Most recent great christian work of art/frequency of great religious art production

[Sarpedon]

Looking at the articles today about the 'shoot the faggot' game, I have thought a bit on how low christian culture has fallen. It seems to me that while previous centuries had many, many spectacular works of christian art (as well as vast amounts of christian schlock) nowadays, and even in the past century, there have been few, if any great art produced with explicitly christian themes and purposes. Even the schlock seems to have declined in quality.

So I invite people to point out great works of christian art in recent times, and discuss whether this seeming cultural decline is real or consequential.

It almost seems to me that there hasn't been much quality christian art since World War 1. There have been several remarkable churches built in the twentieth century, and even the twenty first, but with so many of the architects being agnostic or even athiestic, can such buildings really be counted as christian art?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The Left Behind series.

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[Horatio Parker]

I think it's a sign of how little influence the church has, not that it's somehow lost it's mojo. Artists don't need church patronage.

In classical music, a good deal of the output is sacred. That's not so much because composers are/were so pious, but because the church was where the action was.

In modern times, Messiaen would be an exception.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The Left Behind series.

Yes.
The purpose of Christain art these days is not to glorify God as much as to convince Christains that God's real.

Cookie-cutter characters of three classes: The saved, the evil, and the starting-evil-but-not-SO-evil ones who will be saved by the end of the plot. Within 2 minutes of any character being introduced you can see which group they're part of.

'Wholesome' stories, which means that there will be no sympathetic gays, muslims, prostitutes, witches or atheists to challenge the viewers' feelings on the matter.

And when someone predicts God will not be pleased, there's nothing in the plot to make one question if maybe God isn't entirely as the target demographic paints him.

So, nothing like the real world the Christains are faced with and challenged by, but a passion play to tell them everything they know is right and it'll all work out in the end.

 

[Sarpedon]

I think it's a sign of how little influence the church has, not that it's somehow lost it's mojo. Artists don't need church patronage.

In classical music, a good deal of the output is sacred. That's not so much because composers are/were so pious, but because the church was where the action was.

In modern times, Messiaen would be an exception.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. It may be just a sign of the decline of christian economic power. But that too is significant. With economic power goes cultural power.

However, there are many stories of highly religious artists going above and beyond to produce great art, even when they weren't necessarily being paid for it. It is possible that these are just stories.

 

[Horatio Parker]

However, there are many stories of highly religious artists going above and beyond to produce great art, even when they weren't necessarily being paid for it. It is possible that these are just stories.

I'm curious: such as?

Bach comes to my mind, because he worked very hard to produce a triple set of cantatas for the church calendar. He was paid to compose, (and he could be combative over his pay and privileges) and to compose cantatas, but not to specifically produce as many as he did. So what was at work: piety or a desire to distinguish himself as a composer? Or did he consider them to be the same thing?

 

[Sarpedon]

Andrei Rubleyev was supposedly a devout icon painter who strove for perfection. Michelangelo was supposedly consumed by fervor while working on his art (though he was paid for the most part). There are records of workers (including sculptors) who donated all or part of their time on the construction of great cathedrals. etc. These might just be stories.

I never would have considered Bach to be particularly pious.

When it comes to art, I have always been one to let the art speak for itself. Whatever the motivations behind it, great art is what it is. When I look at the recent re-blossoming of islamic art (fueled by the enormous petro wealth of the gulf states) there's little to compare it with on the christian side.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Andrei Rubleyev was supposedly a devout icon painter who strove for perfection. Michelangelo was supposedly consumed by fervor while working on his art (though he was paid for the most part). There are records of workers (including sculptors) who donated all or part of their time on the construction of great cathedrals. etc. These might just be stories.

I never would have considered Bach to be particularly pious.

When it comes to art, I have always been one to let the art speak for itself. Whatever the motivations behind it, great art is what it is. When I look at the recent re-blossoming of islamic art (fueled by the enormous petro wealth of the gulf states) there's little to compare it with on the christian side.

