is a fascinating subject. I think the answers to these questions are complicated.
I’ve always loved Italian Renaissance painting, even though I don’t believe in the religious ideology it (mostly) depicts. Last spring I finally got to see some of it in person, including Piero’s fresco cycle at Arezzo, the Raphaels and Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, and much more. I was very moved by the experience, but I felt no inclination to convert.
One key to this, I think, is that the religions themselves tap into archetypal human fears, hopes and aspirations. You don’t have to believe in the religion’s explanations for these things to connect with the underlying subject matter. When I read a novel or watch a movie, I can be very emotionally involved in the stories and characters without ever actually believing that the stories are true or that the characters are real people.
PS – I love the photo too, but my interpretation is very different from Steve’s. I see it as a meditation on our mortality.
I agree, fascinating topic and I enjoyed the Warburton post as well. I torture myself a bit with these questions as I teach Art History as part of an Art Appreciation course. And I feel somewhat hypocritical when I talk about religious art, as I was not raised with any religion, nor have I pursued any organized religion as an adult. In addition I teach at a private Catholic college and am keenly aware that my students’ connection to the images (or the religious icongraphy behind the images) may be “deeper” than my own.
All that said, I find myself responding more and more to overtly religious art, especially those that tell stories. Caravaggio comes to mind as someone who tells Biblical stories in a universal way. And I find myself learning more about the Bible through these images (which is perhaps the opposite to how most learn about religion). Many images are so universal that I forget that they are based in religion (“Pieta” images from several artists come to mind).
The whole issue of western bias in western institutions of learning is heavy, a separate conversation – would you want to write more about that, Colin? It is very disappointing, to say the least, that non-western art gets maybe one or two courses in an undergrad curriculum here in the US. So we perpetuate the bias and don’t teach students how to question that bias, and respect other cultures…
As for the photo, I read a certain amount of desperation in those hands. There is tension, as if a person has fallen and is bracing themselves before standing up again. Or the person is crawling, which is not a natural act for an adult. Maybe it is my tendency to look for suffering that makes me read it that way.
David,
My comment was a somewhat offhand effort to link to the subject of the post. Take it as an illustration of how religious and non-religious interpretations might apply for different people. I actually like your statement better. The rock pattern (it’s hard to read it as a real rock, given the absence of boundaries) still suggests swirling chaos to me, but the hands up against it are very human and individual.
Leslie,
The whole issue of western bias in western institutions of learning is heavy, a separate conversation …… and not particularly limited to a discussion about art education either.
But I think that this is a soap box I’ll refrain from standing on tonight.
Steve,
Has anyone invited you to post as a contributor?
Your comments are posts in themselves. It’s about time you had your own posting space. Interested?
Colin,
Great post. I sure have seen a LOT of religious art. A lot of the best, and anything Rafael did comes to mind, shows qualities that are not specifically iconic. I think in particular of a Madonna and child at the Simon…
David? What’s the name of the Simon (Something) in Pasadena?
…that was just that — one of the sweetest love poems in paint I’ve ever seen. It was about the adoration of a mother for her son, and a son for his mother, but the child while delicately carressing his mother looks out at the viewer. You are included.
No crosses. No halos. No symbols at all. A religious person brings his or her understanding and interpretation, a non religious person gets something to admire too.
So I think it’s possible for religious art to break out of its niche sometimes.
David? What’s the name of the Simon (Something) in Pasadena?
Norton Simon. Good museum, but I haven’t been there in awhile. So close, yet so far away (traffic).
As far as halos, that’s one of my favorite things in those old paintings. All those saints with plates on their heads. Where else are you going to use your gold leaf?
..looks like God’s hands starting to give form to the void…
…meditation on our mortality…
(how does one italize someone else’s comment?)
How does the prominent ring fit in with these interpretations?
Well, if interpretation means divining what the man or Colin the photographer had in mind when the photo was made, then I doubt the ring enters into it at all. However, if we want to contemplate the picture and imagine a story that might fit someone’s narrative, then I would say the ring represents a marriage that has just ended through divorce or death, bringing on the feeling of disorientation and the chaos/mortality theme.
