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Thoughts on a Religious Theatre Community

February 5, 2010 by ccematson

So first of all, I have decided to run the series on a theatre company run according to the Rule of St Benedict. I may follow it up by looking at some of the other Rules of religious life as well, such as the Rule of St Augustine which the Augustinians and Dominicans use.

One of the major reasons why I’m doing this is that I am interested in the idea of a religious community whose main apostolate is theatre. I’ve run across religious communities that do theatre (like the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, and the couple Dominican priests who operated an off-Broadway theatre in the 20th century under the aegis of their province), and also arts-makers who live in a semi-communal monasticism-influenced environment (the Art Monastery in Italy, an arts incubator and collective based in a medieval monastery). But I’ve not run across a religious community that does theatre (or arts in general) as its main apostolate. There are many religious congregations, societies of apostolic life, and association of the faithful that focus on missionary work, education, health care, promoting devotions, and other worthy activities. These might use the arts in their work, but I have not run across a single one of these organizations whose charism is to create art to God’s glory. I think this is a lack that should be supplied, and as I am at the beginning of a long-term period of vocational discernment, supplying that missing charism is an option I am considering strongly.

I’ve got to thank the Prof, Scott Walters, for planting the seed of this idea with his vision statement for theatre tribes, though I’m taking it in a bit of a different direction. Nevertheless, imagine this:

A troupe of theatre professionals devoted to creating theatre to the greater glory of God, and also to deepening their relationships with God, with each other, and with their communities by reflecting the servant role of an artist and Christian through a life of radical self-giving and prayer. They take the evangelical counsels, vowing poverty (not hard for an artist), chastity (a bit harder), and obedience (by far the hardest). (Since the model I am considering is intended to grow into a religious congregation, it is Catholic, but I am sure this model could be adjusted accordingly for members of other faith traditions.) The grounds include a chapel (the spiritual heart of the community, reserved for prayer, worship, and reflection - not to be used as extra rehearsal or performance space). There are also living quarters for the community, with extra rooms for visiting artists. There’s a refectory (area where meals can be taken in common), common room (where community members, resident visiting artists, and staff can relax), meeting room (for community and production meetings), and library with study space (the concept of the artist-scholar is an important tenet of the community).

The heart of the community’s work, however, is the theatre. Ideally there would be a larger proscenium-style space (though flexible and not limited to proscenium usage) as well as a smaller black box/studio theatre, accompanied by rehearsal studios of various sizes and equippage (as many as we can manage and practically use, at least one with a piano, one with a sprung dance floor, one with video equipment, etc.) There would also be scenery, prop, and costume shops, as well as materials and item storage. (It would be great to have enough space to offer storage space and materials to the community, with a low rental fee, to encourage reuse of materials. The ”greening” of the build-use-destroy process would save other theatres money while bringing in a modest income to the community.) There would of course be a comfortable green room, and a community room where, for example, the theatre could host events, or provide space for gatherings of the greater local community. Programming would not only include shows that the resident troupe puts on, but also involvement by people from the local region. The theatre would be a place for them to create and produce their own art as well. (It could eventually grow into a full arts community, not just theatre.)

Troupe members would teach in schools and at the theatre. Multiple roles in the community (like acting, playwriting, marketing, and painting sets) would not only be encouraged but expected, though of course with a focus on one’s strengths and passions. (If you can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a paintbrush, no one’s going to suggest you take the role of chief scenic artist, but if there are a dozen set pieces that need to be painted, all available hands will be expected to help out.) This community would also share its resources communally, so any salary earned from teaching or independent bookings (or from ticket sales or donations) goes directly into the community pool, which also provides for the community members’ needs, as well as a modest monthly allowance per person. The community would be run on a democratic model similarly to the way the Dominicans run their priories, with members elected to leadership posts like general manager, bursar, artistic director, with term limits (though a person can be re-elected if they’re doing a good job and both they and the community would like them to continue). There would be shared worship on Sundays, among the community members and the local community. Communal prayer would happen in the chapel at least twice daily (morning and evening prayer). Best of all, it would be theatre artists living together, sharing a common life of artistic creation and prayer. Religious life with a theatre apostolate.

Now I’m just throwing ideas out there at the moment. Religious life places certain limitations on the flexibility of a theatre (and, to be honest, on its artistic content). But a life of not only shared artistic creation, but also shared prayer between a community of residential Christian artists is very attractive to me, even if it doesn’t go so far as vowed religious life. (I’ve just brought that aspect in because it’s something I’ve thought about very seriously recently.)

Does any of the above sound attractive to anyone else? Any thoughts, comments, suggestions, critiques? Let’s hash it out. How might something like this work? Keeping in mind I’m discussing at the moment a residential theatre company with communal living that has a religious component. Has anyone heard or thought of anything like this? If it’s an idea that interests you, how might you go about it?

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On a Benedictine Theatre Company

January 13, 2010 by ccematson

A while back, I mentioned on Twitter that I was interested in exploring the idea of a theatre company based on the Rule of St. Benedict. It would take its management practices from one of the fathers of Western monasticism, who believed in the virtues of hospitality, gentleness, and compassion – as well as loving obedience. What would a Benedictine theatre company look like?

1. It would be welcoming. Patrons would never go away feeling like they were just another $20 butt to fill a seat. They would be able to identify the head of the theatre and call him by name. (Let’s call him the theatrical “Abbot” to keep with the Benedictine theme. The title is a placeholder for the artistic director, executive director, board president, or any other significant leader of the company, but is especially appropriate for whomever you can identify as “the guy who runs the joint.”) The Abbot would make himself available to patrons, staff, artists, and anyone else who interacts with the theatre. He would definitely always be there to greet the patrons at a show (and if, for some necessary reason, he can’t be at a show, he’ll have a deputy who’s also well-known and shares his philosophy of hospitality). He would also work to make sure that the theatre is welcoming for artists, both company members and visiting artists. Whether it’s providing snacks in the dressing room, a killer cast party, or simply making sure everyone gets paid something for their work, a Benedictine theatre company will be known for the home it provides for its artists.

