Hi everyone,
This is one of those links that belongs in two places – Art and Religion, but it seems I have to choose only one, so here it is.
Through my friend Tony’s blog, I learnt about the BBC Nativity that I posted before Christmas and now he’s posted a video which I’m sure most artists here will love!
[url]Art, religion and the KJV[/url] It’s 8.24 minutes long – not long enough for me!
The video discusses the art/worship divide, in its focus on a work of art that comes from that place of religious worship, but is recognised as high quality contemporary art. New York artist Makoto Fujimura’s beautiful version of The Four Holy Gospels has been produced for the forthcoming 400th anniversary commemoration of the King James Version of the Bible.
Enjoy and be inspired!
Judy
That was EXCELLENT, Judy! Thanks so much for sharing it!
It seems like an odd idea at first - using abstract/non-representational art to illustrate the Bible. But thinking about Makoto's work, I'm reminded of a Boston-based artist, Barbara Cook Spencer - also a Christian and an amazing spiritual thinker - who has also explored how non-representational art can illustrate and magnify spiritual concepts in far deeper ways than art that's confined to representing material forms. There's an article by her in which she writes:
[COLOR="Green"]I realised that colour, line, and form are mental and spiritual - elements of Mind, not matter... that the presence and power of artistic qualities - like order, beauty, depth, power, purity, joy, love, and balance - are not linked to, or dependant on, matter....
Painters in the early 20th century had been liberating colour, line, and form - the elements, or language, of visual expression - from the need to describe physical, three-dimensional objects. Instead, colour, line, and form - like notes in music - could be used purely for composition. In music, the composer's individuality and message are fully revealed through the structure created by the arranging of notes, unobstructed by any need to reference, imitate, or interpret the so-called "outside world". The same is found to be true with the composing of colour, line, and form in visual art: composition alone can unfailingly reveal the individuality and message of the artist. And this liberated, but disciplined, artistic expression hints at the truth of man as a compound idea rather than a material organisation. (Barbara Cook Spencer, "The Isotropic Effect" - The Christian Science Journal, April 2009, pp. 28-31)
I think Makoto, in his own way, must be expressing the same truth. 🙂
All love, Charis