#sublime #CasparDavidFriedrich #romanticera #art #music #GeorgesBataille #aesthetic #theology #religiousexperience

Yesterday, I listened to Laufey’s brilliant new jazz album “Bewitched.” It simultaneously captures the power of Ella Fitzgerald’s love ballads, Nat “King” Cole’s heartfelt spirit, and the reflective sadness of Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of Morning.” I was brought to tears. Laufey has managed to penetrate into the depths of human emotion, showcasing the sublime beauty and heartache of falling in love. The album is astonishingly passionate, and it refuses to compromise or tame itself, reaching into the extremes of sadness (”California and Me”) and love (”While You Were Sleeping”). Like a breath of clean air after years of a polluted environment, Laufey’s words, instrumentation, and vocal cadence are an unapologetic, full-throttle sincerity. Her music — simultaneously angelic and concrete—puts to shame the trollish and ironic dispositions of our current milieu, where authentic human emotions are obscured for non-committal niceties. In short, the album is a testimony to the depths of the human spirit for an age in which it feels like our souls have been ripped from our bodies. “Bewitched” is not merely a once-in-a-lifetime artistic achievement, it is a spiritual masterpiece.

To expand upon the spiritual reality Laufey was able to capture, I will turn to an explanation of the Romantic era, the sublime, and the link between romance and religious experience.

Romanticism and the Sublime

The Romantic era of art, which spanned from the late 18th to the mid-19th century, was a period characterized by a profound shift in artistic expression. It emerged as a reaction against the rationalism and restraint of the Enlightenment — instead embracing emotions, nature, and mystery. At the heart of this movement lay the concept of the sublime, a powerful and often overwhelming aesthetic experience that evoked both terror and awe. As I've said before, it's like looking over the edge of the Grand Canyon. The sight is overwhelmingly beautiful, but it is simultaneously terrifying because the canyon is so deep that one could fall to one's death if not careful.

Caspar David Friedrich, a prominent figure in Romantic art, expertly exemplifies this connection between the Romantic era and the sublime. Friedrich's works, such as “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” and “The Monk by the Sea,” are quintessential examples of the sublime in art. His landscapes are vast and majestic, depicting untamed nature in all its glory, but saturated with deeply spiritual themes and undertones. In these paintings, human figures are often minuscule compared to the grandeur of the natural world, emphasizing the finitude of humankind in the face of nature's (and, for Friedrich, God’s) sublime majesty.

The Romantic artists sought to capture the sublime not only in nature but also in the human spirit. Emotions, often intense and tumultuous, were celebrated in their works. Friedrich's use of symbolism, such as the solitary figure gazing into the abyss or standing on a precipice, conveyed the individual's quest for self-discovery and spiritual connection with the sublime. Furthermore, Friedrich's manipulation of light and shadow created an atmosphere of mystery and transcendence. This technique intensified the emotional impact of his paintings, inviting viewers to contemplate the vastness of the universe and their place within it.

The term “romance” in the Romantic era originally referred to medieval tales of chivalry and adventure, often involving heroic knights and heroic deeds. These stories were marked by a sense of wonder, idealism, and a focus on individual passions and quests. The Romantic era drew inspiration from this idea of individualism and the pursuit of intense, personal experiences, which is why it came to be associated with the term “romance.” However, I believe that this artistic movement also sheds light on the romance of falling in love, and the qualities of sublime love are captured quite powerfully in Laufey's album. During its prime, the Romantic era often linked sublime beauty with masculinity and grandeur. But in our contemporary age, Laufey brings a much-needed feminine perspective. And although the album has moments of grandeur in which the music builds and the symphony swells, her music is also able to capture the spiritual and sublime moments found in the calm and quiet. Laufey does this by focusing on falling in love.

The Spiritual Dynamics of Falling in Love

Falling in love is both the greatest catastrophe and purest ecstasy. Hence, someone overcome with romantic emotions is said to suffer from lovesickness. One wants to cry bitter tears when on the mountaintop of joy and sing joyous melodies when in the valley of sadness. A romance into which one fully surrenders oneself is vulnerable, raw, and terrifying — but it is the sacrifice necessary to most intimately glimpse the divine light in the Other. It is, in short, sublime.

Moreover, similar to the spiritual themes saturating Caspar Friedrich’s paintings, the feeling of falling in love is akin to a religious experience. It is rapturous and overtakes us without us necessarily preparing for it, such as looking over a mountainside and suddenly recognizing our own finitude and contemplating the Infinitude of the Divine. Or, in Laufey’s case, her album begins with a song (”Dreamer”) in which she promises to not open her heart again— “And no boy's gonna be so smart as to / Try and pierce my porcelain heart.” But the album ends with her experiencing a rapturous pull into the beauty of love once again:

I try to think straight but I'm falling so badly

I’m coming apart

You wrote me a note, cast a spell on my heart

And bewitched me

The rapturous power of falling in love is perhaps why many religious persons wish to shun the passion of romance, fearing that the ebb and flow of infatuation will replace God in one’s life. However, if we look to the artists of the romantic era and the philosophy of Georges Bataille, we can see why romance is religious without needing to bring charges of idolatry.

