Beauty in the Worship of God

Herbert Howell's Like as the Hart

At yesterday's sermon, the priest talked about the necessity for beauty while worshipping. That beautiful images and music bring us closer to God, by elevating our senses to meet higher levels.

What was even more insightful is that such things as choral music, by their very repetitions and reworkings – allow us to contemplate God from so many angles and possibilities.

Here is an example of the Anthem the choir sang. Each line was repeated at least twice, by the sopranos, the tenors, sometimes both.

Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, So longeth my soul after thee, O God. My souls is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: When shall I come to appear before the presence of God? My tears have been my meat day and night, While they daily say unto me,where is now they God?

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Interior and Exterior

Rembrandt's Jan Six Writing


Rembrandt has drawn several portraits of Jan Six next to an open window, often engrossed in some activity, as his writing above. It seems that Jan Six has that rare quality of being an outdoor’s man, with introspective sensitivities.

In this drawing, there is the sense of interiors and exteriors which he captures both with the actual subject of the drawing (Jan Six Writing), and with the formal composition.

The beautiful landscape which we glimpse through the open window suggests that Jan Six is engaged in some kind of mesmerizing world of his imagination while writing this letter. Who is it to, we ask; what is it about, is Jan Six longing for something, an encounter with someone, who resembles the beauty of this exterior landscape?

Now, to the composition of the drawing.

There are many "squares" in the picture: the square of the table, the square of the window, the square of the window shade, and the square of the letter.

Jan Six, as the protagonist of the drawing, shows us his importance by round hat he's wearing (who wears a hat indoors, to write a letter?). But, we know from this round hat, different from all the squares, that he's the focus of the attention.

The squared, flat table, on which sits the squared letter, mimics the squared vertical window opening.

From this we make the association that the inner world on the table and the letter, is linked with the outer world of the countryside by these converging squares.

Rembrandt draws an abstract picture (of squares and circles) to unite an emotional and visual one to build our imagination around a small, intimate story about a young man writing a letter.

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Phantasm and Phantasy

Poggolio on the Avant-Garde Disconnect with Society

Renaot Poggolio, a theorist on the avant-garde, comes to the same conclusions I that did that Canadian avant-garde filmmakers end up by converting reality into phantasm.

Poggolio (an Italian critic, which is an important qualifier in that the Italian avant-gardists played an important role in the dissemination of the art) quotes a social critic, Christopher Coudwell:

…a dissolution of …social values…results in the art work’s ceasing to be an art work and becomes mere private phantasy.

He sees the popularity of Shakespeare as the positive end of individualism, whereas the avant-garde pushed this individualism to such an extreme that it caused the disintegration of art instead.

Somehow, Shakespeare was able to include society into his eccentricities, and the avant-garde just resorted to phantasm and phantasy.

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And Let Them Follow Their own Imaginations

Psalm 81:11-12

From the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer (Canada, 1962):

11But my people would not hear my voice;/and Israel would not obey me. 12 So I gave them up unto their stubborn hearts,/ and let them follow their own imaginations.

The Psalter from the Book of Common Prayer translates the word “councils” or “advice” or “devices” used in other versions of verse 12 of Psalm 81 as “imaginations”.

God has left his people to follow their stubbornness. Alone without Him, they may think they’re turning to their own devices, yet what they’re doing is imagining and creating idols - other gods, other images.

They are at the mercy of these imaginations, which fill the void left by God to take them through worlds which even their own active minds cannot fathom.

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Commitment through Language

C.S. Lewis’ At the Fringe of Language

C.S. Lewis’ At the fringe of language tries to explain the evolution of language from legitimate words that induce emotions to words that merely release emotions.

One of the most important functions of language, he argues, is to stimulate our imagination to produce emotional effects, rather than act as merely an emotional outlet. Poetry does this best with indirect associations.

Rather than say “mysterious", why not conjure up the scene that will cause us to feel this mystery? By stimulating the imagination?

Later he discusses “abusive”, “swear”, or other maligned words.

Initially, he says, they were there to evoke our imagination, associate it with some image which will cause us to feel negative emotions.

Swine, in its damning sense (there is nothing inherently wrong with swine), refers to a dirty, gluttonous pig and is meant, contemptuously, to evoke humiliation.

The same with phrases like “Go to Hell”, where the person receiving that attack may be seen as evil incarnate and not worthy of redemption, or the everlasting love of God. Anger may be the motive, but fear and trembling the emotional effect.

Yet, such language soon deteriorates to emotional eruptions, without this metaphorical or imaginative part to communicate.

No-one really cares about Hell anymore, so why should “Go to Hell” hurt them? And the gluttonous “pig” becomes just another sound like “ughhh” or an angry retort, so why should it cause humiliation and contempt?

Lewis’ case is that as language looses its linguistic quality – where words no longer have their descriptive, imaginative and poetic (and even religious) qualities - it becomes pure emotion instead. Language deteriorates, imagination is lost, and communication becomes a volley of outbursts.

One may just as well say “you ughhh”! An ejection of pure emotion, with no language.

