Thursday 21 April 2011

Fakery




What we see depends mainly on what we look for. ~John Lubbock.







Noelle by Jan Doef



Illusion... it's as plain as the nose on your face, but usually just as difficult to spot.

The common enticement today is to embellish - to make reality 'better' by adding the latest 3D, holographic or photo-shop effects, so that what is displayed is deemed palatable, preferably desirable in the cinema, video game or magazine. Virtually every image you view in printed or popular media has been 'tweaked' so that it will conform to some ideal.

There's nothing new here - the Greeks 'perfected' the human form in their use of art some millenia ago not so they could have a nice way to decorate Athens, but because they were seeking to manifest their concepts of the divine - a key aspect in numerous expressions of spiritual miss-direction (as any study of the philosophy behind this attempt would show).

Reality is a much harder message to sell. In his collection of insights on life, Solomon notes that true wisdom is like a messenger amidst the streets, standing amongst the hustle and bustle of the commonplace, seeking to call us to something richer, but very rarely heeded.

The question for someone like me who seeks to engage with reality - to grant that truth value by means of art - is what 'embellishments' are we keen to daub upon this within a Christian context, especially in regards to the place of the human form?

I have little doubt that few Christians today would feel comfortable being devotional in a space where any form of nudity was present, and yet, amidst some of the earliest locations used by believers, depictions of nakedness in baptism or in depicting biblical stories (Jonah and Daniel) were not unknown, and this in itself tells us that attitudes have certainly changed and become 'airbrushed' in fairly recent times, particularly due to the changes in sanitary and accompanying moral arrangements since the Victorian era, but the bigger 'editing tool brush' in the box actually stems from the same root of idolatrous inclination within us as expressed by the Greeks.



As I noted before, Hellenic society wasn't seeking to 'glorify' the natural beauty of women, for example, through the means of art - most of the famous Greek philosophers detested artists and women were usually viewed as mis-shaped souls - it was purely to reach for an ideal, as exemplified in our own times in National Socialist use of such mediums. The reason behind such aims was to look beyond the present natural order - the common, earthy, natural world around us, which was only evil, only fit to be a temporal prison of the immortally higher, purer inner being or soul... that was where our true value was discovered.

How much of our perspective has been 'edited' in this fashion, to become blinded to the natural beauty which God conveys amidst our broken world? How often does our presumptions blind us to ever seeing the quiet splendor of His handiwork, be it in our surroundings, some sublime moment, or the still, enchanting grace of the human form?
Yes, there are dangers, toils and snares in all of life, materials which label themselves 'nude art' included, but if grace is what feeds us, sustains us and keeps us, will we not often see the majesty and splendor of the one who clothes us, like the lilies of the field, with a 'glory' no other material attire can match?


















Veiled Modesty by Corradini

These questions matter, because we so often become 'boxed' by the modes and mistakes of philosophies that cause us to invest in an approach which is counterfeit, rather than unpacking the inherent richness of what has been bestowed, and having the blessing of sharing that with others.

Illusion simply becomes unsatisfactory and temporary when the true value of actual beauty becomes understood and takes center stage...