stuff.

We went to Mosaic Baptist again and they were discussing art in context of Christianity. Lots of interesting things said.

+ Art is born of struggle. It really is true. Creation of something beautiful demands sacrifice; that's why they call it a labour of love. Meaningful art comes out of the processing of emotional turmoil and many hours of conceptual and physical work. That's why artists are often more morose. How does that work for Christian artists then? We expect Christians to be full of "joy" (happiness?) all the time. We expect contemporary Christian art to be celebratory (cheesy). There certainly is a place for artwork that celebrates God's love and works (landscape paintings a la Friedrich?) But what about the hard parts of our faith? The sacrifice of Christ? The dying to ourselves? The becoming of a living sacrifice? The selling of our riches and giving to the poor? Some of the more well known Christian art are more than landscapes and Madonna-and-child. Da Vinci's The Last Supper. Michelangelo's Last Judgement. My question is, why aren't darker images "allowed" in contemporary Christian circles? *I'm talking about mainstream North American Christianity here. And also, the same goes for music. We only listen to happy happy worship music. We never listen to music about struggles that don't yet have a happy ending. cough cough*

+ "In the beginning God created..." I guess a lot of Christians are familiar with this idea that God is the original creator/artist. However, it somehow seems like we don't think that we should be like God in this way. Art is trivial and frivolous for some reason. If God created us in His own image, doesn't that make us mini-creators? God created animals and humans, and then invited Adam to participate in the process of art through the naming of the animals.

Tired... to be continued.

Labels: Arts, God and Christianity