2. It would be firm but gentle. Policies of the theatre in terms of member responsibilities, box office and rehearsal procedures, the cleanliness of the prop room, etc. would be spelled out clearly to avoid confusion, but would also be flexible if needed for the welfare of the group. People will be assumed to be trustworthy and responsible, and treated with the according respect, unless and until they break that trust – innocent until proven guilty. Even if people make mistakes and break rules, they will be treated with gentleness and the assumption of goodwill. Only if it becomes a pattern of immature or incompetent behavior, with no effort made to improve, will a person be asked to leave the community. Even in this case, they will still be treated with the respect due to a fellow human being and colleague. A Benedictine theatre company will be known for treating its artists, staff, and volunteers with dignity.

3. It would treat the audience as members of its community, and do shows that build up that community. This doesn’t mean doing fluffy feel-good after-school special fare, but it does mean asking yourself when considering a production, “Does this help my community in some way? If I were to see this show, would I feel like the theatre had invited me to participate in an important experience with them, or would I feel like they couldn’t care less what I thought or felt about the show and its effect on me?” Does the company engage its community off-stage as well? What about offering classes, or reduced rate tickets for students AND teachers AND volunteer firefighters, etc., or a free ticket give-away to low-income neighbors (as Single Carrot Theatre did in their Baltimore neighborhood a while back)? Or even allowing members of the community to use theatre space for free or cheap on a dark night? (See Prof. Scott Walters’ vision for such a community-based ensemble theatre company.) A Benedictine theatre company will by its neighbors as a member of their community.

I’m thinking of doing a series exploring how each daily reading from the Benedictine Rule can be applied to the running of a theatre company. I may be painting an idealistic picture, but I figure the higher you aim, the higher you hit. Questions:

1. Would you be interested in such a series? I’d definitely love feedback so we can hash this out together.

2. What would you expect to see in a theatre company that called itself Benedictine, either as a patron or as an artist/staffer?

3. Any additions to the above brainstorming?

And finally: When you think about your dream theatre company, what’s the number one thing you want?

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Wildest Dreams Wishlist for 2010

January 6, 2010 by ccematson

Bonnie Gillespie is an L.A. casting director and author. She also happens to be one of the most positive voices around (online or offline), and her writing always exudes joy, confidence, and love. A feature film she cast, Another Harvest Moon, premiered recently, and is getting buzz for its excellent cast. In this week’s installment of The Actors Voice, Bon’s column at Showfax, she mentions the “wildest dreams wishlist” she asks all her directors for when she first starts working with them – basically, who in their wildest dreams would they want in these roles, “if money is no object and all offers will be taken seriously.” Bon’s suggestion for this New Year is that, yeah, goals are good, but think about what, in your wildest dreams, you want to see happen, this year and beyond, for you and for the world you’re in. As she says, “‘Why have blocks?’” Dream it, do it.

In that spirit, here’s my wildest dreams wishlist for 2010:

1) Get a predicted First degree on my exam results from all my tutors.

2) Go on an awesome promo tour for The FellowsHip: Rise of the Gamers this summer, with my director and the rest of the FellowsHip, as a kick-off for a wide studio release in theatres nation-wide.

3) Write my extended essay on theatre and theology, with a topic entirely of my own choosing, and have it be both exciting and inspiring to myself, my supervisor, and other artists. It will be publishable and reach a wide academic and artistic audience. I’d say what the idea is, but I have several stewing that I like. I think if I had to pick right now, it would be on how to run a Christian theatre company, perhaps looking through the lens of the Rule of St. Benedict or the Dominicans. Hey, it could even jumpstart a movement.

4) Be cast in a lead role in The Hobbit. (Hey, it’s wildest dreams, right?)

5) Be accepted into a Masters-to-Ph.D. program at St Andrews or Oxford in Theology and the Arts, with a supervisor who’s just as passionate about the type of art I want to do as I am.

6) Plant the beginnings of the Unicorn Triumphant Theatre Company by producing The World Over here at Oxford, in a production at the Oxford Playhouse or OFS Studio, in tandem with Fr John at the Chaplaincy and his dreams for a Chaplaincy drama group.

7) Lose 15 more pounds and get a 6-pack.

I think seven dreams parallel my earlier seven goals nicely.

Bon also talks about wildest dreams for the world in which one moves about, like the acting industry. What would I like to see in the world of theatre?

1) A renewal in theatre like that in literature that came out of the world of the Inklings (and Inklings-by-association and -by-influence), from which we not only got brilliant manifestoes on religion (The Everlasting Man), education (The Abolition of Man), and art (Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories”), but also great art that revived old ideas for new audiences (the pinnacle of which was The Lord of the Rings, but which also included the Chronicles of Narnia and Charles Williams’ Arthurian poetry).

2) Christians taken seriously as artists again.

3) A plethora of new branches of college/university theatre programs that provide professional training equal to that at Juillard, NYU, or Yale, but that are fed by the deepest roots of the Christian tradition.

4) Recognition in the wider artistic culture that the artist has a moral responsibility to his audience, to live with them in community and compassion, and that self-expression alone does not great art make.

5) Less related to the artistic world, but definitely related to the world in which I move: A return to actually doing theology in an academic theology program, instead of doing socio-historical-linguistic criticism and calling it theology. The Synoptic Problem is not theology, it is only a preparation for doing actual theology.

6) Increased church support for Christians who have vocations as artists, even those Christian artists who don’t do explicitly Christian art.

7) World peace. ‘Cause, you know, it’s wildest dreams and all.

What about you? What are your wildest dreams?

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What Should a Professional (Christian) Theatre Look Like?

January 3, 2010 by ccematson

I’ve just finished reading two important books:

1) God Off-Broadway: The Blackfriars Theatre of New York (Matthew Powell, O.P.) – A history of the only professional theatre in the U.S. run by a religious order (the Dominicans)

2) Tribes (Seth Godin) – Thoughts on how to create and lead a tribe

The first got me thinking about what a Christian theatre should look like. The Blackfriars Theatre had two artistic directors in its approximately 30-year history, both of whom were Dominican priests. The first artistic director believed that the theatre should explore “the spiritual nature of man and his eternal destiny” in a way that did not conflict with Catholic moral values (e.g. a show that presented abortion as a valid option for women would be unacceptable), but that it did not have to restrict itself to religious subjects, and could even present characters who were morally imperfect (as long as poor moral choices weren’t promoted). During this time, the first 12 years of the theatre’s existence, the theatre was generally well-respected by the major critics, and did excellent work that was hailed as more risk-taking than that of the secular commercial theatre, especially Broadway. For example, Blackfriars took a morally courageous stance against racism with several productions during the forties and early fifties, well before the civil rights movement.