The romantic artists understood that instances of the sublime brought about a keen awareness of one’s own finitude. The overwhelming beauty cascading over oneself — as beautiful as it is terrifying — has a way of breaking one’s consciousness. However, this breaking is by no means traumatic. Instead, it is the necessary expansion of one’s awareness to perceive new depths of truth. A whole new reality is opened to oneself in such moments.

Georges Bataille recognized the link between beauty, terror, and the loss of self in his work “Erotism: Death and Sensuality.” Within this book, he develops a theory of limit experiences. To quote what I have written in my previous post, a limit experience can be created through an experience of the intense combination of the erotic (not necessarily just sexual) and that which is terrifying. This is because limit experiences entail a loss of self and a dissolution of individual boundaries. In these moments, individuals transcend their individuality and merge with a larger whole, experiencing a sense of continuity and connection with the universe. Bataille associated limit experiences with a kind of sacred or mystical state that disrupts the everyday order and opens up possibilities for profound transformation. He notes that both erotic encounters and moments of terror (especially witnessing death) bring about this loss of self into the broader world, like pouring water into the ocean. For Bataille, such limit experiences provide a means for understanding religious experiences as well — especially the mystical and rapturous experiences reported by many saints. Such moments are the loss of self into the divine.

Thus, we can see that true romance — the catastrophic joy of falling in love — bears structural resemblance to the sublime and to limit experiences, and hence, to religious experience. Romantic love involves the boundary-breaking, vulnerable expansion of self into the realm of the Other. And we find examples of this moving beyond oneself both in the love songs of the great poets and in the deepest ecstasy of the mystics, for even a casual reading of the mystics will thrust oneself into a romantic spirituality full of passion, rapture, and the sublime.

Of course, things depend to some extent on context and the individual, but I disagree with the de facto charge that one falls into a passionate romantic love merely because one is too immature to keep his or her emotions in check. The truncated immanence and secular materialism of our culture often discourage higher forms of spiritual rapture. But the vulnerable strength it takes to risk pain for the sake of love reveals something deeply true about reality that one cannot learn in the abstract. Falling in love might instead be a sign that one’s soul is alive. Moreover, from my own Christian perspective, enduring vulnerability and even pain for the sake of love is at the heart of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection—which is the ultimate statement about the character of Being Itself (God).

Conclusion

Through her music, Laufey was able to allow us to experience a real human soul once again. “Bewitched” is powerful because it is so vulnerable. It is coherent because it is emotionally contradictory. Laufey has pulled back the curtain and shown us once again what it means to be a spiritually alive human— to fear, to hurt, and to love simultaneously beyond the boundaries of self.

#filmanalysis #art #DietrichBonhoeffer #SergeiBulgakov #theology #GeorgesBataille #atmosphere #CarlJung #atmospherictheology

The films of Panos Cosmatos are known for their intense atmosphere and striking use of color, drawing viewers into a world that is at once eerie and awe-inspiring. In works such as “Mandy,” “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” and “The Viewing,” Cosmatos creates a sense of otherworldliness through his use of color, light, space, and atmosphere. The screen is transformed into a mystically cosmic spectacle, disclosing apocalyptic noumena behind the thin veil of the everyday. To elucidate these themes, this essay will draw upon atmospheric theory, Sergei Bulgakov’s theory of religious materialism, Carl Jung’s theory of color, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of revelation, and Georges Bataille’s theory of limit experience.

Atmosphere

Atmosphere refers to the general affective quality of space and material environments when interacted with by agents. There are different models and theories about the ontology of an atmosphere. One metaphor is to say that atmospheres are like spatially extended emotions. Through the intentional staging of a material environment, a space can convey or encourage certain ranges of emotional or affective responses. Set design and staging within theatre is a great example. Professional production designers are highly skilled at constructing a stage that helps convey or support the affective qualities of the scene. Furthermore, as in the case of a haunted house attraction, human agents might not even need to be directly present in order for the space to radiate powerful emotions, such as fear.

Films likewise generate an atmosphere. Though it might not be as fully immersive as others, the staging of a film is capable of creating atmospheres that suture the viewer more deeply into the emotional landscape of the film. Panos Cosmatos brilliantly accomplishes this. For Cosmatos, the atmosphere is not merely a background, but rather an active agent in itself, playing as important a role as the actor.

Religious Materialism

In addition to emotional qualities, atmosphere can encourage or convey other types of emotional affects as well, such as religious affects. Religions throughout time have professed the religious significance of physical objects, sacred spaces, and material environments for worship. The 20th-century Russian Orthodox theologian, Sergei Bulgakov, called this “religious materialism” in his essay “Relics,” and the concept played a significant role in his own theology. In the essay, Bulgakov uses the topic of relics to articulate the vitality of the material world from a religious perspective and how, from his perspective, there is no such thing as dead matter.