Bach wrote "Only for the Glory of God(Soli Deo Gloria) on every composition. Did his contemporaries do that? No idea. Does that make him pious? Dunno that either...

In the ME, Islam is more than a religious institution. I wonder how big in comparison is the secular art scene there.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't follow art all that much. Do we have any great painters or sculptors or anything like that around today period? If, a hundred years from now, someone were to ask "Who was the Picasso of the early 21st century?", is there an answer?

 

[Sarpedon]

A difficult question.

Ai Weiwei is considered to be a great, living artist. In the USA he is best known for his sculpture of MLK Jr on the Washington Mall. He is also as well known for his politics as his art, though his politics seems mostly to be "Why can't the Chinese Communist Party just let me do whatever art I want?"

I go to art museums with frequency, but I have a hard time remembering names in general, and confess that few works of living artists move me as much as the older ones. However, I do think that art is starting to shake off the tyranny of anti representationalism, and we might see a rennaisance in our lifetimes.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

A difficult question.

Ai Weiwei is considered to be a great, living artist. In the USA he is best known for his sculpture of MLK Jr on the Washington Mall. He is also as well known for his politics as his art, though his politics seems mostly to be "Why can't the Chinese Communist Party just let me do whatever art I want?"

I go to art museums with frequency, but I have a hard time remembering names in general, and confess that few works of living artists move me as much as the older ones. However, I do think that art is starting to shake off the tyranny of anti representationalism, and we might see a rennaisance in our lifetimes.

Are there any overriding themes to art these days, in the way that the Middle Ages had the "Yay, God! You rule!" theme going on? I have a vague notion that there's some sort of anti-authoritarian and anti-conformity message, but are there any other broad points which keep coming up?

 

[Angry Floof]

Once upon a time, or maybe a few times and places, Christianity served as an inspiration and a catalyst for creative flow, an experience of something that transcends suffering and the miserable realities of day to day human life. For the most part, it is now and has been in the past an ideological disease, the kind that hijacks the animal brain.

Make a list of all the human ideological and cognitive factors that give rise to fascism, cults, authoritarianism, and you'll have not only a list of what makes a good ideological disease like religion, but also a list of what kills creativity.

 

[Juma]

Bach wrote "Only for the Glory of God(Soli Deo Gloria) on every composition.

No he did not write it on every composition. That is how he marked works made for service use.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Bach wrote "Only for the Glory of God(Soli Deo Gloria) on every composition.

No he did not write it on every composition. That is how he marked works made for service use.

Okay, not on every work, but not exclusively for sacred works either. From Wiki:

The Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the initials "S. D. G." at the end of all his church compositions and also applied it to some, but not all, his secular works.[1]

 

[Juma]

No he did not write it on every composition. That is how he marked works made for service use.

Okay, not on every work, but not exclusively for sacred works either. From Wiki:

The Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the initials "S. D. G." at the end of all his church compositions and also applied it to some, but not all, his secular works.[1]

And definitely not on "every work" which was you point.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I don't follow art all that much. Do we have any great painters or sculptors or anything like that around today period? If, a hundred years from now, someone were to ask "Who was the Picasso of the early 21st century?", is there an answer?

I think the noise to signal ratio is a lot worse right now. We probably have the existing talent in greater numbers, but who's to say we're able to easily identify it in a sea of media. I'd wager in the 15th century, let's say, a significant percentage of the population could substantially dedicate themselves to the arts. Those that could likely relied on the patronage of aristocrats and religious organizations, and producing art for such clientele probably increases the cultural significance of the work at the time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Once upon a time, or maybe a few times and places, Christianity served as an inspiration and a catalyst for creative flow, an experience of something that transcends suffering and the miserable realities of day to day human life. For the most part, it is now and has been in the past an ideological disease, the kind that hijacks the animal brain.

