Christian artists skew towards themes of redemption. I've become convinced of this as a basic principle (with its own assortment of exceptions) over the last few months of more frequent interactions with young Christian poets, storytellers, and visual artists. It began about six months ago when I sat down with a seventeen-year-old mentoree to work on the plot of her epic fantasy.
"What are you most passionate about?" I asked. "What's most real to you?"
"Well, God is, really."
"Then let's build your story around that reality and see how it goes."
How it went was something radically different than the plan she had started with, because her original plan featured children who save the world. That's common enough, but not nearly God-centered enough for what she really wanted. As we worked on the story together over the course of three months, new events and themes began to emerge, ones which were exciting and fresh, and best of all captured her heart. It became a story about children who try to save the world and fail, because they put their faith in a magical object rather than the story's equivalent of Christ. This is definitely not
Harry Potter. But it turns out all right, because eventually the character who stands for Christ bursts on to the scene and then things really start to happen.
Too allegorical, you say? Well, it is perhaps more allegorical than formerly, but formerly it was also anti-biblical and anti-reality. In reality and in the Bible, human beings (especially children) don't defeat the forces of evil and save the world
. Did the shepherd boy David defeat Goliath? No, silly. God did that. Who rescues Narnia (in the books, I mean, not the movies)? Aslan. Or, more to the point, who saved my soul when I knew I was already dead? He, the Christ. And do any of those seem "too allegorical"? For myself, I say "Why, no! Not at all!"
Still in defense of allegory, have you ever noticed that a huge percent of the great literature we have from the most intensely Christian era of history that we know about (c. 500-1700 A.D.) was allegorical? Fact. One might argue, and I intend to argue at some point, that allegory is a form naturally suited to the expression of Christian themes. We live our lives on two planes of reality, engaged at all times in joys, sufferings, and struggles which are often called "invisible" or "abstract," but are actually as real and present and as much a part of life as butter on the breakfast table. Allegory reflects all of this: the two planes, the depiction of the "invisible" inward life, and so on.
But to return. After that meeting with my mentoree, the same idea kept recurring. I was on the phone with an aspiring Christian moviemaker. It resurfaced. I was talking to a young but extraordinarily gifted Christian poetess. It resurfaced. For work, I had to write up a brief survey of the Most Common Themes of Christian literature down through the ages. Oh. My. You can't get
away from the theme of redemption!
What struck me most was the repetition of these words (or as near as makes no difference) in the conversations that I was having with my contemporaries: "I just can't see doing something that ends badly" or "I'm just not satisfied with it if things don't turn around for the best" or "What I really
want to write/compose/film/draw is a story where things are bad, but then they become wonderful."
Why?
I submit to you, reader, that it is because you write/compose/film/draw what you know, what you yourself have most deeply experienced, and what you are most passionate about. All artists do. And, for Christians, the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ is the central fact of our lives. The word "Christian"
means "little Christ." There's just no getting away from it; given the choice of anything in the world to portray artistically, Christian artists in my experience keep coming back to this one story, because nothing else satisfies our souls. And friend, I've just been talking about my contemporaries. If you start to dig back through the records of what Christians actually
have portrayed artistically over the years, it will very quickly become apparent to you that the answer is "Jesus Christ, Redeemer" in big crimson letters.
Let me share with you what I learned from this realization.
First, I learned that I might as well stop kicking and go with it. I'm never going to want to write anything else, and I'll never be satisfied until I've done my personal best to display this story of redemption to the uttermost of my powers, to make everybody else as enthralled with it as I am.
Second, I learned that I'm not really feeling limited by this subject matter at all. It's a story as wide as the heavens and as varied as the individual hearthfires of the nations. I could spend my whole life telling and retelling it from various angles and in various ways, and never get past the millionth part of all there is to say.
Third, because the redemption story includes exactly the sort of things that human beings know are true but hate to say, it is a startlingly, cold-as-an-alpine-lake original story (that is, once you begin to really get wet with it instead of just contemplating the surface in a picture-postcard). Working with my mentoree showed me a little of how fresh and yet how penetrating a story can become when you adjust your sense of reality to center on God. What novelty there was in a fantasy not centered on a magical artifact, but on a supernatural hero!
Finally, I learned that this theme of redemption does not embarrass me. I don't feel like I have to whisper it or disguise it or somehow make it less obvious. No; rather I want to plunge into it and put it forward quivering with life. I think Gibson's
The Passion proved that there is no such thing as one too many portrayals of this story, or that another one would be a cliche. Your artistic setting can be botched and make the gem seem less valuable than it is, but the answer to that problem is not "Throw away the gem." The answer is, "Become a better jeweler."
I'm captivated. Completely. And I won't rest until I've show the whole world
why this is the most tragic, the most comic, the funniest, the saddest, the most ironic, and in sum the most beautiful story that any human knows of or could tell about. I skew towards redemption. I can't be really deeply passionate about anything else, and if I could, I wouldn't.
Now for the scary part: to become a better jeweler.
Christy
Again, I just met Peder (Danish, 1859-1941) this morning, so I haven't had a chance to analyze his work yet beyond the fact that I really really like it. I'll let you know if I come up with anything more profound.
There's an innocence and originality to her work that avoids being schmaltzy and comes across instead as very playful and fresh. I'm a new fan.
Here at Art&God&Art, we're all about redeemed art ... the art of the Christian. I think one way a Christian can create great art is by looking at beautiful art in the rest of the world. (Generalization, not categorical statement.) So, enjoy these two artists. I know I am! +David