Lewis must have been predicting these modern times. In the age of endless words on the internet, and constant invitations to read them, this bilge of the emotions distinguishes the writer from the “bilger”.

“That was an evil film” could translate as “ughhh, what an awful film”. We can all have our emotional outbursts, and enlighten nobody in the process. {Notice that awful has also reached the realm of emotional outburst).

Someone who writes “That was an evil film” who can somehow convey that the film was full of evil intentions, that it was harmful, unGodly, morally wrong is but following Lewis’ advice, and reviving language and words.

But, in the final analysis, people are afraid to use language, to go deeper into their explanations. They are afraid to commit themselves through language and prefer the easier, primal and primitive emotional outbursts instead.

A language of responsibility (moral and otherwise) is a huge commitment. It is so much easier to use an expletive.

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The Queen of Iron

Brave Queen Margrethe

I noticed strength, honesty and a sense of purpose in the Danish Queen Queen Margrethe II when she was being interviewed (in perfect French) by Apostrophe's Bernard Pivot.

Her statement "we have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance." bears repeating.

Then, she added this diplomatic "we should not be content with living next to each other. We should rather live together" since, in her assessment all the Muslim youth need to do is to learn the Danish language and culture.

I'm sure this last statement was made in the atmosphere of political correctness, which even strong leaders these days have to (or pretend to) somewhat follow.

Maybe I should call her the Queen of Iron, a rather unpolished version of steel which, if not carefully treated, is easily influenced by outside materials, weakens and deteriorates.

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Images to Accept and to Reject

We Have To Go Down that Road

One of the weakest arguments that I find in the “Muslim cartoon” conundrum is the that Christianity and freedom of the press/freedom of expression go hand in hand..

Yes there is freedom of choice as to behaving like a Christian or not, and yes the press, artists, governments, and businesses are free to behave in any unChristian fashion they so desire.

But, there are consequences to unChristian behaviour.

Christians do not mock God, or Christ, or the Apostles, or the Bible.

After all, Giuliani refused to allow a museum exhibit that negatively depicted Catholic imagery. And Mapplethorpe’s photographs were rejected based on Christian teachings and not on a whim of prudery.

I personally don’t care how Muslims behave when feeling sensitive over their religious beliefs, as long as they do it “over there”. They choose (are free) to worship their god, as they choose to react in the manners that they do. Just don’t do it here, in a Christian country.

So why does everyone think (except for Buchanan, it seems) that Christians tolerate artists mocking Christ?

It is only in the advent of the avant-garde artists (specifically the Post WWI Dadaists) that "anything goes" has really been the case. In order for that to happen, an environment of no morals and values, God had to be killed off first.

When God died in the psyche of artists, then art went to pieces. But the funny thing is, there are still residues of God left in these tormented minds, and He has to be destroyed over and over again.

In those moments when God is really absent, and doesn’t make surprise visits that require his repeated destruction (ironically making him the subject of their art), artists are beginning to find that there is nothing left to do.

No great work of art has come out since this absence. Even Picasso’s greatly strange Guernica doesn’t come close.

So, I don’t buy this freedom of the press mentality. There is no freedom, really where God is concerned. Yes, there is the freedom to reject Him, and to suffer the consequences. But mock Him, and you’re on your own - which means eternal jail time.

The argument is not: since we can desecrate Christianity (which Christians don’t mind us doing) we can therefore desecrate other religions.

Because firstly, Christians do mind terribly the desecration of the images of Christ.

And secondly, it is not the images of other religions that we should be desecrating, but making sure that those alien beliefs do not play out their wars on our Christian turf.

Third, what we should be censoring, expulsing, rejecting and dissociating with is the people who bring their beliefs here, who do not wish to join ours.

When the Muslims are gone, and we’re left alone to contemplate the great wide universe, what will we do without Our God?

And even before that happens, how can we expect to get rid of these alien religions and peoples without the strength and force of God behind us?

And even before that, what kind of anti-Christian sentiment allowed us to bring in these incompatible and unChristian peoples in the first place?

Before we go jabbing people on the side to instigate a furious reaction, we better set our own goals straight for the inevitable war of religions that will follow.

Cartoon illustrators better start saying their Christian prayers quick.

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Can We Go Down That Road?

Making Images of National Identity

A rather academic book I’ve been reading talks about the usurpation of “art” by the Nazi regime in order to make the German public their stooges in the Final Solution.

Eric Michaud's The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany talks about how Hitler convinced his already malleable citizens to be so totally under his control (which films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will had already began to condition them into the requisite somnambulists).

Hitler’s approach came from all sides.

* The German people entered the knighthood of artists, but Hitler was the supreme artist.

* These same citizens contributed their art through creative work, but it really became the frenzy of construction workers building bridges, roads and edifices.

* The German spirit had to manifest itself into visible artistic forms (paintings, sculptures, architecture), but the supreme artist, Hitler, made the ultimate decision as to what to make.