Unfortunately, the first artistic director was re-assigned, and the second artistic director, who had previously only handled the business aspects of the theatre, felt that the theatre should only put on shows that were explicitly Catholic, and that commissioning and producing dramatizations of the lives of the saints for purely parochial audiences sufficiently fulfilled the mission of the theatre. This second artistic director’s focus was not on creating excellent art, but on didactic moral teaching and evangelization through drama. Of course, when you put on shows only for Christians, only Christians come, and therefore the shows become completely useless for evangelization, since you’re only preaching to the choir. And if the focus is on the quality of the moral instead of the quality of the play, even the Christians stop coming, except out of a sense of duty.

And that’s exactly what happened to Blackfriars. I’ve worked with an actor who was a volunteer at Blackfriars as a teenager, during its later years, and what he remembers is bad writing and very obvious sermonizing. The rest of the professional theatrical and critical community sadly came to the same opinion, and not even its supporters were passionate enough about its work to save the theatre when the artistic director passed away.

I’ve had several conversation with other Christian artists both online and offline about both the status of Christian theatre and the challenges of being a Christian in theatre. The problem with the first? Too often it’s mediocre, as the focus is generally on “does this show clearly preach the Word?” rather than “is this show good?” The problem with the second? If you work for any length of time in the professional theatre you’re going to be faced with the dilemma of being asked to compromise your faith for a job, or be uncomfortable with the moral ramifications of the artistic interpretation of your director, or be ridiculed for being prudish or closed-minded if you oppose certain pieces of art.

In both cases, the Christian artist is asked to put his faith and his art in different boxes, and then to choose between them. The producer of Christian theatre who believes the moral is all asks the Christian artist to sacrifice his artistic standards to his Christianity. The producer of modern secular theatre who believes in taking artistic risks asks the Christian artist to sacrifice his Christianity to artistic achievement.

My contention? It’s not either/or. A Christian owes obedience to Christ above all things, that’s clear, but one of the ways the Christian artist lives that obedience is by giving his best to his vocation. He becomes the best Christian he can be partly by being the best artist he can be.

A couple C.S. Lewis quotes are appropriate here:

[Christ] wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim… The proper motto is not ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever,’ but ‘Be good, sweet maid, and don’t forget that this involves being as clever as you can.’ God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. – Mere Christianity

We do not need more Christian writers. We need more writers who are Christian. – paraphrase (I’m having trouble finding the exact source)

One could re-phrase that last sentence from the Mere Christianity quote to say, “God is no fonder of artistic slackers than of any other slackers.” And the second quote makes me wonder if Christian artists should even be focusing on making Christian theatre at all, or if we should be working only within the mainstream theatre world, but in such a way that we maintain our integrity and make art that reflects our understanding of “man’s spiritual nature and his eternal destiny.”

Which brings me to the second book, Tribes. I think we have a tribe here, of theatre artists who are Christian and who want to make art that is both: 1) of excellent quality, and 2) compatible with their Christian commitment. We may differ as to whether we each want to work completely in the mainstream theatre world while holding ourselves to a particular code of integrity, or work completely in church drama ministry, or work somewhere on the spectrum in between. My personal professional history ranges from gospel plays to corporate training videos with absolutely nothing to do with religion, but for myself, I tend to favor a combination of the Tolkien and Lewis models. I see the Tolkien model as telling a great story that deals deeply with the themes of faith, but does not explicitly touch on religion (or only barely), and is directed toward a general audience. I see the Lewis model as also telling a great story, but “showing one’s Christian colours” a bit more, and is either directed toward a general audience or towards a Christian-friendly audience (i.e. an audience that will not be put off by clearly Christian references in a story). The theatre and films I’ve done that I’ve been most passionate about have both addressed questions of faith directly (A Man for All Seasons) or have touched on religious faith barely, if at all, but have celebrated virtues in line with the Christian worldview, such as courage, loyalty, and integrity (The FellowsHip: Rise of the Gamers). The common characteristics, however, have been excellent stories that are worth telling in themselves (aside from any perceived spiritual value), executed to a high standard, and targeted to a general audience. Spiritual themes excite me, but if I’m going to explore them theatrically, the resulting production must share these characteristics, at least in my own career.

So where do we go from here? Would it be better for theatre artists who are Christian to perform in and produce theatre that is clearly Christian, but that is of the highest professional standard, in order to erase the association of the phrase “Christian theatre” with the word “mediocre”? Or would it be better for theatre artists who are Christian to bring their artistic sensibilities and standards of conduct into the mainstream theatre world, and prove that you don’t have to be profane, intentionally offensive, or willing to compromise your religious faith in order to make great art?

And if our tribe were to start a professional theatre company, what should it look like? Should it call itself Christian, or not?

P.S. – While writing this post, I came across this open letter to Fox Faith from Dr. Marc Newman, the president of MovieMinistry.com. He addresses many of the challenges discussed above, and I highly recommend reading it, especially as it’s not too long. Here’s a quote to whet your appetite:

One of your biggest marketing battles is to convince Christians to see “Christian films,” a label which, over the years, has come to be nearly synonymous with “bad movie.” [...] The job of preachers (and Christians everywhere) is evangelism. The job of movies is to tell great stories.

Great stories can move us, affect our world view, cause us to consider ideas that we had never entertained before, and lead to open doors for spiritual conversations; but they cannot substitute for them. When films push too hard to preach or moralize, they tend to fail miserably. C.S. Lewis, when asked whether the world needs more Christian writers, replied, “No, we need more writers who are Christian.” What Lewis meant was that Christians who want to be writers need to hone their craft so that their stories are compelling to anyone who might read them. He was not interested in ghettoizing a narrow niche of minor, or outright bad, literature written by Christians, for Christians. May God bless you in the search for great new screenwriters and filmmakers who are Christians, and may the Church recognize the need to raise up and support committed, creative artists.

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7 Goals

December 31, 2009 by ccematson

As 2009 winds down and 2010 begins, I’m reflecting on how where I am now (studying Theology at Oxford while living in C.S. Lewis’ house) is so very different from where I thought I would be 3 years ago (finishing up a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology while writing a dissertation on religious OCD), which is very different from where I thought I would be 3 years before that (making a living as a freelance actor in either NYC or LA).

Where would I like to be 3 years from today? Working on my D.Phil. in Theology and the Arts while applying to join a religious order (either as a first-order or third-order member) or some other form of consecrated life.