Sergei Bulgakov's theory of religious materialism proposes that the material world is intrinsically connected to and infused with divine energies and attributes. According to Bulgakov, creation is not separate from God but rather a manifestation of God's presence and creative activity. Bulgakov emphasized the sacredness and spiritual potential inherent in the physical world, rejecting the dualistic notion that matter is inherently sinful or separate from the divine. Instead, he argued, based on the Orthodox doctrines of the Incarnation of Christ and deification of humanity, that matter is a vehicle for divine revelation and the realization of God's purposes, of which the Incarnation of Christ and sacraments like the Holy Eucharist are prime examples. As he wrote, “The spiritual bread, the heavenly food, is also bodily bread and food; by no means does the spiritual sacrament become incorporeal — rather, it is corporeal to the highest degree, corporeal par excellence. [...] [Christ] came not to destroy the world but to save it. Therefore, in the gracious life of the church, all that is spiritual is corporeal [...].” (Bulgakov, “Relics,” page 9, Boris Jakim translation).

For Bulgakov, the materiality of the world is not dead, but rather something sacred, given that it is thoroughly infused with divine life. However, this picture contrasts sharply with our Cartesian-capitalist paradigm in which matter is a dead resource waiting for exploitation. Material environments, human spaces, and urban buildings become little more than cogs in a wider machine. However, in the films of Panos Cosmatos, the world is strikingly more mystical and cosmic than the dead matter of modernity. Cosmatos’s cinematic worlds are pulsating with animated energies and spiritual dimensions that we cannot fully comprehend. Each landscape or set is permeated with a mystical and sublime awe, as if every part of the world is just a facet in a larger sacred space.

Jung and Color

The sacredness of the atmosphere and material environments within Cosmatos’s cinematography is captured largely through the striking use of color. To understand this point further, I will turn to Carl Jung’s theory of color:

According to Jung, colors possess inherent symbolic and psychological meanings that resonate with the collective unconscious, the universal reservoir of ancestral memories and archetypes shared by all human beings. Jung believed that colors have a profound impact on our emotional and spiritual states, transcending their visual aspects. He viewed colors as carriers of archetypal messages and symbolic representations of psychic energies. For instance, red is often associated with passion, vitality, and danger, while blue is linked to spirituality, introspection, and calmness. Jung argued that these associations are not arbitrary but rather reflect deep-seated universal symbols that have emerged throughout human history.

Within the realm of religion, Jung posited that colors play a crucial role in the expression and experience of religious phenomena. He noted that religious rituals often incorporate specific colors to evoke particular psychological states and tap into the collective unconscious. For example, the color white is frequently associated with purity and divine transcendence in many religious traditions. Similarly, gold and yellow are often connected to the sacred and divine illumination. Jung also emphasized that individual psychological experiences of color can vary due to personal associations and cultural conditioning. While certain colors may have universal significance, their interpretation can be influenced by personal experiences, cultural contexts, and individual symbolism.

Even if one does not concede the idea that there are specific archetypal meanings inherent within each color, I do think it’s not far off to note that religious rituals and religious experiences often involve the use of striking colors. In nature, colors are beautiful, but they are often more muted. Rarely do we encounter, for instance, a natural landscape bathed in bright purple. And if such instances within nature do occur, such as in the Aurora Lights, then it fills viewers with a sense of otherworldly awe. On the flip side, incomprehensible lights often occur in mystical experiences, and sacred architecture regularly incorporates colored phenomena not typically found in nature.

However, in the films of Panos Cosmatos, the world is saturated with mystical and transcended light. It is as if the veil has been pulled back from our eyes, and we see the radiant, spiritual dimension of reality that permeates the world around us. Cosmatos's films are a powerful example of the transformative power of colors in our inner world. By using color to create a sense of atmosphere and evoke powerful emotions, he taps into the viewer's psyche in a way that is both profound and unsettling.

Bonhoeffer and Bataille: Revelation and Limit Experience

The interesting thing about Cosmatos’s films is that the spiritual and the divine are not always equated with the good. Of course, there are many instances of the transcendent, color-rich atmospheres that do convey beauty and goodness — especially in the first act of “Mandy” in which cosmic colors interspersed with radiant natural lighting are used to show the love between Red and Mandy. However, some forms of spiritual, otherworldly, or transcendent experience turn into absolute terror and horror. Often, this is the case when, in a Frankensteinian or Lovecraftian fashion, the human characters attempt to grasp and control the transcendent themselves. Without giving away too many spoilers, we can see this within the “bad trip” scene of “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” in which Barry takes a concoction of psychedelics and has an existential breakdown from which he cannot recover. “The Viewing” likewise features a recluse billionaire for whom the world and its inhabitants are objects to collect, but his aspirations of collecting something truly beyond our world lead to drastic consequences. Thus, within the films of Cosmatos, the spiritual world is both overwhelmingly beautiful and also terrifying, filled with phenomena and agents beyond our understanding.

