Theology of Art

The problem of evil is not only a logical problem about God’s goodness but also an existential problem about the sense of God’s presence, which the Biblical book of Job conceives as a problem of aesthetic experience. Thus, just as theism can be grounded in religious experience, atheism can be grounded in experience of evil. This phenomenon is illustrated by two contrasting literary descriptions of aesthetic experience by Jean-Paul Sartre and Annie Dillard. I illuminate both of these literary texts with a discussion of the 18th Century philosopher Lord Shaftesbury’s concept of ‘enthusiasm’.

Diplomová práce Teologická reflexe vybraných motivů v současné české poezii se zabývá teologickou reflexí motivů člověka, světa a transcendence ve třech sbírkách současné české poezie. Konkrétně jde o sbírky Úloža Ivana Martina Jirouse, Darmata Petra Hrušky a Osip míří na jih od Marie Iljašenko. V první části práce se zabývám tím, jak může teologie přistupovat k poezii a definuji dva možné přístupy, které pojmenovávám jako přístup k literatuře jako k objektu a přístup k literatuře jako k subjektu teologie. V této první části také vymezuji, v jakém smyslu může být jazyk, imaginace a metafora společným polem teologie a poezie. Zvláště metafora je totiž nosným prvkem jak poetického, tak i teologického reflektování lidské zkušenosti pobytu ve světě, jak to popisují autoři jako Paul Ricoeur, David Tracy, Paul Tillich nebo Northrop Frye, o které se ve své práci opírám. Ve druhé části práce provádím literární analýzu vybraných sbírek, která je nezbytná proto, abych ve třetí části práce, která je jejím hlavním těžištěm, mohl provést jejich teologickou reflexi. V této teologické reflexi zkoumám nejen to, jak výpovědi daných sbírek stran zkoumaných motivů korelují s výpověďmi teologie, ale také to, co v nich může být pro teologii inspirací. Provedená reflexe prokázala citlivost sbírek současné poezie pro řadu témat, která jsou teologicky významná, ať už jde o spjatost člověka s hříchem a jeho následky, pojetí člověka jako vztahové bytosti, povolání člověka k péči o stvoření nebo pokrytí celé škály napětí mezi Boží imanencí a transcendencí vůči světu. Obhajovaná diplomová práce se snaží prokázat přínosnost a inspirativnost dialogu teologie a poezie – a to i té současné české – a může tak být stimulem pro jeho pokračování jak v akademickém prostředí, tak v životě z víry dnešního křesťana nebo hledajícího člověka.

In The Icon and the Square, Maria Taroutina examines how the traditional interests of institutions such as the crown, the church, and the Imperial Academy of Arts temporarily aligned with the radical, leftist, and revolutionary avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century through a shared interest in the Byzantine past, offering a counternarrative to prevailing notions of Russian modernism.

Focusing on the works of four different artists--Mikhail Vrubel, Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin--Taroutina shows how engagement with medieval pictorial traditions drove each artist to transform his own practice, pushing beyond the established boundaries of his respective artistic and intellectual milieu. She also contextualizes and complements her study of the work of these artists with an examination of the activities of a number of important cultural associations and institutions over the course of several decades. As a result, The Icon and the Square gives a more complete picture of Russian modernism: one that attends to the dialogue between generations of artists, curators, collectors, critics, and theorists.

The Icon and the Square retrieves a neglected but vital history that was deliberately suppressed by the atheist Soviet regime and subsequently ignored in favor of the secular formalism of mainstream modernist criticism. Taroutina's timely study, which coincides with the centennial reassessments of Russian and Soviet modernism, is sure to invigorate conversation among scholars of art history, modernism, and Russian culture.

This is an unpublished paper for a Global Church Planting class at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This is a hypothetical strategy paper for planting a church in Berlin. I don't know if this strategy will work in Berlin, however, I have seen this strategy work across the globe in various contexts.