Regardless of artist’s intention, the ring is there in this sparse image, quite prominently. I don’t find myself able to shift in and out of contemplating the picture and imagining a narrative. It seems to present one no matter how I choose to look at the image.
Birgit,
You just copy and paste into the comment area (yeah you knew that), then you wrap the comment in these tags: <i>(quote here)</i>
David,
I don’t find myself able to shift in and out of contemplating the picture and imagining a narrative
But perhaps you can imagine different narratives that might fit this picture? As you say, the information in the picture is sparse, not enough to determine a clear interpretation. That very indeterminacy allows it to potentially appeal to different people assigning quite different meanings to it, which in each case fit their idiosyncratic narrative gaps. Does the ring help or hinder your idea of the image? Maybe it’s a halo edge on…
Does the ring help or hinder your idea of the image?
Steve, I’m not sure I understand the question. The ring is part of the image. And because there are so few other things in the image, it carries more weight than it would in an image jammed with information. My idea of the image includes the ring, because there it is.
I could of course imagine all kinds of potential narratives for this picture. But they would all have to include the presence of the ring. In order to ignore the ring I would have to imagine I was looking at another picture. I’m sure different people would find different meanings in this image, as they do in all images.
Hmmmm, I guess what I meant to ask was whether you preferred the image with the ring or not, or whether the ring seemed to fit naturally into the image for you. If I understand you correctly, the question doesn’t really occur to you, you just take the image as it is. For me, especially with potentially symbolic images, I tend to consider multiple “virtual” scenarios, including ones with different versions of the image. Considering it with and without the ring may help to clarify what the significance of the ring might be. (By the way, I’m not trying to make too big a deal of this, it’s more in the way of play.) I would think that, as a painter/linoleumist?, you often have occasion to consider whether you would add some element or not. Don’t you also carry that way of thinking to viewing the images of others?
I would think that, as a painter/linoleumist?, you often have occasion to consider whether you would add some element or not. Don’t you also carry that way of thinking to viewing the images of others?
Okay, I see what you’re asking me now.
In general I tend to accept the content of other people’s images as they are, unless they are in works-in-progress and they’re asking for feedback. I just figure that what’s there is what’s there, and any interpretations come from whatever I bring to what I’m seeing in the image. It doesn’t mean that everything always works for me, or that I find the same level of meaning in everything, but I tend not to imagine multiple versions of the content.
In terms of the execution, if something doesn’t seem right to me I’ll cover it up with my hand and try to decide if it looks better without it. I suppose if content-wise something really stands out as forced or contrived I might do the same, but that’s the exception and not the rule for me. And it’s definitely not the case with Colin’s photograph.
Now of course, for my own work I’m constantly considering multiple versions. I do this with visual things and also with songwriting. And if a friend asks for feedback on something they’re painting, writing, etc., I do the same thing.
…as a painter/linoleumist
Lately I’ve been telling people I’m a “floorist”. It makes more sense in writing than if I say it, though :)
The ring, of course, was there. Outside of advertising photography it is difficult to subtract that sort of detail.
I’ve been interested to see how much a point of focus that this has been. It did, briefly, cross my mind to Photoshop it out and present two versions to see whether anybody noticed. Maybe I should have :-)
Colin, It might have been an interesting test, but from today’s discussion it seems pretty clear that it was definitely a point of focus for some of us.
Colin,
For me the ring adds a specificity that I would miss without it. Something more to the story, for those of us who create stories from images. Without it I think it would be more of an iconic image, not attached to a specific story, but more about some sort of “universal” truth or idea. The specifics lure me into questions about the universal truths more than an iconic image would.