In a sense, this sublimity of overwhelming beauty and terror in giving oneself to the Unknown, and hoping that it is good (while there is a threat it could lead to one’s own destruction) captures a sense of the harshness of religious experience in secular age. When people encounter something truly beyond their understanding, it can sometimes be perceived as a threatening force that leads to self-destruction because it breaks down the truncated, materialist world in which we believe ourselves to inhabit. This is perhaps similar to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about in his book “Act and Being.” For Bonhoeffer, when God reveals Godself, it breaks down our rational systems and subverts the expectations we have of reality. It’s almost like an inverted version of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraftian horror typically involves themes of the unknown, and the incomprehensible, often featuring ancient and malevolent beings that exist outside of human understanding. It relies upon the idea that human knowledge and understanding are limited, and that there are forces in the universe that are beyond human control and comprehension. When the characters encounter these incomprehensible forces, they are filled with a sense of dread and helplessness, often leading to madness, nihilism, and the futility of existence.

For Lovecraft, much of the horror comes from a revelation that humanity is little more than an ant to the cosmic, extra-dimensional monsters. However, for Bonhoeffer, this gets turned on its head. The horror is not that God is malevolent or uncaring, but rather that God is so loving, is so full of grace, is so beautiful, that we feel like minuscule dirt compared to God’s Perfection. For Bonhoeffer, this is especially the case in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, in which this Perfection and Grace become incarnate in a particular person.

Back to the films of Panos, we can see this angst and struggle captured brilliantly in his films. There is a primal and cosmic dimension to the emotions and struggles of the characters. Stepping into the atmosphere is like stepping into another world, parallel to ours, in which everything radiates with the sacred. Or, stated another way, perhaps it is like taking our secularist blinders off for a brief moment and allowing the incomprehensible spiritual dimension of reality to rapture us.

The Bonhoefferian reading of Panos’s films brings some parallels to the theory of limit experiences as developed by the French philosopher, Georges Bataille.

According to Bataille, limit experiences are transformative and ecstatic encounters that push individuals beyond the boundaries of their ordinary existence, challenging established norms and rationality. Bataille believed that limit experiences arise from activities that involve risk, transgression, and the breaking of taboos. These experiences confront individuals with the limits of their own existence and reveal the underlying instability and irrationality of human nature. Examples of limit experiences can include acts of intense sexuality, ritualistic practices, extreme physical activities, or encounters with death.

Furthermore, as developed in his book Erotism, a limit experience can also be created through an experience of the intense combination of the erotic (not necessarily just sex) and the horrific. This is because limit experiences entail a loss of self and a dissolution of individual boundaries. In these moments, individuals transcend their individuality and merge with a larger whole, experiencing a sense of continuity and connection with the universe. Bataille associated limit experiences with a kind of sacred or mystical state that disrupts the everyday order and opens up possibilities for profound transformation. He notes that both erotic encounters and moments of horror (especially witnessing death) bring about this loss of self into the broader world, like pouring water into the ocean.

Bataille argued that limit experiences are essential for individuals to confront and transcend the constraints imposed by society and rationality. By pushing individuals to their limits, these experiences enable them to access a different realm of experience that is typically suppressed in everyday life. Through this confrontation with the limit, Bataille believed that individuals could gain a deeper understanding of themselves, the world, and their place within it.

Within films like “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” “Mandy,” and “The Viewing,” characters are shown having such limit experiences — situations that break down rationality and bring about a loss of self. However, such limit experiences often lead to the character’s own destruction, rather than the reconstitution of a consciousness that embraces a newfound sense of transcendence. These limit experiences are quite different from the types of experiences described by mystics, such as St. Teresa of Avila or Julian of Norwich. Perhaps this is because the saints and mystics were more embedded within a symbolic and living religious tradition that already embraces the sacred. Their limit experiences were reconstituted into a deeper awareness of God’s love and grace. Contrarily, for the characters within the Cosmatos filmic universe, no such structuring existence. It is simply the raw, unfiltered extremity of human experience, without any reconstitution into a higher meaning or purpose. In a sense, this capture the type of underlying nihilism latent within the secular. The spiritual and mystical is all around us, but we have all but lost our categories and structures for engagement.

Conclusion and Additional Remarks

In conclusion, the films of Panos Cosmatos are a powerful example of the transformative power of color and atmosphere in cinema. By creating otherworldly atmospheres, often using bright and striking colors, Cosmatos taps into the viewer's psyche in a way that is both profound and unsettling. His films convey a sense of the sacredness and spiritual potential inherent in the physical world, echoing the ideas of Carl Jung and Sergei Bulgakov. Furthermore, the sublimity of overwhelming beauty and terror captured in Cosmatos's films reflects the harshness and struggles of encountering the divine in a secular age, resonating with the ideas of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Georges Bataille.

But of course (and to perhaps entirely subvert my own writing) most religious experiences are not that extreme. In fact, they usually are cultivated within the small liturgy of the everyday, building up over time and transforming us step by step into a new person. There is great hope in this, because it means that we don’t have to rely upon the apocalyptic to dictate our religious experiences. It can start right now.

