Faith and art

Review: Makers by Nature

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Cover image of "Makers by Nature" by Bruce Herman

Makers by Nature, Bruce Herman. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009802) 2025.

Summary: Letters to students, artists, and friends on calling, making, and process, with reproduced works by the author.

Bruce Herman taught studio art for four decades, setting up the art program at Gordon College. This allowed him time for work in his own studio, resulting in works exhibited throughout the world as well as in many private collections. In this work, presented as letters to students and friends in the art world, he share his insights on faith and art, how he has pursued his calling, and many of the issues facing artists.

Herman describes these as “imaginary” letters but they certainly have the feel of real correspondence including affirmation of specifics of an artist’s work, remembrances of time spent together, and even details regarding payment for a work. Each “chapter” consists of letters written to a particular artist, many of whom were former students. Each collection focuses around a particular aspect of making art. With each, Herman includes a reproduction of a work referenced in the correspondence.

Herman talks about artistic process, the mysterious gift of work and using one’s skills to serve that work. He explores issues of theology such as the rendering of glory in suffering, and the place of paradox in art. He describes his own unfolding sense of vocation and his decisive choice to not pursue the contemporary art scene to support a family and the gift of being able to teach and make art without financial stresses.

One of the most striking chapters was a discussion of “style” with “Angela.” He proposes that thinking too much about style is akin to thinking too much about walking or breathing. Rather, he writes:

“We need to fall in love with our subject matter, not our manner of execution or our own handwriting. The beautiful irony is that if we forget about ourselves and our style, we will discover a far greater love. The work will come into being and become a portal of meaning, and style will be a grace, not a possession.”

Throughout, in this sequence and elsewhere, the theme of “serving the work” recurs.

Most of all, Herman explores how his faith intersects with his artistic practice. Whether it is the grace of what is given that the artist serve or the offering up of one’s work as prayer. Then Herman also explores the rendering of religious events like the Annunciation and the incredibly difficult matter of visually rendering the “overshadowing” of the Virgin.

Finally, Herman writes to Jesus. Instead of saccharine praise, Herman expresses his discouragement with himself. The issue is sin and he laments his own “cussedness.” Yet in the end, he senses that weakness is the place of grace “and good fuel for art.

A wonderful bonus to this rich collection of personal communications is an appendix of artworks. They are a gift from former students presented on the occasion of his retirement. In sum, this book is a feast for eyes and heart. Especially, it is a gift to any engaged in creative making, from a wise maker devoted to the Master Maker.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: A Prophet in the Darkness

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Cover image of "A Prophet in the Darkness" ed. Wesley Vander Lugt

A Prophet in the Darkness, Wesley Vander Lugt, editor. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514011058) 2024.

Summary: An exploration of the work of Georges Roualt and his identification of human suffering with Christ’s sufferings.

“Paul Klee says ‘Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible.’ This is what the art of Georges Roualt (1871-1958) has done; his images have penetrated deeply into the human dilemma to find meaning and offer hope, helping us to see light in the darkness, making visible the invisible.”

Thus Sandra Bowden, in the forward of this work, introduces A Prophet in the Darkness, an exploration of the theological significance of the works of Georges Roualt. A theme running through all these essays was that Roualt’s faith and artistic vision came together in a body of work that identified deeply with the suffering and the marginalized. However, juxtaposed with these works are paintings of the suffering Christ, in whom suffering is transformed into redemption.

Many of the essays reference Roualt’s Miserere series. These were executed in the 1920s as paintings transferred to copper plates, and finally printed in 1948. A number of these are reproduced in the book. One triptych includes “Are we not all slaves,” “Believing ourselves to be kings,” and “Who does not wear the mask?” (an image of a clown). The series portrays human folly and suffering juxtaposed with images of the Passion. They communicate visually our desperate need for mercy (hence Miserere). And they also reflect Roualt’s style of images outlined with thick black lines.

The collection of essays opens with a biography of Roualt by his son, Philippe. He discusses Roualt’s experience of war, family tragedy, and personal suffering. Then he considers how these intersected with his deep faith to form his aesthetic. Thomas Hibbs argues amid contemporary hopelessness, Roualt’s work enables us to “see, feel, and say” in a way that counters nihilism without lapsing into sentimentality. Soo Y Kang explores the influence of writer Leon Bloy, who wrote of poverty. Joel Klepac, an artist and therapist considers the healing power of Roualt’s images.