As I seek to clarify where I go from here, listed below (in no particular order) are seven goals I have for my life:

1) Get a D.Phil. in Theology and the Arts

2) Graduate with a First from Oxford

3) Join a religious order/enter consecrated life

4) Teach at a Catholic (or “merely Christian”) college

5) Start a professional theatre company aimed at exploring spiritual themes in a way that is both Catholic (consistent with our understanding of good vs. evil in the context of a divine redemptive purpose for humanity) and catholic (examined in a way that is accessible to all Christians, people of other faiths, and people of no religious belief)

6) Publish a book on the moral responsibility of the Christian artist

7) Become a saint

By the last I don’t mean “become canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.” I mean that I hope and pray that, by the grace of God, I live my life in such a way that I allow God to make of me the saint He wishes to make. We are all of us – every human being – called to be saints in the end. Nothing less.

What are your goals for 2010, for your life, or even just for today? And how can we help each other reach them? Feel free to comment below if you’d like to share your thoughts.

Blessings to you, dear reader, in the New Year.

My desk at the Kilns

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C.S. Lewis College & the Arts

December 24, 2009 by ccematson

I have just returned from a week-and-a-half’s vacation with my family in India. We went from Delhi to Jaipur to Corbett National Park to Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas. (Let me just say that the sunsets up there are absolutely gorgeous, and I could happily live as a hermit for a summer in sight of those snowy peaks.) I returned to Oxford with family in tow on Sunday to the sight of snow covering the ground. It looks like we’ll be having a white Christmas here at the Kilns!

(Picture snapped yesterday morning)

I also arrived home to some news so good I’ve been sharing it with folks left and right:

Announcing the founding of C.S. LEWIS COLLEGE!

You heard that right, folks. After years of work, one of the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s two major physical projects – the other being the running of the Kilns and its programs – finally has a home, and a proposed start date. And I – and the other friends of the Foundation with whom I’ve spoken – couldn’t be happier.

On the website linked to above, you’ll find information on the Dec. 16th announcement, including videos from the press conference with the participating organizations, and an information video on the plan for the College. There are also press documents and FAQs, as well as links to the venture’s partners.

You want the details?

-C.S. Lewis College will be a Christian Great Books College with a School of Visual and Performing Arts. Denominationally, it will be “merely Christian,” open to all who hold the most basic tenets of the Christian Faith, including Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and others.

-The privately-owned Oklahoma-based arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby has made a generous $5 million commitment to buy and maintain the Northfield, Massachusetts campus of the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, a private co-ed boarding school which has consolidated its activities to another campus, for the purposes of establishing C.S. Lewis College. (Three cheers for Hobby Lobby and Northfield Mt. Hermon!)

-The College plans to enroll 400 students and maintain 40 faculty and 45 staff members when it opens. Subject to the accreditation process, the College plans to commence instruction in Fall 2012.

(Picture from new C.S. Lewis College campus. Photography by Sharon LaBella-Lindale. More pictures available here.)

C.S. Lewis College is exactly the kind of college I was looking for as a high school senior interested in both professional-level theatre training and a solid foundation in the liberal arts within a Christian academy. I didn’t find such an environment at the time (though I have since been informed of smaller Christian colleges that I have been told have excellent theatre programs, such as Benedictine College in Kansas), so I was split between my two top choices. One was Wheaton College, which my father, grandfather, and several other family members had attended and loved, and which impressed me with its commitment to a solidly intellectual Christian environment and the warmth and fellowship of its students and faculty. The other was New York University, which had an academic culture that was the polar opposite of Wheaton’s (just how much so I was to find out later), but which had one of the top undergraduate professional theatre training programs in the country. Wheaton did not even have a theatre major. So, on the advice of my father, I chose NYU. My father knew that I wanted top-level training, and I think he also knew that he did not have to worry about me losing my faith in NYU’s strongly secular environment.

I’ve often wondered if I made the right choice. I was greatly challenged by my teachers, made good friends, and gained a higher level of confidence in my abilities (and of course added a certain cachet to my resume), but the cultural atmosphere oppressed me greatly. The kind of theatre promoted at NYU – postmodern, experimental, and focused on Art for Art’s Sake instead of  Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – was not the kind of theatre I wanted to do. On the other hand, I would not have received the same level of training at Wheaton, even though my artistic ideas would have been given much more support.

I don’t want other young Christians following a vocation to a life as a professional artist to experience the same dilemma, and have to choose either a Christian academic environment or top-level professional training. Therefore, I hope that C.S. Lewis College will be able to provide both. I’m sure that it will provide a Christian academic environment that initiates the student in the life of the mind and the growth of the spirit, to the greater glory of God and for Christ and His Kingdom (to quote mottoes of the Society of Jesus and of Wheaton College, found carved in stone at their respective academic institutions). My hope is that the College will also be able to recruit top-level professors and instructors in the arts, that will not only be able to help their students grow artistically in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, but also gain the cutting-edge skills required to succeed in the top rung of the professional artistic world. It will be the job of these professors and these students, as it is my job and the job of all Christian artists, to blaze a path for traditional artistic values in today’s artistic culture of death. And we can only do that through unassailable excellence in our own work.

So, in the spirit of love for the Foundation and the College, and whole-hearted support of their mission, I humbly offer my thoughts on the formation of a School of Visual and Performing Arts at a Christian Great Books college, and what I myself would be looking for if I were once again a potential student:

1) A major in Theatre or Performing Arts (with a possible B.F.A. option). I would want to make sure I was receiving enough practical training to be competitive in the major professional markets of New York, L.A., Chicago, and the primary regional theatres around the country. I recognize, however, that a Great Books college usually requires the same curriculum of all its students, or at least a very similar one. (Thomas More College in New Hampshire, for example, allows for tailoring of its largely uniform curriculum through the Junior and Senior Tutorials, Junior Project, and Senior Thesis, in which the student focuses on a particular area of study of his own choice.) A Great Books curriculum might similarly allow arts students in their later years to tailor their instruction by taking specialized training courses (like Performing Shakespeare, Musical Theatre, Commedia dell’ Arte), either through classes or independent or small-group study, or undertake an artistic thesis (like writing or directing a full-length play). Alternatively, if there were a B.F.A. option, arts students could study the same core Great Books curriculum as all other students their first two years, and replace one or two areas of the Great Books curriculum with training courses their last two years. (Great Books curricula are generally divided into areas such as Literature, Sciences, Philosophy, Theology, History, etc. The Masters program at St. John’s College allows graduate students to choose four out of five areas in which to study.) I doubt this is the direction in which the Foundation is going with C.S. Lewis College, but it might be a good option for another institution. My biggest concern as a prospective student interested in acting professionally would be that I would spend all my time reading and discussing books and writing papers, but very little time actually learning and practicing the skills needed to pursue my craft. If I saw on a website a separate School for the Visual and Performing Arts, I would assume that as an arts student I would be carefully trained in my craft, as well as studying the Great Books.