#AndyWarhol #aesthetics #art #Icons #postmodernism #atmosphere

Intro

Andy Warhol's life was often shocking, uncanny, and bizarre. However, a fact that seems to shock people most of all is that Warhol was Catholic. And not simply nominally Catholic. He attended Mass multiple times a week, prayed frequently, and, according to the priest giving his Eulogy, is responsible for at least one conversion to Catholicism.

More specifically, Andy Warhol was a form of Byzantine or Eastern Catholic, being common in many Eastern European countries, from which the Warhola family immigrated. Eastern Catholicism is known for its blend of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox theology and worship. Eastern Catholics remain in communion with the Vatican; however, their theology and liturgical practices — especially their art — is heavily influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy. Warhol's upbringing was conditioned by regular church attendance within this setting. Thus, he spent hours immersed within the sacred atmospheres of Byzantine chapels coated with icons of Christ, angels, and saints.

A Brief Theology of Icons

Within the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox tradition, icons are not merely images, but rather windows into heaven. The presence of icons is not the exact presence of Christ or the saint per se, but rather an appropriate representation or communication of that saint's life in heaven, where they are worshiping God. By having a space filled with icons, the congregation is reminded of how Sunday Services are moments in which worshipers cross the threshold into Heaven and participate within the perpetual worship carried on by the angels and saints who have gone before us.

If one looks at Eastern icons, and then examines some of the work in Warhol's Pop art, it seems as if Warhol's art becomes a type of iconography of Mass (pardon the pun) commercial media culture, such as the fetishization of commodities (parody of sacred relics and venerated objects) and especially celebrity culture (the 'saints' of our culture). But instead of providing a glimpse into the spiritual and heavenly realm, Warhol's Pop art icons act as a window into the broader virtual sphere and hyperobject of commercial culture.

Cyberpunk Asgard

Warhol understood this virtual media landscape quite well. He (or his ghostwriter) directly addressed the virtual space of commercialism in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.

“Before media there used to be a physical limit on how much space one person could take up by themselves. People, I think, are the only things that know how to take up more space than the space they’re actually in, because with media you can sit back and still let yourself fill up space on records, in the movies, […] on the telephone and […] on television. […] If you were the star on the biggest show on television and took a walk down an average American street one night while you were on the air, and if you looked through windows and saw yourself on television in everybody’s living room, taking up some of their space, can you imagine how you would feel?” (Warhol, pages 146-147).

In today's world, the virtual cyberspace of commercial media saturates our environments even more than in Warhol's time, remaining present all around us through our smartphones, computers, televisions, etc. It's difficult to carve out spaces that haven't experienced a type of digital transubstantiation. Though it might remain invisible, it surrounds and haunts at every moment. Warhol's Pop art is a window into that landscape that seeks to be invisible.

Whereas the 'other side' of sacred icons is the spiritual and heavenly realm, full of the splendor, beauty, and majesty of God, the 'other side' of Warhol's art is a strange, cyberpunk virtual terrain, created simultaneously by both humans and machines. There is work created by real humans (actors, musicians, 'content creators,' etc.) but is also given animated power and transformed through digital technology, algorithms, cybernetics, the internet, etc. It is never merely human, and it could not be what it is without the magic of technological forces and machines. In a sense, it is a type of Asgard or Olympus populated by Freud's prosthetic gods.

In “Prosthetic Gods, Projected Monsters: Imagination and Unconscious Projection in Narratives of Technological Horror,” Filip Andjelkovic summarizes the prothetic god as follows:

“Technology is a means through which uncertainty is harnessed, a means through which 'man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning.' The telephone serves as an extension of the ear, the television as an extension of the eye. Technology is the material product of an ideal omnipotence and omniscience, an imaginary extension of identity impressed onto the world and operationalized as an actual extension of the body – the realization of the human subject as a 'prosthetic God.'” (Andjelkovic, page 21). Full article here: https://godsandmonsters-ojs-txstate.tdl.org/godsandmonsters/article/view/19

Within the Asgard of cyberpunk virtuality, we experience what Andjelkovic calls a “technologized transcendence” (Andjelkovic, 19). As he describes it, “The unseen, supernatural forces of the divine and demonic have migrated from a spiritual and immortal pneuma to a personal and mortal psyche. [...] the popular, literary imagination became the new nexus through which old narratives of transcendence were transmitted and maintained – but with a reworked relationship regarding the human subject” (Andjelkovic, 19). The virtual space of commercialism creates a seemingly infinite immanent plane, which preoccupies hours of our time and energy in an ecstatic waste of consumerism.

Concluding Thoughts

My general approach to Andy Warhol is to see him as, whether intentionally or not, the greatest performance artist of all time, who holds up a mirror to society as it transforms into a postmodern consumerist cyberpunk terrain. He is Duchamp taken to his logical extreme. Or, in this case, he is an iconographer, showing us what we worship. Some people hate Warhol's art, but what I think what they truly hate is the reflection of society depicted by Warhol. Though we cannot separate ourselves from the cyberpunk postmodern world of techno-fueled consumerism, we can find ways of mitigating its effects and rediscover a sense of true humanity in the process. If anything, Warhol's art, and the inverted religion of Pop art, challenges us to rediscover a more authentic notion of the sacred, propel toward seeking out truly sacred spaces, and create new imaginations fueled more by prayer than by Netflix.

