Art
Growing up, I always wanted to be an artist. I drew in my sketchbook whenever I had free time (all right, even when I was supposed to be doing something else). I don’t draw much anymore; I’ve long since moved on to other creative outlets. But I’m still awed by [...]
All good gifts—from creation and providence to redemption and the consummation of Christ’s kingdom—come from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. The Father is the architect, the Son is the mediator, and the Spirit turns a house into a home. Tracing the Spirit’s work through the Bible, we’re amazed at the breadth of […]
A Peculiar Orthodoxy: Reflections on Theology and the ArtsBy Jeremy S. BegbieBaker Academic, 2018224 pages (hardcover), $33.00 In our increasingly secular age, we have all but divorced the arts from theological consideration. It wasn’t long ago that many of the most famous artists in the West were inspired to create out of adoration and exploration […]
On my last visit to New York, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see The Scream, a 36” x 28.9” drawing in pastel by Edvard Munch (1863–1944) on loan from a private collector. It is one of four versions the artist made of the famous subject: a genderless figure, standing on a […]
Alexander Solzhenitsyn began his 1970 Nobel lecture with a striking image, saying that we moderns hold art as a “puzzled savage” holds some newfound but obscure object, not knowing whence it came or able to dream of its higher function. We misuse it for wealth, for pleasure, for power. We use it “for all the […]
The church I attend was born 140 years ago, a classic little white clapboard. The first time I saw her, I sighed at the thought of calling her home. The front is a blocky triangle, due to the addition of bathrooms on either side of the original facade (post-Victorian weaklings decided they were needed, and […]
Do you sometimes leave a movie feeling totally bowled over—only to find that the next day you can’t quite explain why you thought it was so great? Have you ever dragged friends and family to a film you loved, and then suddenly realized with horror that it wasn’t appropriate or worthwhile? If so, then you’ve […]
For the past thirty years, I’ve worked as a professional realist, specializing in the hyper-realist style. My artistic education nurtured my affinity for the paintings produced during the Reformation, but my understanding of the theological developments from that period took somewhat longer to develop. Like most Bible-believing Christians in our day, I began my spiritual […]
On my last visit to New York, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see The Scream, a little drawing in pastel by Edvard Munch on loan from a private collector. It is one of four versions that the artist made of the famous subject: a genderless figure, standing on a bridge, holding […]
As a lover of art in general and abstraction in particular, I have wrestled with a number of questions. What is art? What constitutes good art? What responsibilities does the artist bear in transmitting one's work to one's audience? What responsibilities (if any) does the audience have in receiving such work? And what happens when […]
"I know that it is pretty much an old saw that images are the books of the uneducated… But … the prophets totally condemn the notion, taken as axiomatic by the papists, that images stand in place of books." (Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 11, Section 5) With these words, John Calvin expresses what has been […]