Pamela Rossi-Keen writes from her experience of community-centered art in post-industrial Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Drawing on Walter Brueggeman’s ideas of prophetic imagination, she shows how Roualt’s art carries prophetic weight for communities like hers. Then James Romaine compares Roult’s work to that of Romare Bearden for their ability to evoke empathy.

William A. Dyrness explores the resistance within the Christian tradition to modern art. And he argues that engaging Roualt’s work might lead to a more nuanced approach. Stephen Schloesser focuses on the Miserere series, showing how Roualt deals with appearance and reality and how the beauty of a broken world meets in the beauty of a suffering Savior in the series. Finally, editor Wesley Vander Lugt weighs why Roualt resonates with contemporary viewers.

This work “shows” as well as “tells.” The book includes a number of black and white images of Roualt’s works. In addition, the book points to links available on the publisher’s website (https://www.ivpress.com/rouault) for works not included in the book. Finally, “Artistic Interludes” offers artist responses to the work of Georges Roualt, including a number of color plates of works by the artists inspired by Roualt. Two of the color plates reproduce works of Romare Bearden and of Georges Roualt.

This book introduced me to Roualt’s work. I came to understand not only its power to evoke empathy but also his profound insights into human suffering and the suffering of Christ.. For Christians skeptical of modern art, this book offers a profound counter argument that represents a deep Christian spirituality expressed through modern art. This book is a feast for both the eyes and the heart!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Art of New Creation

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The Art of New Creation (Studies in Theology and the Arts), Edited by Jeremy Begbie, Daniel Train, and W. David O. Taylor. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: Contributions from a variety of artists and theologians from the 2019 DITA10 Conference at Duke Divinity School, focusing on how the theology of the new creation shapes the work of Christian artists in various fields.

Anyone working in the arts in some sense works with existing materials from paint and canvas and clay to words, sounds, musical scales, instruments and one’s own body to make something new, whether a painting or sculpture or musical piece or choral performance or poetry or dance. Christians working in the arts both confront and bring an added dimension. Artists work in an existing creative context but also have in view a faith-shaped understanding of New Creation, the belief that living between the first and second comings of Jesus, we are participating already in anticipatory ways the New Creation, and looking forward one day to its full realization. It means seeing the world both in its brokenness and with the hope of restoration.

The origins of this book, exploring these themes, comes out of a conference (DITA10) held at Duke Divinity School as part of the Duke Initiative in Theology and the Art, headed up by theologian-artist Jeremy Begbie. Between the conference and the publication of this book came both the COVID pandemic and the racial injustices and protests of the summer of 2020. Many of the essays in this work incorporate reflection on these two upheavals to all of our lives.

Jeremy Begbie opens with a theology of new creation focused around how the new creation in Christ is already before us–both its dissonance with the old and the restoration of the broken as it gestures toward the final remaking of all things. New creation is something accessible to the artist already.

The next part, “Soundings,” works all this out in a variety of artistic media. Devon Abts focuses on the rhythms and meters of poetry, something of which Gerard Manley Hopkins was keenly aware, that invite us into rhythms of new creation. Ephrem of Nisibis, a fourth century poet is the subject of Charles Augustine Rivera–particularly the theology of the incarnation evident in the Madrase on Virginity. Daniel Train steps back and explores the tension Augustine enunciated between enjoyment versus use, a tension found in comparing the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and Rowan Williams. Train finds a way to reconcile these latter two thinkers. Kutter Callaway wrestles with the idea of transcendence, and how that may be empirically observed in the arts in the response of people to artistic work.

Sara Schumacher considers art and new creation in the context of the environment, exploring the metaphors of artist as responsible servant, apprentice, and prophet. The White Savior, particularly in blockbuster movies including Avatar and Titanic needs to be confronted by Christian artists, argues Jacquelynn Price-Linnertz. W. David O. Taylor observes the ways that singing together works to unite human beings at an embodied level and in the Christian context, our “Spirited songs” express the new community formed in Christ–one that sings itself into our new creation future. He (and I) grieve the loss of corporate singing as one of the deep ravages of the pandemic. Amy Wisenand Krall takes up a similar theme in her essay that follows, and reminds us, amid shortages and self-protection, of the abundant care of the Lord of the new creation.