#animism #aesthetics #CasparDavidFriedrich #Kant #theology #art #romanticism

Yesterday, I watched a video by the Danish scholar Rune Rasmussen, an independent scholar who makes online teaching material (and other things) under the Nordic Animist moniker. His work is fascinating and thought-provoking, and I recommend looking into his work if you're interested in topics like environmentalism, land-connectedness, animism, traditional Nordic wisdom, or similar topics. And he does it all while critiquing white supremacy, so he's a much-needed voice within the Norse spheres of online intelligentsia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyV4g490OU

In the above video, Rune discusses how the era of Romanticism (roughly speaking, the 1800s) was permeated with a nostalgia for the beauty of the natural world and pre-Christian history, such as the Viking age and its relics. However, these Romanticists did not allow their nostalgia to move them into a deeper sense of connection to the beauty of the natural world. Instead, they viewed nature with an almost cold, disconnected gaze, looking at a forest or mountain no different than one would look at a painting in a museum. Rasmussen uses Caspar David Friedrich's famous painting “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog” as a prime example.

Rasmussen claims that in contrast to the disconnected, disinterested gaze of Romanticism, we need to instead cultivate practices and ways of being that deeply connect us back to the natural world, rather than viewing ourselves as separate from it. Of course, one of the problems with doing that is how so much of our modern world is, through its architecture and geography, anthropocentric and designed to keep us separated from nature.

It's a great video, and I encourage you to check it out. One reason why I thought it was so intriguing is because the Romantic era is fascinating to me. 19-20th-century theology, philosophy, and art are kind of like my intellectual comfort food (though I don't claim to be an expert). Thus, I wanted to jump on the opportunity to make some additional comments about what Rasmussen said because I think it's a very important topic.

Regarding the context of Romanticist art, I think it's important to acknowledge the influence of Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetics. To give a very rough summary, Kant based his theory of aesthetics on the idea that beauty is a subjective experience, arising from a harmony between our cognitive and sensory faculties. According to Kant, our perception of beauty depends on our ability to recognize order and harmony in the natural world and in artistic creations. Kant argues that beauty is not a property of objects themselves, but rather a product of our own cognitive faculties, and therefore cannot be objectively measured.

Now here's where things get interesting. One of the central components of Kant's aesthetics is the notion of disinterestedness. According to Kant, in order to have an aesthetic experience of something, we must approach it with a disinterested attitude. This means that we must focus on the object's form, rather than its function or practical use. We must also approach the object without any personal biases, desires, or interests that might interfere with our ability to appreciate it for its own sake. Kant argues that the disinterested attitude is necessary for aesthetic judgment because it allows us to appreciate the object's beauty in a pure and unadulterated way.

Sound familiar? That's basically what Rasmussen was critiquing in the video about Romanticism. My understanding is that such a theme within some of Romanticism is a result of Kant's influence, particularly his notion of disinterestedness. It's no wonder then that almost every copy of Kant's “Critique of Pure Judgment” actually has Friedrich's “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog” on the cover!

So how do we move forward? Shockingly, I think that Romanticism — and Caspar David Friedrich in particular — might point us in the right direction. Like Virgil in Dante's Inferno, they cannot take us the full way to Paradise, but I do think they offer some form of guidance toward our goal, especially in the case of those who would normally put up their guard against anything animist, which is quite prevalent in the Christian circles I often interact with.

I won't contest Rune's critique of Friedrich's “Wanderer” painting in the video. However, if one engages with the rest of Friedrich's paintings, I think there's a case to be made that Friedrich is something of a quasi-animist within the Protestant Christian tradition of that era. In fact, many of his paintings push against Kant's theory of aesthetics.

To lay the groundwork, it's useful to point out that around the time of Friedrich, there were more intellectual influences and movements than simply Kantianism. That era also saw the rise of the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher as well as the post-Hegelians. Schleiermachian theology seems to be an influence on Caspar Friedrich's paintings. Schleiermacher believed that religious experience is primarily characterized by a feeling of absolute dependence — the moment of recognizing one's own finitude in contrast to the Infinite beauty and majesty of God. It's something of a theological notion of the sublime — an experience so awe-inspiring, beautiful, and magnificent that it becomes terrifying, such as standing on the edge of a cliff (again, back to Caspar Friedrich's painting). However, for Schleiermacher and for Caspar Friedrich, the sublime is something that ought to inspire a sense of worship, rather than disinterestedness. The feeling of finitude when faced with a mountain or forest ought to make us think about how much greater God's Infinite majesty must be, and thus be compelled with a sense of worship and recognition that we must place our total dependence on the One Above All.