2) Discussion of the Great Books of the arts (especially Christian), with participation by all students, but especially arts students. I would be looking for the Great Books of the arts, and not just literature, to be covered by the Great Books curriculum. For example, Aristotle’s Poetics would be a basic read for all students, as well as the experience of Shakespeare as drama, and not just as written literature. Students would be exposed to the Great (non-written) Texts of the arts, such as the paintings of Fra Angelico, the music of Palestrina, the medieval Mystery Plays (in performance), the architecture of the great Gothic cathedrals. The Way of Beauty program at Thomas More College does this well. It includes instruction in the singing of the psalmody in the Divine Office, for example, and it’s a core part of their curriculum. Arts students may spend more time on the Great Books of the arts, but all students should be exposed to them.

3) Development of an artistic worldview and discussion of the role of the Christian artist. I feel this focus is very much in line with the Foundation’s mission. In order to counter the prevailing artistic worldview of modern and postmodern art, in which all value is subjective and the purpose of art is the self-expression of the artist, we must provide students with an alternate way to view art, and their role in the world as artists. This means discussion of the role of the artist, especially the Christian artist, and an emphasis on the traditional artistic values of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This means asking the arts students to think about what they want to stand for, and what they want to communicate through their art. A possible project might be the creating of a personal manifesto for each arts student. I know some college theatre programs that require their students to take a senior-year “business of acting” course, at the end of which they create a personalized career plan in consultation with the teacher. They leave the class knowing in which areas of the business they want to focus their efforts (Shakespeare, stand-up comedy, musical theatre, film) and how to best market themselves in that area. Arts students at a Christian Great Books college could take a course on the vocation of the artist, which might include regular spiritual reflections on their vocation (perhaps with the guidance of a spiritual director chosen by each student), and which would culminate in the writing of a manifesto describing the artistic mission to which each feels called. Reflecting on the meaning of art and the responsibility of the artist would go far toward helping arts students graduate with a strong sense of vocation and artistic purpose, and with increased spiritual growth as Christian artists and as human beings. You know, I wonder if writing such a “vocation statement,” as part of a senior-year retreat or period of spiritual direction, might be beneficial for all students.

4) A strong ensemble theatre company with a Christian mandate, but not limited to Christian productions. This would be one of the trickiest accomplishments to pull off, but it’s something I intend to try someday. (More on this theme later after I finish reading my current book, God Off-Broadway: The Blackfriars Theatre of New York by Matthew Powell, O.P., a history of the only professional theatre in the U.S. to have been run by a religious order.) Especially if there is minimal flexibility in the curriculum, I would like to see all performing arts students involved in regular practical production work with a theatre company that holds itself to professional standards. It may be entirely student-run, or it may be led or overseen by faculty, but the majority of the work would be done by the students, providing them with opportunities not only to perform, but also to direct, produce, design, write, stage manage, crew, etc. It would also reflect the artistic ethos of the college. I believe the most effective ethos would be one that both glorifies God and lovingly and manfully engages the non-Christian. The Lord of the Rings, in my opinion, is the ultimate example of the kind of art that we need more of. It’s accessible to and rings true for the non-believer, but despite not being explicitly Christian is at the same time deeply Christian. The Christian vision of the world is at the heart of The Lord of the Rings, but it is presented in a way that does not alienate the non-Christian. Instead, it helps him to understand what Christianity means through his heart, instead of through his head. It can baptize the imagination. There is room for art that is explicitly Christian and is directed to other Christians. We need that art just as much. But the world also needs art created by Christians that is directed to the general public, otherwise we’re just talking to ourselves. I would also not want the members of a student ensemble to feel unable to take artistic risks for fear of offending someone. There’s a very fine line between making powerful and possibly uncomfortable artistic statements out of a love of truth and with compassion for one’s neighbor, and making such statements out of a desire to be bold or to shock, or worse, out of a conscious desire to offend. Scott Walters, in his important blog post “Offending the Audience” (which I’ve come back to repeatedly), quotes Wendell Berry, who distinguishes between an artist who has the “intention to offend” and one who has the “willingness to risk offending.” I would want all theatre students to know that the intention to offend is incompatible with the practice of Christian charity. But artistis must sometimes have the willingness to risk offending, if what they are saying must be said. If they can say it without offending, though, so much the better. I just wouldn’t want a student theatre company to be de-clawed and limited to doing Neil Simon or dramatizations of Bible stories, for fear of stronger, meatier, and more intellectual and possibly controversial work. This is always a risk in the wider Christian theatre, where we’d rather be safe than risk going over the line. I don’t want to cross that line, any more than any other Christian does, but we may have to get pretty close to it sometimes. But as long as the students have charity toward their audiences and their fellow artists, I think they’ll be able to handle any potential controversy with grace and compassion, and will be able to pull back if they have indeed gone too far. In any case, practice doing solid, thought-provoking work, while feeling out what it means in practice to be a Christian artist, would be an invaluable experience for any arts student.

5) General college-wide support for the arts, and an understanding of the artistic vocation as a means to glorify God. This would include an administration and professors who see the arts as a good thing, and a perfectly valid way to glorify God with integrity. It would also mean a campus ministry that appreciates the sacred arts and their liturgical use, as well as campus ministers and professors who can provide arts students with encouragement as they prepare to enter an often-hostile professional world. It would also mean a career services program that is familiar with the career paths of artists, and can provide help to students who are seeking to enter the professional world directly after graduation (and not just help with finding a day job, but help finding work in their artistic field). Fundamentally, the college would have a respect and love for the arts, and not a skepticism of their value or moral cleanliness. It would be perfectly acceptable to have a college code of conduct reminding students to be responsible in their entertainment choices (as Wheaton does) – in fact, I would probably expect it. But I would be uncomfortable about applying if I noticed a pattern of denunciations of the theatre, or of movies, or of rock music, or of dancing, without specifying the forms of each that are problematic for the Christian. I’m perfectly happy to avoid nihilistic theatre pieces, idiotically crass films, profane rock music, or practically pornographic dance venues, as detrimental to my moral and spiritual health. But, since I know good and fruitful forms of each of these areas of art, I would be disturbed if a college condemned any of them as bad in themselves. I don’t see this as a problem for C.S. Lewis College, since I know the Foundation to be committed to a renewal of Christian thought in the arts as part of their mission. But I thought I’d mention it in general, as I have come across Christians who are skeptical of whole forms of art, based on past abuses. (The relationship between the Church and the theatre in the past has been particularly rocky, not without reason.)

