Talk of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion seems to focus only on the 12 hours before Christ’s death. I wonder if it will touch the Resurrection?

I commend Gibson for taking on this effort in the face of adversity, but I certainly hope he won't leave off with Christ in the tomb. It reminds me of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot when Prince Lev views Holbein's The Body of Christ Dead in the Tomb (1521). He tells Rogozin that he feels that one might lose his soul looking at the thing. Hopefully not at the risk of losing our souls, I've included an image of the painting.
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Dear X— (and J— and R—, whom I’m cc’ing),

Your quick comment on my poetry has kind of sparked me. Yes, I suppose it IS what I have chosen. And yet, I am very fearful of never writing anything really worthwhile.

I have this impression of the great writers as intellectual giants which cannot be met. And I have an impression of the current practitioners being an in-crowd full of allusions and inner-knowledge. And me, a college drop-out, who burns all candles at every end, burning quickly, smoky, short-lived. I picked up a writer’s magazine today. Nothing too high-brow, I think, and yet it is full of assumption and jargon. Names bandied, laced, and strewn.( Read more... )

On Wednesday I mentioned Andrei Tarkovsky and his book Sculpting In Time. Following is a quote:

Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken a wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for its own sake. What purports to be art begins to look like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalized action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in artistic creation the personality does not assert itself, it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always a servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of self can only be expressed in sacrifice. We are gradually forgetting about this, and at the same time, inevitably, losing all sense of our human calling....

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I was writing yesterday about the relationship between the iconographer and the Church. I think that the nature of the role of artists and audience is much like this. Some hold that art is beyond all moral or ethical consideration--Yeats, Blake, and Pushkin come to mind. Oscar Wilde once wrote, "There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all." I cannot agree, however.

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To A Mouse. On turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785

A Poem by Robert Burns

This poem was just the thing I wanted. I get so caught up in thinking, but finally something gets my attention and speaks to my heart more than my head. It's as if in answer to my questioning, "What is an artist? What is art?" I am given this verse—"This is art."



In reading these verses I am reminded of another Scot... George MacDonald. I cannot help but feel that this man tilled the ground of my heart, preparing it for the beauty of Orthodoxy.

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One more note... I must relate everything back to how I must live my life within a family—the family of the church, but also more specifically in my own family of flesh and blood. Theory is meaningless in dusty, unlived corners. Everything resolves back to the life of Communion and theosis otherwise it is merely sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal

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I've been thinking about art and responsibilities—what is the responsibility of the artist; of the audience? In thinking about this I have tried to apply what I know of Orthodox art. At some point, however, there is a disconnect because an Orthodox "artist" is not so much an artist as he is a prophet—not in the foretelling, but in the forthtelling sense. Still, the tradition of the iconographer may prove to be a good example, useful for establishing the foundation upon which may be built the answer to my question.

An iconographer is not allowed any room for individualism, his forms must agree with what has been established by the Church. And his entire work is done with the concentration and focus of prayer. The iconographer is blessed with a tremendous responsibility before God and the Body of Christ, the Church.

At the same time, the Church—both the clergy and the laity—has a responsibility to the iconographer. It must accept or reject what the iconographer offers. It must know itself, it's teachings, it's Tradition and it must constantly engage itself in iconography and theology to ensure that it is healthy and complete, without the poison of individual interpretation or subtle and inappropriate alliances with the "spirit of the age", the Zeitgeist.

But these responsibilities are not held one against the other, for the Church is one Body. The iconographer may be the left hand of the Body, the theologians being the right, the laity the feet, with Christ as the most glorious Head—all are joined by the Head in the Heart. The icon finds its fulfilment by the Communion of all parts of the Body—nothing is separate, nothing is in conflict. When the Church rejects a work as being unworthy, it is that which is flawed which is rejected and not the valid iconography. If anything is rejected it is not the iconographer, the person, that is rejected, but that which fails to be a true expression of that personhood which is in
Communion with Christ and His Body.

But how might this be applied to the arts? I will have to write about this later.