An Opportunity for Compassion

A few days ago Jenna and I went with Chad (one of the church planters) to a modern art museum in Paris. It was very good to have Chad with us so that we could learn from the study that he has done on the subject. A missionary cannot possibly do their job without getting to know the people he / she is trying to reach. It is necessary to have a working knowledge of the general society, it's cultural history, and the people, events, and ideas that have shaped it. This museum trip was an opportunity to get to know the French a little bit better, to understand their questions and struggles. Modern Art, beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a movement away from the past. Prior to this point all painting and artistic endeavors were strictly regulated by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (the royally accepted institution of art patronage), which ran the Salon art exhibition. If your work of did not meet the criteria of this group, meaning that it had to include only certain "important" subjects (like kings, nobles, or religious subjects), and be painted only in acceptable styles (realism), you had no chance as an artist. Modern art was a rebellion against this oppression. It sought freedom of expression for the artist, seeing value not just in the work itself, but also in the artist who produced it. This change of attitude came about (according to Chad) along with the realization that historians were essentially influenced by their individual subjective perspectives and biases, and were not objective recorders of events. Just as a subjective historian records an interpretation of an event, so the modern artist presents in his work a particular interpretation of whatever it is that he observes. What was produced was often quite bizarre to the viewer, often confusing and devoid of meaning. Contemporary art, which is now being produced, is everything that modern art was and more so. It is more confusing, more bizarre and rebellious. My professor Dr. Minto always told us that in order to understand a culture we must look at the products of that culture, particularly the products of the artists and high culture. Europe is a very old place with a lot of history behind it. Many modern artists, working during the early 20th century saw the great wars and violence that all of this history and "progress" had brought to the world. So they rejected that history and declared the world meaningless and absurd, as indeed it seemed to be. For an example of this look at the artwork of a Frenchman named Marcel Duchamp. These artists were expressing, and are still expressing what is referred to as the "spirit of the age". This "spirit" is entrenched in the society as a whole, it is not isolated within the artistic or philosophical communities. The good news of Jesus to these people is that there is an ultimate meaning to the chaos which they observe, that God is working out his plan in history, and invites them to be a part of it. To see this gospel expressed in the contemporary art world check out the work of Makoto Fujimura.