Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
In the olden days, almost nobody could read the Bible but they could
listen to the preacher draw lessons from Bible stories. Stained glass
church windows helped illiterate people remember the lessons from the
stories.
Modern churches have stained glass windows like this one from a
magazine. The designer says the colors represent liturgical seasons in
the Christian calendar (Christmas is red, Lent is purple, Advent is
green, God is the bright white center of all, etc.). Okay, if you say so.
I don’t like abstract art (I see no meaning in a mess). I don’t like
jazz music – I can never find “the line” to follow the melody. I don’t
like blank verse poetry: if it doesn’t rhyme, don’t waste my time.
Wikipedia says: Philistines favor forms of art that have a cheap and
easy appeal. Yep, that’s me and pretty much everybody in Christendom up
until about 100 years ago, when ‘artists’ stopped making art to be
enjoyed by adults and started making ‘art’ for their own
self-indulgence. And they call US pig-ignorant savages? I don’t think
so. Time for a new renaissance in the art world.
Joe Doakes (but you can call me Phil)
Since we mention modern art and stained glass, I’ve been privileged to see the great work of Marc Chagall at St. Stephens’ in Mainz, Germany, and I’ve got the postcards of Chagall’s honor of the 12 tribes in Israel. No one would contest that it is great art, and yet….it is still accessible for the Bildung (education) that was historically part of stained glass.
And for that matter, I’m still blessed by the stained glass showing Jesus with the children in the church I grew up attending. Great art, no, but it conveyed the reality of Christ to us.
We’ll build new cathedrals out of the rubble.
Fred Siegel, in his War Against the Masses, says that beginning around the turn of the 20th Century artistic elites purposely set out to create an artistic “vocabulary” that would be unintelligible to those not educated in the arts.
It is a long and involved topic. I believe that any of the early proponents of modernism would be surprised to how popular what we might call representative art would remain in the 21st century.
I disagree with Mister Doakes re blank verse. There is some awful blank verse, there is some good blank verse. Among the best of the poets who used blank verse is Howard Nemerov and Ted Hughes (Sylvia Plath’s husband).
From Nemerov’s “I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell thee”:
. . .
You will remember, with a smile
Instructed by movies to reminisce,
How strict her corsets must have been,
How the huge arrangements of her hair
Would certainly betray the least
Impassionate displacement there.
It was no rig for dallying,
And maybe only marriage could
Derange that queenly scaffolding—
As when a great ship, coming home,
Coasts in the harbor, dropping sail
And loosing all the tackle that had laced
Her in the long lanes ….
I know
We need not draw this figure out.
But all that whalebone came from whales.
And all the whales lived in the sea,
In calm beneath the troubled glass,
Until the needle drew their blood.
. . .
It describes the feelings of the poet when he sees an old photograph of the wife of a sea captain.
Church architecture is the worst. It is uglier than sin.
My wife and I have this game: is it a church or a Wells Fargo?
Agreed, Greg. I had the good fortune to visit magnificent churches in Europe. The soaring columns, the flying buttresses, the stained glass windows…they’re absolutely awe inspiring. But the modern version leaves me cold.
It may have something to do with personal investment. The story goes that a man visited a cathedral while it was being built. He asked one worker what he was doing. “I’m dressing stone for the walls.” He asked another: “I’m painting frescoes on the chapel ceiling.” Then he saw an old woman sweeping in the aisle. On a whim, he asked her the same question. “I’m building a cathedral for the glory of God'” she answered.
I’ve been in her cathedral. Her work paid off.
.
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I’m a Baptist–a resident of ugly churches as Greg might joke (and that’s fine, Greg!)–and my wife and I have joked that we aren’t quite sure about churches that are too well designed and attractive. Something of a correlation between that and theological compromise in our view.
That noted, ever since my college days, I’ve noted and appreciated the tenaciousness of Catholic and Orthodox identity, and I’ve got to assume that part of it is because of that Bildung (picturing) that occurs with the stained glass and icons. You have the homily or sermon for the ears. You have the stained glass, icons, and statuary for the eyes. You have the incense and host for the nose (grape juice doesn’t engage like communion wine, really) and taste. You can touch pews and walls that have been there for centuries.
Engage all the senses, and maybe you communicate things better. It’s not perfect–a lot of those “Catholics” are living with their SOs outside of marriage and the like while still considering themselves Catholic–but it is something “my tribe” perhaps ought to consider.
A couple of you touched on architecture and I think Le Courbusier exemplifies all that is abhorrent in the modern architecture movement–think Soviet. Rarig Center on the U campus is a good example of Le Courbuser’s concrete bunker style. Imagine Cedar Riverside, without the gloomy dull colored siding, comprising your entire city. Blocks and blocks of tall concrete structures, sidewalks, no trees, no grass, NO BEAUTY!!! Nothing to soften this geometric nightmare. Of course, this architecture comes with its own world view on how we humans should live.
If art collectors want to pay zillions for bad art, i don’t care but when you start imposing your vision on the skyline, I get a little upset.
There are some beautiful old Catholic churches spread through rural America. (A great example close to hand is St. Mary’s in New Trier; a Beaux Arts beauty perched on a hill as if waiting to be in a movie.) I often wonder at the faith and priorities of immigrant communities to wrestle their survival from the new lands under their feet, and to so extravagantly dedicate the resources and energy to glorify the One who brought them there and blessed their harvests.
St. Agnes, in Frogtown.
https://churchofsaintagnes.org/home
Greg:
This one in Golden Valley, MN could be either:
https://images.app.goo.gl/psG85rcbUxfu5zUA9
Back when I was Catholic, St. Agnes was our Parish, JD. According to The “Aggie” newsletter, the excellent school my kids attended is booming.
In fact, one of the first straws on our camel’s back was when the Archbishop moved Fr. Altier to Siberia.