How Faith Impacts Art and Vice-Versa

One of my personal interests is the interaction between Faith and Art. This idea encompasses a great deal: it is just as much about Philosophy and Art, Popular Culture and Art, and Propaganda and Art. Contrary to modern superstition, there can be no Art for Its Own Sake. On this all the world agreed, Catholics and Communists alike. 19^th century Bohemians coined the slogan to avoid the accusation that their art was subversive (and it was subversive). Whether their art was attempting to subvert something that ought to be subverted is an entirely separate question. There are people today who use the slogan, and even defend it, but I think they're wrong: at the very least their art reflects something of their world view, even if they themselves do not recognize it. It isn't for its own sake, a purely aesthetic exercise. It communicates something even by the style in which it is done.

Take this piece here by Willem de Kooning (Woman V). It is recognizably a woman. But what does the painting say? Is the woman mentally ill or confused? Are all women confused? Or only blonde women? What about the artist? Is he confused by women? (I know I am). Is this how he sees women? If so, he's missing a lot, and more's the pity. Women are indeed mysterious. de Kooning seems to think they're ugly as well.

I don't claim to be an expert, or even a particularly good student of Art Criticism. I noticed that I tend to like modern architecture and objects (and by "modern" I mean primarily what was considered new & different 1890 - 1940) but I tend to strongly dislike modern painting and sculpture. There are exceptions: I very much like the so-called Impressionist painters, and highly recommend all our friends in St. Louis get to the St. Louis Art Museum to see the famous Water Lilies triptych by Monet. All three panels are being exhibited together for the first time in decades. If you go, try looking at the paintings without your glasses.



Anyhow, all (successful) art communicates something. I can appreciate de Kooning's Woman V on some level, it is successful, but I don't like it. I wouldn't have it in my home. Why is this?

This past weekend, St. Louis writer Colleen Carroll Campbell's Faith and Culture program on EWTN addressed this topic very directly. Her guest was Credo Advisory Board member Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Feingold and he told the story of how he was led from atheism to Truth by and through art and one particular art historian. He tells the story also in The Hebrew Catholic, but there are no illustrations. The de Kooning example is due to Dr. Feingold -- I personally would've drawn on Klimt or Picasso -- I had never heard of de Kooning (so, thank-you Larry).

Dr. Feingold was enrolled as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis in the ultimate program for the deeply undecided: Comparative Art. This is the broadest of all conceivable Liberal Arts degrees, encompassing  art history, fine art techniques, literature, philosophy, music, languages, anything you can think of. He made up his mind eventually; his graduate degree from Columbia University is in Art History. The sort of art Dr. Feingold was making himself was like the Abstract Expressionist piece at the head of this article. In a freshman art history class, his professor put de Kooning's Woman V up alongside a portrait painted by Rembrandt for the sake of comparison ("because that's what Art Historians do"), and asked "Which painting would you prefer to have over your deathbed for contemplation?"

It turns out that Professor Norris K. Smith and his questions had a profound effect on Dr. Feingold and his search for Truth and Beauty, and on other students too. The professor's point showing the two portraits was to contrast the world-view of the artists. Rembrandt's world view "forced" him to depict the dignity of his subjects. de Kooning's didn't. This made an impression on the young student, and eventually he experienced an "artistic conversion", looking more to the classics as examples of "good art". This led him and his wife to study in Italy, where the two atheists of Jewish extraction were surrounded by great Christian art.

Feingold, converted artistically but still an atheist, found himself sitting in the Sistine Chapel contemplating the beauty of The Last Judgement and he realized that Michelangelo could not possibly have understood how one could admire his paintings without considering whether or not there is indeed a Last Judgement. Feingold thinks the idea that might even be possible would have infuriated the "irascible" artist. For artists of the past, there was no question but that they were expressing something outside themselves -- art wasn't all about "Self-Expression". It was about the way reality really is even if this or that aspect of the reality can only be imagined.

Feingold says the Greeks all thought of art as imitation, but not simply imitation of the surface appearance of things -- rather art is an imitation of the substance or form or essence of reality. The medieval and Renaissance artists still had this notion. It may well be some artists using the outward style of the Abstract Expressionists also depict the truth of the substance of their subjects. I can only hope they're exaggerating. It may also be that some of these artists think there is no universal truth about anything, and they're only expressing themselves.

Eventually through this growing realization and a personal crisis, Feingold came to understand the intellectual relationship between art and reality. They simply can't be disconnected. And if art and reality can't be disconnected, and this or that piece of art moves you; you see it and think "That's Great!" you must ask "What is great about it? Could the world view of the artist be True? If the art speaks to you, do you really, deep down, think the worldview of the artist is true?" Mr. and Mrs. Feingold became Catholics, and the catalyst was great Christian art.

So why wouldn't I have de Kooning's Woman V  in my home? Why did I dislike it and so much of the other supposedly great modern art? My emotional reaction "I dislike this" drew my attention to the artwork's objective nature. I dislike so much modern art because so much of it does not depict reality according to a Christian or even Western world view. Take Picasso's Weeping Woman here. Technically, he's flattening a three dimensional object into two dimensions. Well, so did Rembrandt. In fact, I think Picasso was copying (or parodying) Rembrandt's weeping woman when he painted this one. But Rembrandt did not make his women two-dimensional.  Rembrandt did not exaggerate the redness of a weeping woman's nose. He left her with her dignity, with her form. Notice the humanity of Rembrandt's  painting (above) contrasted with Picasso's here.

Modern artists "question" art, but it seems to me they're dishonest about it. The point of a question is to learn the answer. The point of the modern artist is to shock. It is to thumb his nose not only at convention, but at a worldview. My worldview. And I'm not going to permit anyone to thumb his nose at me in my own home. At least not twice.