“Conversations” are just that, pairing theologians and artists in conversations on placemaking (Jennifer Allen Craft and Norman Wirzba), Micheal O’Siadhail’s The Five Quintets (O’Siadhail and Richard Hays), Creation and New Creation in J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (Malcolm Guite and Judith Wolfe) and living into the new creation in musical performance (Elizabeth Klein and Shadwa Mussad). The latter conversation reminded me of the challenges performers experienced during the pandemic and the parallels between orchestral and choral performance and the body of Christ at its best closing with the new creation hope expressed in Duke Ellington’s wonderful “Come Sunday.” Part Three, “Arts in Action” follows with several brief interviews with a dancer, three visual artists (including Steven Prince with several of his works) and a musician.

N.T. Wright concludes the collection with a reflection on the resurrection of Jesus to Mary Magdalene. He focuses on how we see in her “the vocation of arts: to sum up the tears of Mary, the insight of Mary, the renaming of Mary…and the commissioning of Mary to go and tell.” Wright proposes that the artist has the calling to embody the surprising faithfulness of God in Christ.

This is a valuable resource for understanding what it means to be an artist and a Christian. Beyond technical expertise and the cultivation of one’s unique gifts is a different vision, of the new creation, both already and not yet. This collection touches a variety of facets of how that works out in both the thinking and practice of artists. The theologically-oriented reflections, both bracketing and running through the collection offer a vision infusing the life and practice of artists. The discussions of the COVID pandemic and the racist incidents and protests of the systemic aspects of racism ground the various contributions in reality, forcing consideration of what the hope of new creation means amid brokenness. This is a valuable collection for both artists and those who recognize that beauty as well as goodness and truth are part of what it means to be salt and light in the world.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Art + Faith

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Art + Faith, Makoto Fujimura, foreword by N. T. Wright. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.

Summary: A series of reflections connecting art and faith in the act of making.

Makoto Fujimura is a world-class painter and committed Christian. Many would not make this association in contemporary art but in this work, Fujimura offers a series of reflections on the seamless connection of these in his life, beginning with the act of making. Fujimura declares, “I have come to believe that unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God’s being and God’s grace permeating our lives and God’s creation.” The creator we come to understand through making is one who creates out of love and not necessity. God doesn’t need us but in love invites us to collaborate in God’s creation. We enter into this when we make.

We labor in a fallen world, but our work is not to “fix” broken plumbing but to be restored and participate in creation’s renewal empowered by the spirit restored through the sacrifice of Christ, and refreshed by God’s new wine. Fujimura illustrates this in his own creative process of Nihonga. It is not so much a technique but a kind of imitatio Christi of attending to the materials one works with, as part of a community of those who make the brushes, the paper, and powders with which he lays down wash after wash in creating, slowing down to work at the painstaking pace required of the materials.

It is a process that takes him into sacrifice and an understanding of brokenness, evoking another Japanese art practice, that of kintsugi. This practice works with broken cups and pottery, using lacquer covered with gold to mend the broken pieces, creating new beauty out of brokenness. This art points toward the New Creation of Resurrection that doesn’t obliterate brokenness but shines light and beauty through it.

Art helps renew our understanding of work. Fujimura observes that work wasn’t cursed but rather the ground and the serpent. Art points us toward work as gift, and toward the greatest Gift of the gospel. In the Eucharist, we make the very elements that reveal God’s gift of resurrection through sacrifice. We make not for it all to be burned up but toward New Creation.

Fujimura proposes that imagination and faith are closely linked. We often think of Christian theology and leadership in rational, propositional terms. Fujimura notes how much of scripture is in metaphor, in symbol, and description requiring imagination for understanding. As he has argued elsewhere, this imagination invites us into culture care, contra the culture war, battle of ideas that has framed much of our cultural engagement.

In another reflection, he likens the words “Jesus wept” to the “pinhole lens” that captures the whole story of God from loving creation to weeping over the broken creation to be restored through Christ’s suffering and resurrection. He offers a beautiful reflection on John 11 and 12, and the art form of wabi-sabi, the use of well-worn but well-loved objects like a well-worn wallet. He goes deeper into the tears of Christ in the art of Mark Rothko, the poetry of T. S. Eliot, and his own traumatic experience of 9/11, which displaced him from a studio in the shadow of the Twin Towers. He weds tears and fire in a discussion of artistic renewal out of the devastation. He concludes with a chapter on “Lazarus culture” reflecting on what it means to practice resurrection. To make in a fallen, broken world is to enter into Christ’s suffering and be enabled by the resurrection to point toward the New Creation.

