Slow Read: Week 5
Confessing Our Idols
Gods in Our Own Image
This week we start Part II of the book! The next three chapters comprise “Love the Lord Your God,” and they build on the foundations of the Toolbox, the Archive, and the Frames. Every chapter from here on out explores a theme through a couple of narrowly focused case studies.
Chapter 4 was one of the sample chapters I wrote when I was first proposing this project. I wanted to demonstrate how two objects that are radically different in appearance can elicit a similar, generative response of confession. And they are different.
Polykleitos’ “Head of a Youth” and Piet Mondrian’s “Lozenge Composition” are were made hundreds of years part and they sit on the far ends on our spectrum of representational and non-objective art. Rather than jumping straight to what the works “mean,” we get to put into practice the skills we’ve learned in the previous chapters. So, for each artwork we start with a visual analysis, we consider our archive, and then we ask questions about how the object and artist relate to their own contexts.
Before you read my visual analysis of each of the artworks, you could pull out your chart and try to identify what formal elements and principles you think are at work here. And don’t forget that you can also use the Redeeming Vision website to see hi-resolution images of all the artworks. You can even see multiple views of Polykleitos’ sculpture!
Each of these artworks propose something about how the world “should” be. Polykleitos’ smooth-faced young man, whose proportions reflect the golden ratio, embodies a single-minded pursuit of perfection: a completeness and harmony between parts that can be attained through discipline of mind and body. Meanwhile, Mondrian’s cool, geometric canvas is part of a comprehensive approach to building a utopia according to a particular notion of universality and rationality.
Both artworks give us a lot to marvel at in terms of technical skill. For the Christian viewer, there are also commitments that we can critique. But rather than dismissing the artworks for holding to faulty notions of perfection, I want to ask you to hold them up as a mirror. Can a Greek sculpture and a Dutch painting help us recognize—and confess—our own idols of self-supremacy or self-sufficiency?
My sister-in-law Hannah, visiting an exhibition of Lorna Simpson’ work
When we look at art to learn something of ourselves—to be generative, rather than to merely deconstruct—so many more objects open up to us. Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, that we looked at two weeks ago, challenges my assumptions about the “deserving” or “undeserving” poor. Lorna Simpson’s photo and text juxtapositions have called me to confession over the unthinking assumptions I make about race and gender. Donatello’s Mary Magdalene asks me to acknowledge my finitude. Mark Rothko’s color field paintings have made me aware of my discomfort with being still. Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s self-portrait with students pokes at my own carefully constructed persona. Eva Hesse’s ephemeral latex and fiberglass sculptures that change over time confront my desire for control.
In the “Further Looking” section, I point you towards a series of artworks that develop, perpetuate, or challenge the classical ideal body in the West. I would venture to guess that many of you will laugh at Horatio Greenough’s George Washington. On the other hand, you might find the work of contemporary artists Eleanor Anton, John Copland, Renee Cox, and Marc Quinn a little more uncomfortable. All of these artists are engaging with a visual archive. It’s worth asking yourself how these artworks diverge from your expectations and why you find that rupture either funny or unsettling.
You may be thinking, “This does not sound like a fun way to look at art. I thought art was supposed to elevate our minds and be an escape from the mundane.” (We’ll talk more about that notion in the next chapter.) But here’s the thing. Because I walk in abundance, anticipating God’s restoring work, these self-realizations and moments of confession are opportunities for grace to abound.
