Life Artistry

For several decades the Sallman painting of Christ was popular with American Christians.  It was painted by a Christian of undoubted faith.  Who was depicted?  Here is a handsome Caucasian man, with a well-manicured beard, and flowing hair, also well combed.  There is no jewelry, the robe is dimpled, but plain, clean and appropriate for grooming, and the lighting seems to be from electricity.  I enjoyed the rendition in its western handsomeness, but wonder if it is really art at its most realistic to life?  Was this a facsimile?  Does this characterize Jesus?  Was Jesus groomed for the painting?  Is the depiction more distant than the ones that offer a darker skin?  Was this the matured cherubic baby we see in paintings of the first Christmas scenes?  I keep wondering if this aids our grasp of Jesus and the redemptive Gospel that he left to be preached in the world.  Or, does some art digress to the artist’s faith?  Following the family accent planned by my children and their mates for my 90^th birthday, one of my nieces who lived with my family for more than a year when she was a child, gave me her rendition of Christ on the cross.  The background, not definitive, belongs to her meaning.  The details are not lost, but they are not accented relative to the cross and Jesus.  The view in the painting is that of a person standing on a promontory just away from the cross with the crucified Jesus and the cross at an angle to the left as the viewer sees it – to the right for Jesus.  The impression is that the figure on the cross has been through suffering to this point and continues to suffer.  The hair appears matted, the crown of thorns not well knitted, and all this on purpose.  In short, her rendition is more realistic than Sallman’s.  Perception of reality may be reason for the decline in Sallman’s rendition.  If beards were trimmed many Caucasians might model for Sallman’s painting.

Some art that is supposed to signify Jesus is the development of the perception that Christ indwells those he has redeemed.  In this, a person of any human variance is made to look like Jesus.  My concern relates to whether or not Christ may be seen in me in the art of living. This concept is very important to the message of the Apostles.  We may tend to make Jesus something of a good citizen in the modern idiom.  Few of the beards I see commonly from day to day, in an age when one can easily trim the beard to an artistic perfection, are as attractive as Sallman’s Jesus. We are going through a period in history when grunginess is not only acceptable, but when excellent grooming is taken as old-fashioned, perhaps out-of-order.  Americans are currently offending much of the world’s culture by a casualness that seems to have lost the sense of values in guidance.  One of the most common complaints of native people to American tourists in their country is the disregard they feel tourists have toward their cultural context.  The appearance of women in shorts and halters in or at their holy places (cathedrals, mosques), or honored social contexts (special events, and high valued events) reduces their respect for violators and their cultures.

Americans seem to other cultures to be somewhat at odds with themselves not representing a general attitude or system others want to follow.  Except for freedom, education and wealth they are not sure Americans have anything else they want.  The statistics in various vital areas of life in America, like education and health, reveal a downward tendency that in recent years has become a bit dramatic in the decline.  Without improved sophistication in American life, including that of Christians, there will likely be decline in American world leadership.  The presidential campaign for office in 2016 included gross language, and accusations not heard in previous public debate.  The Christian concern relates to the movement of even devout persons losing the context and value judgments in all that identifies a culture to accomplish worthwhile projects of world need.  Is art a rendition of a can of soup?.  Art must be useful to history in telling a story about how variant cultures hold mental patterns for life, buildings, animals, and the details that inform us about the human condition in a moment or a generation.  Current culture suggests shifting from real life to industrial age and wealth.  It tells the story of earthbound humanism.