The power of this book is in the contention that as we enter into the making of art as people of faith, we open ourselves to a way of knowing the story in which we live. His most trenchant words are those where he asserts the vital importance of imagination and making in the life of faith. His reflections remind me of what a vital role artists play in the life of the church, and perhaps the value of all of us finding ways to be makers and not just consumers, of culture.

Review: The Faithful Artist

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the faithful artist.jpg

The Faithful Artist, Cameron J. Anderson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016.

Summary: Addresses the tensions between the world of modern art and evangelical faith, where opportunities for creative engagement might be found in tensions, and what values might shape the life of one sensing a call to be both faithful Christian and artist.

The world of modern art, and the world of faith, particularly evangelical Christian faith have often been at odds with, or not even in conversation with each other. This is the challenge the author has wrestled with since his teenage years as an aspiring artist who embraced the evangelical faith in which he was raised. In the introduction, he describes his own struggle with the absence of mentors, the disregard of his church for the visual arts, and the parallel hostility toward religious faith he encountered in the art world.

Much of this work explores these tensions between evangelical faith and modern art. He begins by tracing the post World War Two parallel rise of modern evangelicalism as an effort to “guard the gospel” and modern art, as an effort to throw off the shackles of tradition and the “double consciousness” artists struggled with, often by either muting faith, or lapsing into sentimentalized art appealing to their faith community. He uses My Name is Asher Lev to discuss one of the fundamental challenges facing the aspiring Christian artist in training: the practice of drawing the nude human figure, both central to the development of artistic skill and raising questions of whether this is proper, and deeper questions about the Christian understanding of the body, and our embodied existence. Building on this, he considers the senses, and how we think about this aspect of our embodied existence as we engage the arts.

He then turns to the conflicts between word and image that have been at the heart of some of the conflict between faith and art, whether it is the iconoclastic movements, ancient and modern, that favor word over image, and the inconsistency of a faith community that denounces icons while creating its own versions of these. He points toward a theology of word and image that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the incarnate Word. He also explores the radical doubts about language in post-modern thought and its appropriation by artists, sometimes portraying the deconstruction of language. Anderson gestures toward a theology in which word and image cohere, and for the possibility of meaning.

He also gestures toward the transcendental of beauty in art, once again contended territory, both by artists who seek to lay bare the exploitive ways beauty has been used, and an evangelicalism focused on goodness and truth to the exclusion of beauty. Against the art world’s often legitimate protest about the manipulation of beauty for tawdry or oppressive purposes, Anderson holds out the possibility of being beholders of beauty, and for the artist of faith, the seeing in beauty, even co-mixed with pain, evil, and suffering, the hand of the Creator. He acknowledges that this may be a quixotic, yet for the faithful artist, necessary endeavor.

Anderson contends that these collisions of faith and art may “reveal a third way, a great vista where biblical and theological reflection–especially the doctrines of creation and incarnation–become the wellspring of inspiration.” Each of his chapters includes models of this kind of biblical and theological reflection that serve, not to give definitive answers, but to point other artists who wrestle with the same tensions toward this “third way” in the practice of their art. Indeed, his conclusion is an invitation to both the church and artists to embrace this work, and for artists to give themselves as called people to the work of culture-making and good studio practice. He writes,

“…the artists whom most of us deem to be successful share a common trait–they do the work. At some point they set romantic ideas about being an artist to the side and commenced doing the artist’s work. Arriving at this place requires one to accept delayed gratification, the awkwardness that is sure to come from making bad art and the reality of negative cash flow. Pushing beyond distraction and discouragement, they accomplished something Herculean–they pushed beyond musing and imagining to establish regular studio practices, to take on habits of making” (p. 252).

Cameron Anderson is executive director of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) and what he offers in this book is nothing less than an analysis of the recent history of the visual arts and the challenges and opportunities for Christians who are called to work in this field. It reflects his lifelong familiarity with the art world and his presence as an leader, teacher and thinker in the Christian community. I might add, both by way of disclosure and appreciation, that I worked closely with Cam in his previous role as national director of InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministry, and owe twenty years in a job I love to his influence. I saw parts of an early version of this manuscript, kind of like the blocking in of shapes on a canvas that mark the beginning of a painting. It is a delight to see the finished work, which reflects the deep reflection on faith and art that I had come to appreciate in presentations by Cam, disciplined by extensive research and enriched by years of experience working with visual artists.

[This is the second work in the series Studies in Theology and the Arts. The first volume in the series, Modern Art and the Life of a Culture was reviewed earlier this year at Bob on Books.]

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher . I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.