Fellowship Hall

Art that speaks to the soul

From Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, the church has played a major role in art history. Particularly prior to the Reformation, religion was the focal point of society and the main influence on people’s lives. Art galleries in Hamilton, Burlington and Oakville are home to a number of pieces of art which explore aspects of Christian faith.

With a population that was largely illiterate, images were everywhere. They told stories and explained religious concepts, as they still do in Eastern Orthodox and other traditions.

“Images have a narrative quality,” said Christopher Cuthill, Art Chair at Redeemer University College. “They allow us to take concepts that don’t make much logical sense – for example, Jesus as God and man – and open them up to exploration.” 

Perhaps most importantly in a time when few people could afford to commission art, the church was the richest and most powerful patron (as in the case of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, paid for by Pope Julius).

“The production of art at that time was a societal rather than an individual endeavour,” said Carol Podedworny, Director and Curator at the McMaster Museum of Art. “The church was the largest patron in the community.”

Following the Reformation, though, images began to fall out of favour. Reformers like John Calvin saw them as a distraction from the Word of God, and the printing press and the rise in literacy meant images were widely seen as unnecessary. The Protestant church adopted Enlightenment thinking, which associated pictures with lack of clarity and emphasized the use of words and logic.

The result, said Cuthill, was the gradual separation of art and faith. Evangelical Christians retreated into the certainty of words, and those who’ve since ventured into the world of art have mainly done so for two reasons - firstly, to preach the gospel.

“Many evangelical artists use their art as a visual sermon,” said Cuthill, pointing to William Holman Hunt’s ‘The Light of the World’ in which Jesus holds a lamp and knocks on the door to the human heart. “He even provided a legend so people could read every symbol. There was no ambiguity, no challenge and no sense that art is valid in and of itself.”

Secondly, evangelical art has served to comfort Christians in a society that constantly challenges their beliefs. This is the depiction of the blue-eyed Jesus and the art of Thomas Kinkade which shows a sentimental, nostalgic view of the world.

Horatio Walker’s ‘Ave Maria’ at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) is another example, showing a peasant boy praying at a crucifix as the sun sets. It reflects the artist’s “spiritual and romantic attachment to the land and personal religiosity”, said Patrick Shaw Cable, Curator of European Art.
Modern Christian artists’ general reluctance to scandalize contrasts with the challenging issues many non-Christians have raised using Biblical images.

These include questions of human suffering, evil, and the values of society.
“The crucifix has been widely used to reflect human suffering,” said Cuthill. “In response to the Holocaust, a number of Jewish artists used images of the crucified Christ. They identified with him as someone who suffered with them.”

A terracotta sculpture at the Burling-ton Art Centre depicts the body of Jesus lying in the lap of his mother Mary. It was created by Georges Jeanclos, a French Jew who hid in the forest with his family during the Nazi occupation. The thin, peeling, dust-coloured clay symbolizes the fragility of human life, and wrapped within its folds are fragments from the Psalms and the Kaddish (the Jewish prayer of mourning). Jeanclos described it as ‘the moan coming from my childhood.’

“He was a deeply spiritual man, and his sculptures are an expression of this,” said Jonathan Smith, Curator of the Collection at the Burlington Art Centre. “His work always looks at the state of humanity.”

The misery of war shows itself in the work of many early twentieth century artists. Henry De Groux’s ‘Autodafé’ at the AGH shows a swirling mass of humanity, at the centre of which is a funeral pyre burning Jesus on the cross with the two thieves. More crosses appear in the background, while the figures in the foreground are contorted in pain.

“De Groux was deeply moved by the plight of refugees and the oppressed in the First World War,” said Shaw Cable. The painting also deals with the subject of persecution. De Groux had taken up the cause of a Jewish general accused of treason against France at the end of the 19th century, a charge which sparked a witch-hunt spanning decades.

Another AGH works that deal with the question of suffering include Jef Lambeaux’s ‘Untitled (The Passion)’, a bronze sculpture of the crucified Christ. In another work the artist depicted the vices, passions and virtues of humanity. His pagan vision and sensual sculptures scandalized critics, who accused him of immorality.

While evangelical artists have often failed to deal with the more challenging aspects of humanity in the same way, there have been exceptions. Caravaggio’s late 16th century portrayals of Christ and other Biblical figures were so violent and bloody that Mel Gibson wanted his ‘Passion of the Christ’ movie to be ‘a living Caravaggio’.

Artists of the Northern Renaissance, too, used Biblical and other symbols to depict religious upheaval. Works like Hans Grien’s ‘The Stoning of St. Stephen’ and Albrecht Bouts’  ‘The Man of Sorrows and The Mater Dolorosa’, both at the McMaster Museum of Art, contain much angst.

“They asked questions about human beings’ contribution to the natural world and people’s reward in heaven or hell,” said Podedworny. “So the theme of stoning makes sense. The Bouts work is a highly realistic depiction of the emotional pain of the Madonna and the physical pain of the Christ, again reflecting the artist’s angst and sorrow for sins.”

More recently, evangelicals have begun to re-establish the link between artistry and faith. Thinkers like Calvin Seerveld and Hans Rookmaaker in the 1960s invited Christians to begin taking art seriously and helped justify art for art’s sake – instead of using it as a pictorial presentation of the gospel.

“In the late 1960s, a whole generation of young Christians saw this vital and vibrant culture they couldn’t relate to their faith,” said Cuthill. “They realized that art needs to ask more questions than it answers.”

Podedworny agreed that faith in art has seen a revival in the last few decades (and especially since 9/11), not in terms of organized religion or fixed messages, but “as a general notion that faith – in whatever form – is something human beings need”.

In the postmodern world, art is no longer defined by ‘-isms’ – styles like impressionism, cubism or symbolism – but instead focuses on hearing voices that have been suppressed. That includes a new openness to the voices of Christians.

“The challenge we now face,” said Cuthill, “is to produce quality art that’s worth listening to.”