Dentro da vasta produção religiosa do artista e historiador Benedito Calixto de Jesus (1853-1927), em São Paulo, destaca-se um conjunto de oito pinturas neobizantinas, das quais aqui se privilegiam duas: São Tarcísio e Santo Estêvão. A escolha de ambas as pinturas produzidas em 1910, em óleo sobre tela, com aplicação de mosaico
dourado ao fundo se refere às questões hagiográficas, presentes nos estudos do dominicano Jacopo da Varazze, no
século XIII e do Cardeal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman, no século XIX. Sabe-se que existem aproximações entre Tarcísio
e Estêvão, no que tange aos métodos martiriais por lapidação infligidos contra ambos. Assim, são conhecidas representações icono-hagiográficas em que Santo Estêvão surge representado quase como um garoto da mesma idade em que o jovem acólito Tarcísio é morto, ao caminhar na Via Appia, enquanto transportava o Cálice com a Hóstia Sagrada aos prisioneiros. Aqui, refere-se ao bronze de Santo Estêvão Protomártir, do escultor Rodolfo Bernardelli (1852-1931), produzido em 1879. Calixto, por outro lado, iconografa São Tarcísio no clerestório do lado do Evangelho da Igreja de Santa Cecília e São José, como adulto, em possível adequação não apenas ao decoro ali exigido, quanto também, como forma de diminuição da violência expressa pelo assassinato cruel por apedrejamento contra um menino de 11 anos, conforme se propagam em suas atas martiriais aqui recuperadas e tratadas pela literatura romântica eclesiástica de Wiseman. Assim, a presente comunicação visa analisar e discutir aspectos icono-hagiográficos de ambas as pinturas calixtianas em cotejo aos pensamentos propostos por Varazze e
Wiseman, a fim de desenvolver um corpus historiográfico acerca da produção neomedieval do artista na primeira década do século XX, na cidade de São Paulo. Almeja-se, ainda compreender ambas as pinturas dentro da narrativa eclesiástica criada no contexto da Reforma Ultramontana, reforma essa oriunda do Concílio Vaticano I, aqui
defendida e desenvolvida pelo primeiro arcebispo de São Paulo, Dom Duarte Leopoldo e Silva (1867-1938), como forma de resgate do Cristianismo primitivo realizado pela inserção de santos não tão cultuados pelos brasileiros, como São Tarcísio, por exemplo, bem como busca-se analisar e problematizar as presenças de São Tarcísio e Santo
Estêvão dentro do programa icono-hagiográfico de Benedito Calixto, à luz das três vias presentes na referida igreja paulistana.

Spośród licznych, nawiązujących do chrześcijańskiego 'sacrum', wytworów sztuki współczesnej przynajmniej część niewątpliwie zasługuje na zainteresowanie teologów, szczególnie teologów fundamentalnych. Skłaniają one bowiem do poszukiwania odpowiedzi na pytanie, jaka jest wymowa chrystologii wyrażanej symbolicznie za pomocą dzieł sztuki, innymi słowy: co i dlaczego kultura współczesna „mówi” o Chrystusie, czyli jaka jest jej chrysto-logia? Celem tej pracy jest wykazanie na przykładzie wybranych przedstawień ukrzyżowania − i, w miarę możliwości, wyjaśnienie poprzez osadzenie ich w szerszym kontekście − głównych tendencji chrystologicznych obecnych w dzisiejszej kulturze, w świetle refleksji nad misterium wcielonego i ukrzyżowanego 'Logosu'.

This exhibition was conceived for the annual Regis College Easter Exhibition with the intention of exploring diverse kinds of spiritual awareness and their particular expression through painting.  The exhibition proposes to unravel the nature of the artists' desire and assist in articulating the object of their quest by drawing from personal conversations with the artists themselves.  Moreover, the exhibition provides a context within specific art historical and theological perspectives that are rich in meanings and have informed, directly or indirectly, the production of their art.

The exhibition explores the theme of spirituality and how it informs the identity and work of the artists.  It offers the viewer the option of contemplating the artists' path in order to help illuminate the viewer's understanding and experience of the world of art as well as to question the viewer's relation to himself or herself.

Článek zkoumá, v čem východní ikonopis a západní umění mohou obohatit vztah člověka k prostoru a k transcendenci. Soustředí se na pojetí ikon u Leonida Ouspenského, Pavla Florenského a Paula Evdokimova. Vyzdvihuje jejich participační pojetí, ale zároveň ukazuje dva problémy, Jednak výlučnost, s jakou se takto pojaté ikony staví do kontrastu se západními (čímž je obvykle myšleno ne-pravoslavnými) obrazy, dále pak narušení boholidské synergie, které se projeví jak ve vztahu ke stvořené skutečnosti na ikonách, tak ve vztahu k tvořivosti ikonopisců. Za pomoci dvou současných pravoslavných teologů, Assaada E. Kattana a Richarda Schneidera, ukazuje, jak je tyto problémy možné překonat.