So, there are some thoughts that came to mind as I reflected on the exciting possibilities of having a Christian Great Books college with a School for Visual and Performing Arts. I hope that you’re as excited about the potential of C.S. Lewis College as I am. (And hey, if you are, the C.S. Lewis Foundation is at 93.4% of their fundraising goal for 2009. How about clicking here to help them out with that last 6.6% in the last week of the year? Get that extra deduction for your taxes.)

What are your thoughts about the possibilities for a Christian Great Books college with a School for Visual and Performing Arts? What would you like to see in such a program? I have nothing to do with the creation of the curriculum or the founding of the College – I’m just a cheerleader and a provider of small financial contributions when possible – but I am very excited, and interested in seeing the development of a new curriculum from a college’s inception. As someone who wants to teach at the college level in the area of theology and the arts (especially exploring the areas of #3 and #4 above), I’m interested in your thoughts on the teaching of theatre in a Christian environment. What would you like to see? I’ll make sure the Foundation is aware of the existence of this post and of your comments and support.

May you have a very merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year.

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Performance Art & the Cruelty of the Artist as “Other”

December 8, 2009 by ccematson

Right now I’m watching a 2001 student recreation of the 1974 Chris Burden performance art piece “Velvet Water.” What strikes me is the futility and cruelty of such types of performance art.

In the piece, the performer attempts to breathe water. Both Burden and this student reenactor – Don Simmons of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design – prefaced the piece by saying that breathing water “is the exact opposite of [from] drowning, because when you breathe water, you believe [the] water to be a thicker, richer oxygen, capable of sustaining life” (the bracketed words are from Chris Burden’s original recording).

Nevertheless, as I’m watching, this student is drowning. Rather, he is waterboarding himself. Because, as one commenter on Simmons’ “Velvet Water” YouTube page succinctly points out, “You cannot breathe water.” No matter how much you believe that water is “a thicker, richer oxygen,” it is not, for human beings anyway. (Fish will experience it differently.)

The recording cuts back and forth between two cameras, one recording the performer, and the other recording the audience, which is composed of about a dozen people seated in a semicircle behind tables watching the performance (which is taking place in a small viewing room next to them) on T.V. monitors in front of them. They each also have a tub of water placed before them. They were warned by the artist at the beginning of the piece that “the following performance involves a non-rational act,” and were invited to “feel free to leave the room or to participate with me.”

No one participates, at least in terms of interacting with the tubs of water in front of them. They all stare at the screen. One woman pushes back in her chair, away from the table and the screen. This happens about halfway through the almost six minutes of self-drowning. Everyone else is fairly still, though there is some nervous movement.

Don Simmons reports on his YouTube page that “the audience reactions were much more extreme than I foresaw. Some upset individuals were mad at me, while some were mad at themselves and others cried.”

This description of audience reaction is reminiscent of the reaction described by Burden to the 1972 piece “Jaizu” in which he sat in a room next to a box of marijuana cigarettes and a couple cushions, wearing a pair of dark sunglasses as he faced each individual audience-visitor as they were alone in the room with him. He didn’t move or speak. He reported afterward that “many people tried to talk to me, one assaulted me, and one left sobbing hysterically.”

The hallmark of Burden’s art is aptly described by Peter Schjeldahl in his New Yorker article on Burden, “Chris Burden and the Limits of Art.” According to him, Burden’s performances had the effect of “creating a double bind, for viewers, between the citizenly injunction to intervene in crises and the institutional taboo against touching art works.” Many of Burden’s pieces involved him putting himself in danger, such as “Shoot” (1971, gets shot in the arm with a rifle), “Trans-Fixed” (1974, crucifies himself to Volkswagen Beetle), “Icarus” (1973, has gasoline poured onto plates of glass resting on his naked body and then has the gas lit on fire), and “Doomed” (1975, determines to lie under angled piece of glass until someone interferes with the piece, which a museum employee finally does almost two days later by putting some water next to him to save him from dehydration). There are many others, including “Deadman” (1972, lies down on La Cienega Boulevard at night under a dark tarp with only a couple 15-minute flares to protect him).

After the event in “Shoot,” he asked the audience why nobody stopped him. This is a fundamentally unfair question to ask, and Simmons put his audience in the same “double bind.” When audiences show up to these kinds of performances, they hear from the performer (expressed in the situation rather than through words) this basic statement :

“I’m an artist, doing an important art piece. You are the audience, here to observe. Hey, why did you only observe? You’re morally obliged to get involved!”

This type of performance art purposely puts its audience in a position where they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It’s cruel. It places the audience in the position of feeling like they have a moral duty to stop the pain the artist is inflicting upon himself, while also desiring to respect his sovereignty as a free human being and a thinking artist. To place them in the schema of “audience,” and then suddenly switch the schema on them, is to confuse and hurt them.

Are such artists trying to break down the dichotomy of performer/audience? If so, do they mean to say that audience members should become performers, and share the creation of the performance with the instigating performer?

I think this must be what they mean, but if so, how about they give the audience a more valuable experience in which to perform? Simmons’ invitation to his audience to participate in “Velvet Water” with him is not worth much, because what sane individual is going to watch someone waterboarding himself and think, “Yeah, that’s a good idea, I think I’ll do that, too?” (Of course, this is exactly what Simmons himself did when he decided to replicate Burden’s piece. I leave you the reader to draw the resulting conclusion on the relative sanity of performance art.)

