Modern Art

Daniel A. Siedell says in his book God in the Gallery has some interesting thoughts about the relationship between modern art and Christianity.

" Moreover, there is a view that art, somehow, should communicate to the average person, who often has no real interest in putting in the time and effort required to understand and appreciate the hard-won results of artistic practice."

He also goes on to say that,

"Artists make art not because they have knowledge they want to 'express' but because they want to discover or learn something through the practice of art."

"The ultimate distinction, then, is not between Christian art and autonomous modern art but between art that in its union of form and content can bring forth or testify to an embodied transcendence, revealing our 'amphibious existence,' and art that denies such transcendence. It is thus quite possible and indeed quite probable that some of what is understood as Christian art is in fact a profoundly anti-transcendent art, presupposing a world hermetically sealed off from the contemplation of the Son, a purely immanent world in which communication consists solely of messages, sent and received, not of contemplation and communion with the Divine. In the Christian artists' zeal to express a Christian meassage, Christian art--in the bitterest of ironies--can further contribute to denying Christ's presence in the world." 164