THe religion might be, but the Books is still a very popular source of inspiration.
But whatever one's stance on the source of the Bible, the impact on culture cannot be ignored. The books hold a powerful position in some of the biggest religions on the planet. They've inspired policies which have lead to hospitals, wars, charities, witch hunts... People are familiar with characters and settings. SciFi artists are all the time playing around with Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve plots. Of course, that may be simply because you can describe it very quickly to a studio exec as 'It's basically Noah's Ark with a Spaceship!' and he's got half the plot already.

It's a lot different today in that if you display Adam and Eve as having or not having belly buttons, you don't get accused of heresy (depending on which faction holds power in the church that day) and have to talk to one of the nice men in the Inquisition. So there's a little more freedom to explore all these settings and plots and themes that we all know and love/abhor/point to with glee/point to with disgust.

 

[Angry Floof]

Once upon a time, or maybe a few times and places, Christianity served as an inspiration and a catalyst for creative flow, an experience of something that transcends suffering and the miserable realities of day to day human life. For the most part, it is now and has been in the past an ideological disease, the kind that hijacks the animal brain.

THe religion might be, but the Books is still a very popular source of inspiration.
But whatever one's stance on the source of the Bible, the impact on culture cannot be ignored. The books hold a powerful position in some of the biggest religions on the planet. They've inspired policies which have lead to hospitals, wars, charities, witch hunts... People are familiar with characters and settings. SciFi artists are all the time playing around with Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve plots. Of course, that may be simply because you can describe it very quickly to a studio exec as 'It's basically Noah's Ark with a Spaceship!' and he's got half the plot already.

It's a lot different today in that if you display Adam and Eve as having or not having belly buttons, you don't get accused of heresy (depending on which faction holds power in the church that day) and have to talk to one of the nice men in the Inquisition. So there's a little more freedom to explore all these settings and plots and themes that we all know and love/abhor/point to with glee/point to with disgust.

Not just more freedom to do so, but a world of unprecedented information access. A person's ideology depends more on what he or she is exposed to in their lifetime than on personal quests for truth.

I can't think of a single ideology, religious, political, or otherwise, that could possibly remain intact from here on out.

Not that any ideology has ever really remained intact - but in this information age, the dynamic, ever-changing, environment-dependent nature of ideology is now too obvious to pretend otherwise.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Okay, not on every work, but not exclusively for sacred works either. From Wiki:

The Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the initials "S. D. G." at the end of all his church compositions and also applied it to some, but not all, his secular works.[1]

And definitely not on "every work" which was you point.

Ok, so it's like that. I was mistaken.

I conceded that, and I'm doing so again.

Your turn: not on sacred works only which was your point. Man up or weasel.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Once upon a time, or maybe a few times and places, Christianity served as an inspiration and a catalyst for creative flow, an experience of something that transcends suffering and the miserable realities of day to day human life. For the most part, it is now and has been in the past an ideological disease, the kind that hijacks the animal brain.

THe religion might be, but the Books is still a very popular source of inspiration.
But whatever one's stance on the source of the Bible, the impact on culture cannot be ignored. The books hold a powerful position in some of the biggest religions on the planet. They've inspired policies which have lead to hospitals, wars, charities, witch hunts... People are familiar with characters and settings. SciFi artists are all the time playing around with Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve plots. Of course, that may be simply because you can describe it very quickly to a studio exec as 'It's basically Noah's Ark with a Spaceship!' and he's got half the plot already.

It's a lot different today in that if you display Adam and Eve as having or not having belly buttons, you don't get accused of heresy (depending on which faction holds power in the church that day) and have to talk to one of the nice men in the Inquisition. So there's a little more freedom to explore all these settings and plots and themes that we all know and love/abhor/point to with glee/point to with disgust.

I wonder if some artists would be better if they had to conform to certain ideas. Only because that solves one big problem for them: what meaning are you trying to convey? That distance can be enabling.