May 31, 2008
Art is redemptive, at the very least, simply because it is art.
Every artwork has an element of redemption because it is an act of creation before it becomes an artifact we respond to.
-Karsten Piper, in the comments of “Does a story need ‘an element of redemption’”
A couple questions:
1. What is the definition of ‘redemption’ as used here? Hope? God-infusion? God’s acceptance?
2. What is being redeemed here? The Art, because it is the result of an act of creation, or the artist, because he is creating, or the art-viewer, because he is witnessing the act of creation?
In some sense, the fall of man was a great act of un-creation, so, yes, every act of genuine creation this side of the fall IS redemptive. The end of all genuine creation may be, like the end of learning, “to repair the ruins of our first parents.”
However, I do wonder if nihilism and destruction doesn’t sometimes mask itself as art and creation.
I can’t think of any examples that I would be willing to call false art in this sense (certainly not a book like THE ROAD or NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN or modern abstract art). But at the end of Wem Wenders’ film WINGS OF DESIRE there is a scene in a german club where … oh … it’s tough to sum up, but I think it’s a good example of nhilistic ‘art’ as a temptation to destruction and suicide.
And when the two main characters walk away from the scene a moment of new creation begins.
I think also of these lines from Book II of Milton’s PARADISE LOST. The scene is in Pandaemonium, the city the demons built in hell. Satan has agreed to venture forth and tempt man and the rest are left to their own devices while they await his return:
Thence more at ease thir minds and somwhat rais’d
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers
Disband, and wandring, each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplext, where he may likeliest find [ 525 ]
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksom hours, till his great Chief return.
….
Others more milde,
Retreated in a silent valley, sing
With notes Angelical to many a Harp
Thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall
By doom of Battel; and complain that Fate [ 550 ]
Free Vertue should enthrall to Force or Chance.
Thir Song was partial, but the harmony
(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet [ 555 ]
(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense,)
Others apart sat on a Hill retir’d,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,
Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledg absolute, [ 560 ]
And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argu’d then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and Apathie, and glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophie: [ 565 ]
Yet with a pleasing sorcerie could charm
Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th’ obdured brest
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
I agree with jamsco, what is being redeemed? Are acts of creation redemptive?
An incredible overvalued assessment of artwork. The word redemption must be protected from application to the fallen expressions of man’s creative talent, regardless of how attractive.
They may provide some form of entertainment or contemplation, but they carry no redemptive quality.
“The word redemption must be protected from application to the fallen expressions of man’s creative talent, regardless of how attractive.”
One might point out that the word redemption can apply pretty well to the value on a returned beer bottle.
I don’t think we’re on too thin of ice applying it to art here.
Abraham – You and your brother are rock stars. Seriously, I love everything I read by both of you :). Any chance of getting Karsten to come teach English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln? ;)
In response to the other comments, can we please set aside this Platonic notion that redemption is all about individual human beings being justified to God? It’s so much bigger than that, and its bigness is what makes it so absolutely and thoroughly beautiful. It’s infinitely more interesting than all the anthropocentric gospels I’ve heard in my life. Everything – literally everything – is being made right. It’s like Jerram Barrs said in a workshop on common grace, “A child told me once that he’d rather go to Narnia than Heaven [as Heaven is frequently portrayed in the popular imagination]. I looked at him and said, ‘me too!’ and the wonderful news is that this is exactly what the Bible says will happen! We’re going to Narnia.”
Why can’t we stand in amazement at the beauty of a story like No Country for Old Men and enjoy it because it’s made by a human being made in God’s image who, through common grace, is able to create truthful and beautiful portrayals of the world?
Sorry if I come across as kinda snarky here, I don’t mean to, but my favorite poet is Sylvia Plath and I don’t like having to defend my affection for her (or the novels of Cormac McCarthy) just because she doesn’t like happy endings. What she’s created is beautiful and true in that it teaches me something – not everything, of course, but art is never exhaustive – about God’s world. And as a result of observing her art, I love my savior more dearly and wish to know him more deeply.
Amen!
Someone said that art is a collaboration between G-d and the artist. The less the artist does, the better.
I think Karsten just blasphemed. I may be wrong — I’d be willing to discuss it either privately or in some moderated public space.
Frank Turk, I made that remark three months ago in a response to you, of all people. Did you miss it then? If you’re serious, why no contact until now?
If you *are* serious and commented about me here because you care about me, I have emails and phone numbers that are easy to find. If you’re spoiling for an argument or to make a point, please don’t bother.
Karsten
[...] ht: by (Karsten Piper) posted over at [22 words] check it out. [...]
More like mulling it over. I’m not sure my response here was any more or less “point-making” than your original post.
I’ll e-mail you to reduce the profile. For the record, I have been looking for your e-mail since I saw your response here (today) and haven’t been able to find it.
Well, Frank, we managed to scorch the earth in this thread just enough to shut up everyone else.
But it’s OK, all, you can come back if you like. I found his fuller comments on the earlier thread. And he found my email. I think we both let go our defensiveness and anticipate a fruitful exchange.
I hope to drop in again later this afternoon and respond to some of the earlier questions and comments. There were some good ones.
Cheerfully,
Karsten
Here are a few thoughts which might or might not clarify and reassure you…
I think art—or the various arts—are among the complex, wonderful gifts we’ve been given by God as part of our likeness to him. The urge to language, technical inventiveness, intellectual and theological curiosity, the drive to explore, order, innovate, decorate, and the like. They’re all created things and find their liveliness and usefulness in our relationship with God and with each other. None of these things will save my soul or yours. Venerating any of them is idolatry.
There’s always so much more to say, but this is more or less the umbrella under which I (usually) do my work.
Somewhere under there, let me try this explanation out on you. There is the work God does, and there is the work we do. He creates. We create. He forgives. We forgive. He loves. We love. What he does, and is, is complete, perfect, beautiful, effective, whole, alive. What we do, who we are, is utterly broken yet awfully like him.
So I can’t really apologize for talking about “creation” because, well, folks do make things, in our way. I’m generally at peace using the same words for God’s work and ours because he does. And because I think the value of human thought, work, communication, love, etc. walks a sort of bridge between our work and God’s. Whether we offer it up to him consciously and willingly or not, we and our work belong to him, and we rarely know how deeply has taken our work into his.
But redemption may be another beast entirely. He redeems, we don’t. And I’m not entirely sure what the details or extent our participation in his redeeming work may be or what to call it.
What I was driving at in that first thread was to affirm that every piece of artwork walks that “bridge” as far and as often as God wills, including over into his redeeming work. We don’t need to recognize “an element of redemption” (Abraham’s phrase in the earlier post, I think) in the content of the art for its existence to be justified. There doesn’t even need to *be* an “element of redemption” for the artwork to have a redemptively worthwhile purpose.
The most anti-God piece of artwork, the most Godless piece of artwork, even (and this is the one that strains my own credulity the most) the most ridiculous, trite pieces of God-schlock, represents the handiwork of someone acting (however degradedly or poisonously) in the image of God. The thing itself is a sign, evidence, of God the creator, redeemer, ruler, for those with eyes to see.
Helpfully?
Karsten
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