Now, if the story stopped there, we could still be left with the problem of disinterestedness. After all, we might still be only looking at nature rather than connecting to it. However, I think it's also important to mention the post-Hegelians and Friedrich's own way of relating to nature.

To give a very rough summary, many of the post-Hegelians, talked about God using many phrases, such as “the Absolute,” which were influenced by, you guessed it, Hegel's philosophy. One of the perspectives used to describe God was God as the animating principle of all reality. Thus, in contrast to a Cartesian dead, machinic matter, the world is radiating with life because it is animated by its Creator. Nature, creation, and the material of the world are given a supramundane sacredness through the life-giving, animating power of God, who is the Absolute Ground of all being.

Such a perspective fits the Romanticist's love of nature. But it seems to me that the implication of this perspective is that, to be truly religious, one must be connected to nature. To love the Creator, one must love the Creation. I actually believe that, in many of Friedrich's paintings, we see this post-Hegelian, Schleiermachian Christian quasi-animism in operation.

For example, Friedrich painted an image of a wooden crucifix standing in the middle of some evergreen trees in the depths of winter. In the background, there is a large cathedral clouded by fog. If one looks closely, we can see footsteps and hiking sticks in the snow leading up to the crucifix. According to my understanding, Friedrich meant this as a statement about how true religious devotion requires one to venture out into nature, even in its harsh conditions. It is by connecting to Creation that one will encounter Christ. In fact, for this painting, enduring the harsher aspects of nature, such as the frigid winter, draws us into a deeper understanding of the love of God displayed in Christ's passion. The humble crucifix contrasts with the giant cathedral in the background obscured by fog which, though beautiful in its own way, can lead to a disconnection from nature if one were to reside only in the cathedral. Instead, it is a connection to Creation that prompts the endurance of faith, which is symbolized in the evergreen trees, which are a common symbol in Friedrich's paintings for the endurance of faith because evergreen trees remain green regardless of the season.

Another example in Friedrich's work depicts two men joyously gazing at the moon during a night walk in a forest. I'm not sure to what extent Friedrich was concretely influenced by St. Francis, but it seems to me that Friedrich has captured a Franciscan attitude toward Christianity. As the Canticle of St. Francis says, “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, / In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.”

I say that Friedrich was a quasi-animist not only because he thought nature was important for religious experience, but also because he believed that nature is animated by the presence of God, and learning how to “read” creation around us will direct us into a deeper worship and love of God. I say 'quasi'-animist because I don't know what Friedrich would think about the flows of non-human subjectivity or consciousness that might inhabit the natural world. However, he certainly believed that God's divine subjectivity and personhood flow through nature. From a Christian perspective, one might say that God is the ontological foundation of the flows of non-human subjectivity attested to by animism, similarly to how God is the ontological foundation of human subjectivity and being.

Out of this belief that God operates through God's Creation, Friedrich developed an uncanny and quite impressive ability to “read” natural landscapes theologically and religiously. He would spend hours hiking through forests and mountains and would see everything around him as permeated with religious symbolism. The Kimbell Art Museum's description of “Mountain Peak with Drifting Clouds” gives a very useful example:

“While the rendition of the drifting clouds suggests a naturalist’s awareness of meteorology, Friedrich almost certainly saw in them a symbolic meaning; veiling the distance and casting shadows across the landscape, they are an image of the shifting, imperfect conditions that nature provides for the illumination of the spirit. In the foreground a toppled tree is portrayed in matter-of-fact detail. It may symbolize mortality as a barrier to spiritual progress: according to some interpretations of Scripture, nature only became subject to death when the Fall of humankind corrupted the originally blissful landscape of Eden. Even the leafless evergreens in the middle distance (trees often understood as premonitions of eternity, given their relative immunity to seasonal change) bear witness to death. Finally, far off in the distance, as if in a separate realm all but inaccessible to human striving, Friedrich includes a fortresslike mountain peak––a revelation, perhaps, of the possibility of salvation.” https://kimbellart.org/collection/ap-198408

It seems that, for Caspar Friedrich, if one is truly connected and embedded within nature — not just disinterestedly, but truly willing to pilgrimage through the snow — then one will be directed to worship. As I interpret Friedrich, his landscape paintings become quasi-iconographic, a window through which heaven breaks into our world. Friedrich is trying to show us how heaven is breaking through into the Creation that exists all around us, but we need to go out into nature in order to experience it. And if the landscape paintings are iconographic, then perhaps it teaches that one of the avenues back to land-connectedness is through liturgy and ritual. Within the Christian tradition, there is actually a fascinating illustration of this in the Ethiopian Orthodox forest churches. Their worship practices and worship spaces cannot be separated from the forest around them.

Of course, this might not be the most satisfactory answer for those working within a pagan animist tradition. Nonetheless, I think it's a very important question for Christians to consider how our liturgical practices and sacred spaces might move us back toward connecting with the land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fGe-CPWZlE

A Theological Reflection on “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965)

#analysis #art #film #theology #advent #consumerism

I’ve always loved the Charlie Brown Christmas special for how beautiful it is. It has a pacing that doesn't rush but is simply allowed to linger— a pacing that breaks through the hyperspeed of our accelerated society. The form of the pacing and the themes of finding Advent in the midst of chaotic commercialism perfectly coalesce, creating a masterpiece of animation that stands the test of time. For most of my life, I simply enjoyed the show's artistry, but in recent years, I've come to appreciate the beauty of its themes and message.