The chapter explores Ouspensky‘s, Florensky’s and Evdokimov’s notions of an icon. With the help of contemporary Orthodox theologians such as Assaad Kattan and Richard Schneider, it challenges the confrontational attitude towards Western art which also thematises relations to space and to transcendence.

Looking at the themes of the world, memory and the ultimate fulfilment, the book seeks to recover the symbolic languages which can assist a dialogue and mutual learning on the boundaries between theology, politics and arts.
Contents:
Preface
Introduction: Culture as a Theological Theme
PART I: THE WORLD
Chapter One: Images of the World in Karel Čapek and Isaac Bashevis Singer
1. The Transcendent in the Ordinary
The World as a Factory
The World as a Garden
The World as an Open Horizon
2. A Vanished Past in the Mosaic of the Present
Roots that Were Moved
Shadows of Hope
Forces Playing in the Universe
3. Concluding Remarks
Chapter Two: Theologies of the World
1. What Lies beyond Secularisation?
2. The World as a Gift
All that is Seen and Unseen
Cosmic Nature and Humanity
The Image of God
The Fall and Renewal
3. The World as a Task
Divine – Human Cooperation
Utopia as a Symbolic Mediation of Hope
The Journey of Deification
4. Concluding Remarks
PART II: MEMORY
Chapter Three: Heritage of Totalitarian Cultures in Folk Music
1. Vladimir Vysotsky: Interplay of the Historical and the Archetypal
Losers’ Point of View
The Tragic Human Condition
Tell Me Where Is the Land Lit with Icon-Lamp Light
2. Jaromír Nohavica: Breaking and Healing in Retrospective
Memory as a Burden
God, Where Have You Been?
Glimpses of Redemption
3. Concluding Remarks
Chapter Four: Redemptive Memory in Theology
1. Victimhood as a Positive Identity
2. Remembering God
Christ as the One Who Remembers
Redemptive Re-Membering
God Siding with the Victim
Doctrine versus Experience?
3. Giving Back the Past
Liturgical Remembering
Historical Remembering
Two Eschatological Horizons
4. Concluding Remarks
Part III:  THE ULTIMATE FULFILMENT
Chapter Five: Figuring the Ultimate Fulfilment in Central European Cinema
1. Guiding Desires in extremis according to István Szabó and Vladimír Michálek
Mephisto
Forgotten Light
2. Kieślowski’s Journey towards What is Real
Liberty
Equality
Fraternity
3. Concluding Remarks
Chapter Six: Love as the Ultimate Fulfillment in Theology
1. Estrangement of Love or Ambiguity of Conversion?
2. The Spirit as the Giver of Love
Human Freedom without Love
Love outside and inside of the Body of Christ
Kenosis of the Spirit
Two Hands of the Father
3. The Spirit as the Giver of Conversion
Disordered Inclinations in the Light of Love
Discernments of the Spirits
Restored Communion
4. Concluding Remarks
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Zobrazowanie ewangelicznych opisów męki i śmierci Chrystusa (zob. Mk 14-15; Mt 26-27; Łk 22-23 i J 18-19) od wieków było celem tworzących dzieła dla szeroko pojętych celów kultycznych. Obok próby oddania, mniej lub bardziej wiernie, samych przedstawionych tam wydarzeń, starano się także przekazać określoną treść teologiczną, czyniąc to rzecz jasna w kontekście kulturowym właściwym dla danego czasu i miejsca. Współcześnie w znacznie większej mierze, niż miało to miejsce wcześniej, stare-nowe motywy pasyjne są nośnikiem treści innych, niż te stricte religijne, bezpośrednio związane z przekazem biblijnym. Ewangeliczny opis staje się pretekstem dla wyrażenia obok lub zamiast wątków religijnych innych treści. Na podstawie przykładów ze sztuki współczesnej niebędącej sztuką sakralną (kultyczną), nakreślony zostanie problem przekształceń oryginalnego, ewangelicznego opisu męki i śmierci Chrystusa oraz kulturowego kontekstu – w tym przyczyn i skutków – dla tych plastycznych reinterpretacji.