Of course, maybe Simmons didn’t mean for his audience to participate in the same way he was participating. Maybe, as the museum employee interfered in Burden’s “Doomed,” he would have allowed someone to burst through the room to pull his head out of the sink and keep him from ingesting any more water. But how is his audience supposed to know that? Is he wanting them to think for themselves, to come up with their own way to participate? But again, how are they supposed to know that? The invitation to the audience to participate in this type of performance art is again unkind, because the performer does not provide the audience with any help to understand what is going on. They’re left in a sea of novel experience, with no lifesaver tossed to them to help them make sense of it all. So, not having any tools with which to find their way to solid land, they’re left adrift, and implicitly chided for not swimming all the way to shore themselves.

The performer should not oppose themselves to the audience. If the performer wants the audience to be a partner, he should treat them as a partner, and that includes showing them respect and giving them the dignity of being initiated into the meaning of the piece. When you partner with someone, you don’t make demands of them without giving them the tools or information needed to fulfill those demands. Otherwise, you become a dictator, and instead of being the freeing iconoclast you see yourself as, you become worse than the creators of the traditional performance rubrics that you think you’re destroying. At least performers who use traditional forms give their audience the ability to participate in the art piece, because they use symbols and structures that they share with their audience as members of the same community. Performance artists like Burden and Simmons demand responses of their audiences that their audiences are in no way equipped to give, and therefore set themselves up as the powerful and secretive Other, cutting off all meaningful communication between themselves and their audiences. For if they refuse to use language that their audiences can understand, how can their audiences share in their secret? No wonder these artists evoke anger and suffering in their audiences.

P.S. – One fan of Chris Burden’s work asks, “To what extent, if any, and under what conditions, does morality have a higher claim on our actions and reactions than esthetics?” I would reply that morality always and without exception has a higher claim on our actions and reactions than aesthetics. The fact that a person would even consider that the creation of an artwork could justify immoral behavior shows how far modern art has become divorced from any framework that gives it true meaning. For if art can exist for art’s sake alone, then what does art provide, except just another meaningless experience?

I understand that modern performance artists may be trying to find, or create, meaning in a world that seems to have lost it. I sympathize. As human beings, we all need to make sense of our world, and artists do it through our art. However, the meaning is there to be found. It’s not gone. We don’t have to create it out of whole cloth, or find it only in our own idiosyncratic experience. Humanity through all time has found meaning in community, and found meaning in art shared as community. That’s where we’ll find it. Meaning is to be found in the beauty, truth, and goodness that is our common heritage as humans, and which finds its expression in our art, and has done since artists first created.

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Today’s Papal Address to Artists

November 21, 2009 by ccematson

Today Pope Benedict XVI addressed over 250 artists convened in the Sistine Chapel (as mentioned in this post). Here is the text of his address, via Psalm 46:11:

—

Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to express and renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art, a friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of salvation. This friendship must be continually promoted and supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations. Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the various distinguished personalities present. I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their contribution to this gathering. Today’s event is focused on you, dear and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.

Some significant anniversaries occur around this time. It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time, on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, “are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty”. Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, forty-five years ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express wish of Pope Paul VI, to confirm the friendship between the Church and the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our minds. “We need you,” he said. “We need your collaboration in order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity … you are masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms – making them accessible.” So great was Paul VI’s esteem for artists that he was moved to use daring expressions. “And if we were deprived of your assistance,” he added, “our ministry would become faltering and uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with art.” On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to “re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists”, and he invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship, and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately, for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in order to arrive at an authentic “renaissance” of art in the context of a new humanism.

That historic encounter, as I mentioned, took place here in this sanctuary of faith and human creativity. So it is not by chance that we come together in this place, esteemed for its architecture and its symbolism, and above all for the frescoes that make it unique, from the masterpieces of Perugino and Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, to the Genesis scenes and the Last Judgement of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who has given us here one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art. The universal language of music has often been heard here, thanks to the genius of great musicians who have placed their art at the service of the liturgy, assisting the spirit in its ascent towards God. At the same time, the Sistine Chapel is remarkably vibrant with history, since it is the solemn and austere setting of events that mark the history of the Church and of mankind. Here as you know, the College of Cardinals elects the Pope; here it was that I myself, with trepidation but also with absolute trust in the Lord, experienced the privileged moment of my election as Successor of the Apostle Peter.

Dear friends, let us allow these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me, reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide. Yet the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought to that “face-to-face” vision of God from which limitless, full and definitive happiness flows. Thus Michelangelo presents to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo’s painting, its colours and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on 8 December 1965: “To all of you,” he proclaimed solemnly, “the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends of true art, you are our friends!” And he added: “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands . . . Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world.”

Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty? Dear friends, as artists you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.

Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day. In this regard, Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: “Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up” (no. 3). And later he adds: “In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption” (no. 10). And in conclusion he states: “Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence” (no. 16).

These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality. This close proximity, this harmony between the journey of faith and the artist’s path is attested by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of “figures” – in the broad sense – namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives, themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.

In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: “Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.” He then adds: “Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion.” And he concludes: “We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.” Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: “Art means: revealing God in everything that exists.” Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art” (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: “Does art need the Church?” – thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the “great codex” that is the Bible.

Dear artists, as I draw to a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.

Saint Augustine, who fell in love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected on man’s ultimate destiny, commenting almost ante litteram on the Judgement scene before your eyes today: “Therefore we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky, sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source of all other beauty” (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5). My wish for all of you, dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I greet you with a single word: arrivederci!

Je suis heureux de saluer tous les artistes présents. Chers amis, je vous encourage à découvrir et à exprimer toujours mieux, à travers la beauté de vos œuvres, le mystère de Dieu et le mystère de l’homme. Que Dieu vous bénisse!

Dear friends, thank you for your presence here today. Let the beauty that you express by your God-given talents always direct the hearts of others to glorify the Creator, the source of all that is good. God’s blessings upon you all!

—

Your Holiness, I accept your invitation.

So, who else wants to get excited and make things?

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Some Things I Made

November 19, 2009 by ccematson

Inspired by this post by the Hawesome Wil Wheaton, here are some things I made:

Haikus while sitting in God, Christ & Salvation lecture, Week 5 – Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, & Nietzsche

—

Walking through the earth

We’re hunting the unicorn

Of lost memory.

—

Light speaks to light in

The dawning of the sun. Choirs –

We hear dimly — sing.

—

Opening the book,

Dust gives way to glitt’ring swords.

Book ends, strength remains.

—

Fear of padding paws,

Green eyes, open mouth, white teeth,

Fresh breath, warm tongue, love.

—

In the trees, white flesh

Disappears into darkness.