* Art (sculpture, paintings, architectural sites) were to be created and constantly on display, but there was nothing original about these works. Hitler “borrowed” from ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and ignored any authentic German folk art that could have been used.

So everything was a lie to start with. The people were not in control of their destiny – they were not artists. The work was not creative. The visible art forms which manifested the German spirit were only copies.

All image makers have to worry about being dictators, inciting the public into false creative participation (you really chose that dress, that fashion, that logo), copying long forgotten images with no reference to the present, and deciding what images belong in a culture and what don’t.

The questions I have been asking are:

* What is national identity?
* How do we produce images that reflect this identity?
* Who gets to choose these images?
* And how do these images become flexible, fluid and organic, rather than static and final, as in the Nazi German case.

In Canada, we’ve recently swore in a Governor General who took it upon herself to design her own Coat of Arms. It looks more Haitian than Canadian, an ode to the GG's foreign ancestors.

It looks like we took flexible, organic and fluid ten steps down the road and said “anything goes” instead.

In fact, it is more macabre than that. It is still the dictatorial, alien approach of the Nazi’s here except the ones in charge are saying “Only anything non-Canadian goes”.

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Germany's War Propagandists

How Leni Riefenstahl Built her Isolated Worlds

I have an above average interest in Hitler and Nazism because the films that most baffled me while taking courses in Film History were Leni Riefenstahls’ Olympia Part 1 and 2 and Triumph of the Will. I couldn’t understand where to make the connections: extremely innovative and brilliant films advocating such a torrid regime.

Well, there were two books (three actually, and two authors) and numerous viewings of the films that made me come to terms with this strange phenomenon.

- Siegfried Kracauer: The Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality
- Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler : A Psychological History of the German Film
- Rainer Rother: Leni Riefenstahl: the seduction of genius

Krackauer’s From Caligari to Hitler helped me realize that the brilliance of many of these films these lay in their negation of reality, in their building of fantasy lands (stages and sets in films), and their narratives which put people into tight corners of mostly psychological prisons. Someone is always trying to hypnotize the masses to do destructive things - see the post on Dr. Caligari.

Leni Riefehstahl also did just that.

One of her methods I remember well from watching the Olympias, her films of the Berlin Olympics, was how perfectly – through editing, of course – each race or competition was orchestrated.

She would start with the big picture, so to speak, including the arena, the crowd, the field into her shots. Then she would change the speed – going slightly slow motion. Then she would narrow in on the specific competition isolating it from the rest.

Her strategy seems always to make a world apart from the rest. A small haven that has pushed aside all the superfluous and unnecessary surroundings.

A little like the isolated paradise that her Fűrher was trying to build/create with his actors. And since that didn’t really work, he had to use force instead.

As has been amply recorded, image makers – filmmakers, designers, painters – are creating these isolated paradises, after all. But the ultimate question is how different are their strategies and goals from these Nazi ones?

These next few days, I will be following up on this topic which I started with the fantasy films of early Black and White German classics and which I hope to continue with the meaning and consequences of the artist and his image.

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German Black and White Classic Films

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

This film is often touted as an "expressionist" film, but I would rather describe it as a horror film.

It was made in 1920, between the two world wars, and was originally to have been directed by Fritz Lang of Metropolis fame, but was given to Robert Wiene instead.

It is the story of a director of an insane asylum who also doubles as a hypnotist and gets a somnambulist to commit murders during the night.

At its most basic level, this film predicts the infamous Nazi method of making sleep walkers out of the people, convincing them (or hypnotizing them) to commit their bliztkriegs on humanity.

On another level, it anticipates the great Nazi propaganda machine which uses art at its most banal to create its ghouls which would assist it in its horrors.

The film actually makes the viewer into an accomplice. It is itself hypnotic. We enjoy the movie.

At the very end, no real justice is reached since all the characters are part of an insane asylum. We sympathize, and even associate, with these residents. They are stuck behind the formidable forces of their minds and the asylum's walls.

Rather than arrest this mad doctor, the witnesses cannot get out of their trance. They are after all, part of this asylum which he directs. And he is their director (their Fűhrer).

There is no way out but to depend on him. They are unable (too complacent) to jolt themselves out of their fabricated madness and his influence.

At the final apparition of the director, he actually looks benign and composed (unlike his hypnotist days). We (spectators/viewers) even get to trust him a little.

The German people were slowly getting hooked.

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Literarily Lying

Anaïs Nin's Diaries

If memoirs are to be read like some kind of literary fiction, then Anais Nin's diaries must be at the top of the list.

She lived an apparently bohemian life of an artist, was a bigamist, and later her diaries (which she was writing from a very young age) were found to be specially edited and arranged for publication. In other words, she was liberal with her lies.

I tried reading these famous diaries once, but found them to be rather disorganized (ironically, since she spent so much time rearranging them) streams of consciousness.

For such a prolific writer, she is now in the shadows of literary acclaim.

Lying does make a difference.

Quote from Anaïs Nin:

"This is not a lie. I was starting to tell lies and struck a truth! Very often I tell lies that are deeply true."

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