It would be an interesting discussion about images and meaning, though, to ask how the meaning would change for the viewer without the ring…speaking of cultural biases…
I agree with Richard Norman when he says that great religious art can transcend the value it may have for believers. This is so, I think, because great (or even merely good) art is not primarily concerned with presenting literal truth. (This is more the role of science and philosophy). Rather, the role of art is to present compelling fictions. Internal coherence is more important than any resemblance the work might have to something outside of it. If I’m right, then not believing in the literal truth of a religious scene wouldn’t be as important as Warburton claims in his earlier post on the topic.
Much of the religious art found in people homes and in places of worship is bad art. (Sociologist David Halle’s book Inside Culture has an interesting chapter on “The Truncated Madonna and Other Modern Catholic Iconography” in the former location). I think the reason for this is that deeply faithful people are often more concerned with having the proper religious symbolism than with art and its aesthetics. Of course this is not always the case. Deep faith can doubtless be the source of profound art experiences. However, skepticism–neither total detachment nor blind acceptance of imagery as absolute truth–seems like the best general approach to me.
the role of art is to present compelling fictions
That’s a great line, Arthur. I’m not sure that it applies to all art, but it seems to cover a lot of it.
Leslie
For me the ring adds a specificity that I would miss without it. Something more to the story, for those of us who create stories from images.
I agree. I wouldn’t have wanted to remove the ring in the real picture. I just toyed with the idea of removing it for the purposes of this thread (but leaving it in the larger version that I linked).
As to creating stories……different language I think, but, an opportunity for the mind to wander. An opening. A start, or prompt. I, of course, know what is ‘true’ behind this picture, but I too can make up stories from it. The mark of a powerful picture? When even the originator lets the original reality fall behind.
Everybody,
Thanks for participating in a small experiment.
Oh, and I’m having all sorts of internet problems, so if I don’t respond to a comment, please accept my apologies. Normal service will resume as soon as possible. Apparently.
Thinking about the picture last night, not having read the follow-up discussion on the ring, this is what occured to me:
Well-fed hands, a prominent gold band and somber dark sleeves in the context of a blog entitled ‘religious art’: Colin’s liking for the absurd.
Steve and David,
what is a linoleumist? (Rex, thanks for the tip abou the italics) Searching it on google, I only found it used in the context of a language that I do not understand.
Birgit, there’s no such word. Steve made it up in jest to convey the fact that I work with linoleum instead of paint (I also, work with paint, but I don’t combine the two mediums at present). You probably won’t find “floorist” either, unless someone mis-spelled “florist”. It’s my tongue-in-cheek way of saying I work with flooring materials.
Colin,
OK, to complete the experiment, you should now describe the situation when you took the photo, and what thoughts you might have been thinking at the time or when processing it later. Just don’t think that any of us will surrender our pet interpretation(s) so easily. Your photo is a new thing released to the world and has its own life.
David,
I’m not sure that it applies to all art, but it seems to cover a lot of it.
By “fiction”, I don’t mean necessarily a conventional narrative. I mean that works of art create their own worlds, with their own rules.
In that case, Arthur, I completely agree.
Steve
when you took the photo
What I was thinking was TEXTURE!. With rock it is all to easy to suck the beauty out of the stuff by photographing it. This snap was a moment when I sensed the opportunity to do something with the rock which wouldn’t just be another large format highly detailed rendering (35mm fast mono film and old lens – not a combination to capture detail…)
thoughts you might have been thinking at the time
This was a very rare excursion outside for someone ill enough that each excursion is significant. Armchair geology just isn’t the same.
later
Much the same things as have been mentioned here. That’s why the shot got into this, unrelated, post.
Of course, the experiment (in setting a context for a picture that could change its meaning) is void because I didn’t have a control group. But it was interesting all the same.
Colin.
Beautiful: art as nothing less than the meaningfulness of one’s own experiences.
Thanks,
D.
I’d be interested to know your opinion regarding whether one needs to be a religious person to create works of art that treat of religious subjects? Thank you for your response.
Christopher,
To be brief: I don’t assume that an artist affiliated with some group (religious, cultural, …) is necessarily authoritative regarding subjects related to the group. By the same token, I don’t assume that an artist not in the group cannot make authentic and powerful art about such subjects.