The hunt continues.

###

(To the lecturer: Don’t think of it as me not paying attention. Think of it as me being inspired by your words.)

Nothing fancy, but fun.

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Can the Church Win Over the Art World?

November 15, 2009 by ccematson

That’s the question the Catholic Herald asked 11 Catholic artists this past week in this excellent article. The Pope has asked 262 artists to meet with him in the Sistine Chapel later this month, and the article gives short responses from several artists to the question of the Church’s relationship to today’s art world. I’ll only quote one below, but be sure to look at all of them – I promise it won’t take too much of your time, and the responses provide a microcosm of the reasons we as Christian (and Catholic) artists make art. Below is the response of fr Lawrence Lew, OP, one of the Dominican students at Blackfriars Hall here at Oxford.

LAWRENCE LEW OP

The fine arts point to and participate in beauty, which, as St Thomas Aquinas reminds us, is most properly appropriated to Christ. Sadly, modern art is seldom orientated towards beauty, which is an objective truth extrinsic to oneself, but is rather directed inwards as a kind of subjective self-expression.

This rift can be healed by a contemplation of beauty, and ultimately of truth, revealed by the light of faith. For without faith one remains blind to God, and therefore one’s art can only reflect oneself, which does have a natural goodness but it is not opened to the infinite truth, goodness and beauty of the Divine.

I find that the art of photography requires us to seek and contemplate the beauty of God’s work in creation, and to share that beauty with others using the photographer’s talent and skill. So, photography can be put to the service of the Church, to lead others to a contemplation of beauty, which is the noble and proper end of the arts.

Brother Lawrence Lew OP is a photographer based at Blackfriars, Oxford

Now, I picked Br Lawrence’s quote not only because he’s a fellow Oxford student, but because I think he hits it dead-on when he talks about art now being seen as primarily “subjective self-expression,” not an exploration of objective beauty. Art has become about the artist, not about love or truth or goodness or the human story.

This is not the case at all times, or in all media equally. For example, I regularly watch movies in the cinema, and find myself overwhelmed (in a wonderful way) by story. But I rarely see modern theatre anymore, and you’d almost have to drag me kicking and screaming to go see a one-person show. Why? Because most of the modern theatre I’ve seen presents a bleak, amoral (or morally relativist) world that I just don’t believe is true. And the one-person shows I’ve experienced? They’re largely about the artist sharing his or her own foibles, fears, embarrassing stories, and most ferociously-held opinions with the audience, without offering the audience much of anything in return. It feels like I’m paying to be the performer’s therapist. I will never again pay $20 only to have a performer simulate masturbation 20 feet away from me in a dark space that suddenly feels much too intimate. If that was the experience I wanted, I could have gotten much more of it (and much cheaper) at a cinema downtown under the flashing red lights.

Yet this kind of theatre is what we’re teaching our young actors that they should be creating. Why? So that they can throw off the oppressive yoke of conformity, “traditional values,” and physical and moral inhibition in the name of that great goddess Art, who is sought for Her Own Sake.

Art helps us see the magic of the world anew. She feeds us with strengthening bread, meat, and wine (and milk when gentler treatment is needed) for the journey ahead. And She inspires our hearts with hope, and joy, and (if all goes well) love for our fellow beings (human and otherwise) with whom we share the planet. We cannot live without Art.

Let me say that again: We cannot live without Art.

We cannot live without that vision of the Divine that we receive through story, image, and sound. Imagine what life would be like if everything artistic were removed from the world. No bedtime stories, much less Shakespeare. No music on the iPod, not even any songs to sing in the shower. Only utilitarian architecture – no flying buttresses, rose windows, or even little garden statuary (not even yard gnomes). And don’t forget – no Bible or other religious books, either, unless you include bare moral platitudes artlessly arranged in pamphlets in Times New Roman print, without any stories of heroism and sacrificial love to make them stick. (Though I doubt we’d get that far – typography and book-binding are arts in themselves.)

No human being could survive in such a world. Maybe a brute animal could, but not a person. We’d all shrivel up and die, or shoot ourselves or each other in despair. Just as infants can die if not held and touched, we need to be in touch with a Source of life and beauty and meaning beyond ourselves, and we drink this in through Art. (That’s not to say someone’s less than human because they don’t like going to the theatre or to the art museum. Art is broader than just the traditional Fine Arts, and especially broader than just experiencing them as a passive recipient.)

Notice I say we need a source “beyond ourselves.” If we make art solely about our own individual selves, our art shrivels up and dies. Art needs to be connected to something universal, to the Good. Art as a personification is a servant, consecrated to supporting and encouraging the human race, not a goddess demanding blood sacrifice. If we want to treat Art as a Holy Grail, the be-all and end-all of our existence, we must then ask, “Whom does the Grail serve?”

This is why I don’t think the Church needs to focus on trying to “win over the art world.” We’re already here, serving. Most of us are more or less prodigal, it is true, but never fear. Insofar as our work is connected to what is Good, it can be used, participated in, and supported by the Church. If it is a branch that has been broken off from the Good, it will wither and die, because it has no root in meaning, and no life in itself. But there are those of us supporting life, and beauty, and goodness, and truth, and hope and joy and love in art. If the Church would like to provide reinforcements and supplies for fighting the good fight against an artistic culture of death, we would be glad of the help. It can be a lonely fight sometimes.

For, dear beloved Church, we are not the enemy that needs to be won over. We artists are a mixed bag, but Art knows She is ever the cup-bearer, never the Cup. If you would like to teach her how she can better serve, support the things she does well, and encourage her to participate more. Take an active role in training others to help her. And give her a full place at the table, not as a rebellious stepchild, but as a full Daughter, worthy of all honor, respect, and inclusion.

But it is up to us who wear her livery to remember that the glory of Art that we bear, and that we work as our medium, is only a reflection of that dazzling glory emanating from the Source of all Beauty, and Truth, and Goodness, the One Whom Art herself serves.

ETA: Here’s a quote I just read from Michael Hallman, an Augustinian seminarian whose blog I follow:

…[T]he Church, among other things, is supposed to represent beauty as she reflects the beauty of God and the beauty of creation. And we [the Catholic Church] are a Church with a sacramental worldview, meaning that we understand that outward signs not only point to inward realities, but also that the outward form often has the ability to direct our gaze to deeper spiritual truths.

This is why the Church and art are inseparable.

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