Through the simplified art and gorgeous music, the episode captures a sacredness of the everyday: catching snowflakes on one's tongue, ice skating, throwing snowballs at a can — these moments are lifted in a peaceful glimpse of the sacred. In a way, it harkens the same energy as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: slow pacing with an underlying spirit of wonder and gratitude for life. An appreciation of the sacred everyday stands in contrast to the foreboding consumerism that lingers in the background and haunts Charlie Brown. Despite the sacred moments happening around him, Charlie Brown seems to be absent from such experiences. Instead, he dejectedly saunters through his town, bearing the existential weight of capitalist-driven alienation, asking himself: “What is the true meaning of Christmas?”

He knows the answer does not lie in commercialism, which is portrayed through his little sister's letter to Santa: “Just send cash. How about 10s and 20s?” Lucy comes a tad bit closer to the meaning of Christmas, such as when she invites Charlie Brown to participate in the Christmas pageant. However, as she readily admits, her real ambitions are capitalist accumulation (“Santa never brings me what I really want... real estate”) and her desire to be the “Christmas Queen” in a pageant permeated with commercial trappings. Charlie Brown rejects both of these modalities.

Though Charlie Brown is well aware of the Advent Story from scripture, he has yet to connect with the theological meaning behind the story—i.e., with the revelation of God in Christ. Like much of our secular age, for Charlie Brown, religious acts are severed from their higher, sacred meaning or perhaps overshadowed by commercialism's chaos. It is not until he goes on his quest to find a Christmas tree that he encounters the shocking reality of the sacred.

What I love about this scene is how vastness and magnitude of sacred sublimity is found within a humble tree. It's like the scripture passage from Isaiah 53:2, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” What is beautiful about the tree is not its opulence, but how real it is. Within a landscape of artificial aluminum trees, Charlie stumbles upon a remnant of a more honest Creation, as if he is Moses encountering the burning bush. Charlie Brown has yet to find the words to express his experience, but he returns to the pageant and Advent Story with what he discovered, with an experiential connection to the deeper meaning of Advent.

I find it particularly beautiful how the creators portray Charlie Brown’s love for that little tree. Not only is the tree an encounter with the sacredness of an authentic Advent, but the tree is also a projection of Charlie Brown himself, which is why he is so drawn to it. Though it’s not perfect, that tree is still better than the fake aluminum trees. It’s better because it’s real and authentic, rather than the contrived and manufactured trees in the dazzling advertisements of consumerism.

When Charlie Brown returns to the pageant, we get a heartbreaking scene as people laugh at his tree (the way they laugh at him personally). The tree doesn’t conform to the image that was marketed to them. Just like Charlie Brown is marginalized and humiliated, so is this little tree. As Isaiah 53 goes on to say, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.”

In this context, Linus reading from the Gospel of Luke takes on a whole new meaning. I've heard some Christians interpret this moment as merely a declaration that “Jesus is the reason for the season” rather than Santa Claus or consumerism. Of course, as a Christian, I believe Christmas is about God rather than commodities, and I don't want to dissuade people from focusing on Christ. But too often, this sort of interpretation falls into the “war on Christmas” ideological ploys rather than a serious engagement with capitalism. Furthermore, I think the “Jesus is the reason for the season” interpretation misses the broader meaning of the scripture within the context of the narrative.

In Luke, angels announce the birth of Christ to a group of poor shepherds who are quite literally on the outskirts of town and on the outskirts of society. The author of Luke included this story in keeping with his general theme that Christ came to seek and save the lost — those who are poor, oppressed, and on the margins of society. The shocking and magnificent eruption of divine revelation as the heavenly host bring the message of the messiah is presented, not to a king, but to humble shepherds. Just like the shepherds, Charlie Brown is on the outside of society—consistently marginalized and humiliated by his peers. After hearing the Gospel reading, Charlie Brown recognizes that God's love for the outsiders and marginalized applies to him as well.

In a newfound sense of personal worth, Charlie Brown is able to accept himself and accept the little tree. He is able to believe that his tree (and he himself!) is beautiful, despite what others might think. The Gospel proclamation helps make sense of Charlie's experience of finding the sacred within such a meek tree. After witnessing both the Gospel presentation and Charlie Brown’s reception, his friends repent and realize how wrong they were to bully and ridicule him. They even recognize the beauty of Charlie Brown’s tree (and Charlie himself): “I never did think it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” Charlie Brown’s tree was always beautiful, and the support of his friends help make it even more so. The episode ends with a rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” a song that encapsulates the Gospel reading. God's Kingship is found in a humble baby, who reconciles the lost to God — a reconciliation experienced by Charlie Brown and his peers.